An honest review of a great product (in my opinion!)
June 22, 2014
An honest review of a great product (in my opinion!)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with RavenTools
It's used by the SEM department for research and report creation. It's very useful and is one of the best tools I've seen to date for multiple SEM purposes. RavenTools incorporates task management, keyword research, keyword monitoring, report creation, and it has plugins for Google Analytics. All this for a very reasonable price, which is the major selling point. It's quick and responsive which is also very important.
Pros
- Keyword research - all SEO's know how important this is. RavenTools provides a solid platform for in depth keyword research.
- Backlink profile monitoring - The fact that it even has tools for this in addition to everything else is fantastic. Not only does it find up to I think 50,000 backlinks in the basic package, it does it relatively quickly and has options to export the data etc.
- Plugins - It has plugins for analytics and social media which is huge. And they WORK! Other services I've tried had these options but they didn't work well at all, to the point they were useless *conductor searchlight* *cough*
- Customer Service - At one point I knew names of customer service folks. They're friendly and very helpful. They also hold live webinars for new users that are actually very insightful and the ladies who ran them didn't put me to sleep. Good on them.
Cons
- From what I saw, the reporting could be more customizable. It was pretty darn good, but if we're talking improvements, that's one area I noticed things could be better.
- The UI was great, but it could use some tightening up. This is just if I'm being picky. It's fine as is but moving forward it'd be cool to see it evolve.
- It includes many tools all in one subscription. This allowed us to do away with three other tools we were paying for...for a fantastic price. You really can't beat that and that's why I am so excited about it.
- The detailed information it gives helps you do a better job with SEO and the spending that goes into it. Period. For example, the better keyword research you have, the better you can adjust your spending habits when it comes to PPC budgets. The better backlink information you have, the more you can see where your SEO ranks might be getting hurt so that you can identify true problem points and don't end up overspending time and money in other areas, etc. It's just a solid SEO tool.
Conductor Searchlight - Heinous. The tool doesn't function well, not as responsive as RavenTools and other SEO suites I've used and it's far too expensive. Most people probably buy into it because they are fooled by the price thinking that they will get a tool that's worth that much.
Advanced Web Ranking - Very good tool, but I prefer a web app rather than a downloaded product. Just personal preference.
LongTail Pro - Don't waste your money. Awful keyword research tool. Costs more than other full SEO suites (like RavenTools) and has only one function (that it doesn't even do well). Use Google's keyword planner for free over this thing!
Advanced Web Ranking - Very good tool, but I prefer a web app rather than a downloaded product. Just personal preference.
LongTail Pro - Don't waste your money. Awful keyword research tool. Costs more than other full SEO suites (like RavenTools) and has only one function (that it doesn't even do well). Use Google's keyword planner for free over this thing!
Using RavenTools
4 - SEO, social media, marketing
4 - Anyone with working knowledge of SEO and/or social media.
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