Enterprise SEO Tools 2014: A Buyer’s Guide.

If you are considering licensing an SEO software tool, this report will help you decide whether or not you need to. The report has been updated since its last publication in May 2013 to include the latest industry statistics, developing market trends, and new vendor profiles and product updates.

The Benefits of Using SEO Software Platforms

With hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of pages, sites, and keywords to manage and optimize, enterprise SEO has become increasingly complicated and time-consuming. Using an enterprise SEO software platform can increase efficiency and productivity while reducing the time and errors involved in managing organic search campaigns. More specifically, automating SEO through a toolset or platform can provide the following benefits:

• Many tools, one interface. Enterprise SEO tools perform many tasks in one system. Integration of tasks, reporting, and user permissions offers substantial benefits to enterprise-level SEO operations compared to using single-function point solutions.
• More efficient management of global operations. Enterprise SEO tools have built-in diagnostics that can be invaluable on a global scale to identify site-wide issues across languages, countries or regions. These tools uncover macro and micro issues with pages, templates, and infrastructure.
• The ability to stay up-to-date with the search engines. SEO software vendors have dedicated teams and engineers to follow algorithm changes and their impact on ranking factors.
• Automated reporting to provide data in near real time. Many brands end up trying to put a lot of data in spreadsheets and manually update them. But that doesn’t provide a complete view of the data. Many enterprise SEO tools offer highly customized reporting capabilities that are widget- and wizard-driven to make reporting easy and fast.

Understanding your current marketing processes, knowing how to measure success, and being able to identify where you are looking for improvements, are all critical pieces of the SEO tool decision-making process.

Enterprise SEO Platform Capabilities

SEO software comes in many shapes and sizes, from rank-checking tools and keyword research toolsets to full-service solutions that manage keywords, links, competitive intelligence, international rankings, social signal integration, and workflow rights and roles. The majority of the SEO solutions profiled in this report offer the following core capabilities:

• Keyword research and rankings;
• Link (also called backlink) analysis and acquisition;
• Workflow and task management;
• Competitive intelligence; and
• International search tracking.

Enterprise-level solutions may also provide more extensive link and site analytics that include predictive scoring systems to identify the potential opportunities to improve brand websites or link authority. Vendors also begin to differentiate by offering more frequent data updates, or additional modules, such as local or mobile SEO, sometimes requiring additional investment.
Other more advanced capabilities may include, but are not limited to:

• ROI forecasting and/or predictive analytics;
• Key performance indicator (KPI) and management dashboards;
• Social signal publishing and/or tracking;
• Universal and/or blended search rankings;
• API for third-party data integration; and
• Scalability to manage thousands or millions of pages and keywords.

Does Your Company Need an Enterprise SEO Platform?

Deciding whether or not your company needs an enterprise-level SEO platform calls for the same evaluative steps involved in any software adoption, including a comprehensive self-assessment of your organization’s business needs, staff capabilities, management support, and financial resources. Use the following questions as a guideline to determine the answers.

1. Do we have the right human resources in place?
2. Do we have C-level buy-in?
3. Do we have the right technical resources?
4. Who will own enterprise SEO?
5. Can we invest in staff training?
6. Do we have realistic expectations?

Six Questions to Ask Potential SEO Platform Vendors

Ready to talk to SEO tools vendors? Here are six questions you should ask:

1. How is your search volume calculated?
2. Can this system track millions of searches, visits, site pages, etc?
3. Do you support international search?
4. How robust and flexible are your reporting options?
5. What other meta-information does your system collect that may be made available to me via API?
6. Is there a workflow built in that allows me to coordinate the work of my marketing, content, web development, social media and PR teams across the organization?
7. What new features are you considering?