I spent a great deal of my time working on search engine optimization (SEO) for my various websites and blogs.  Basically, an Internet business has only two choices when it comes to improving SEO.  One is for your business to handle optimization on your own; the other of those is to outsource the necessary research to companies who specialize in those services.  Such consulting companies cause me some concern for serveral reasons.  Many of the consultants are not well informed about legitimate research about how the search engine algorithms determine rankings.  Some of them seem to prefer to respond to the latest rumor rather than relying upon solid empirical data; perhaps they just lack the necessary analytical skills.  Some of them are nothing more than linking farms that disguise themselves as SEO consultants.  These ill-purchased links occasionally allow your site to show short term gains, but those advances disappear about the time your check to the consultants clears the bank.  The last of my reservations about these companies, at least the last that I will mention in this article, is that they tend to be overpriced for the limited value that a business typically receives.

You should already know what my recommended solution is from reading between the lines of my first paragraph:  Take the time to educate your company team unless you want to hire the few very expensive geniuses in the field, such as Leslie Rhode, Brad Fallon or Dan Thies–if you can get them to work for you at any price.

If you’re going to follow my informed recommendation, you need some help in the form of basic search engine optimization education and good, well engineered software to help you gather and analyze the immense amount of data required to indicate potential areas of improvement and to track the results of the strategies that you implement.  I have a comparison of the most important SEO solutions that is available at one of my sites.

I have long been a long term supporter of SEO Elite (see sales page).  This Callen designed program has been a leader in SEO software for years.  I generally recommend it without any reservations.  I recently learned that they are getting ready to release a new version, SEO Elite 2.0, so I recommend it now only on the basis of two conditions: 1) That you can get assurance that you will be able to get a special upgrade price for the new version when it is released in the future, or 2) that you decide to buy the same company’s highly recommended Keyword Elite, because they extend a substantial discount for buying both simultaneously (it comes as an upsell).  The combined price is a steal!

The other top level SEO software is Leslie Rohde’s Optilink (you’ll land on the sales page).  Rohde is the genius who makes all the rest of us seem like nothing more than silly pretenders to the SEO throne.  Rohde taught me much of what I know about search engine optimization.  Pardon the intrusion of my ego, but I know a heck of a lot about the subject.

If your business can afford the expense, I urge you to buy both software options–and use them both (as well as the amazing Keyword Elite).  However, if you are new to the online business world and you are going to begin your optimization efforts using just one, for the time being I am going to deviate from my usual recommendation and endorse Optilink.

Both SEO Elite and Optilink are comparably priced at just under $200 each, which is a bargain.  If your cash flow problem is temporarily significant, Rohde’s company offers a much less sophisticated program called Optispider that is only around half the price of the better Optilink.  If you really must scale back to that level, you might also consider the similarly priced ($100) Traffic Travis, by Mark Ling.  I describe each of those alternatives in my lengthy review (see the link in the first paragraph).

I use both SEO Elite and Optilink regularly.  They are tremendous time savers in both gathering the data and in helping make sense of it all.

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