SEO Packages Rated?

[Phoenix164]

There are quite a few seo software programs out there proclaiming to work, i wonder if anyone has any experience with any paid programs, good or bad, so we can choose one that will work.

[Mike Hughes]

Ok. I see no one else has replied so I'll pitch in with views. I think SEO software is a waste of money for most people.

These software suites are mainly tools to help you manage and organise your seo efforts. Unless you have a lot of sites to optimise they're not really going to help.

The essentials of SEO have pretty much remained the same over the years:

- Find what keywords are important
- Include the keywords in the meta tags and content of your pages
- Get links from relevant websites

If you don't know what you're doing then SEO software isn't going to help. If you do know what you're doing then you're unlikely to need SEO software as it isn't really that complicated.

- There are plenty of keyword tools on the internet. Google's is free.
- Optimising your website doesn't need any SEO software.
- I believe a personal approach to finding good links works much better than trying to follow an automated, computerised approach.

In reality, the people most likely to benefit from SEO software are SEO professionals who have to manage lots of website campaigns, aren't able to make a personal approach to other webmasters, and need the reporting tools to show results to their clients. It just doesn't make much sense for most of us.

Mike

[Steve G Griggs]

SEO and Keywords metatag

Re keywords in metatags.
I wouldn't bother with the actual keywords metatag, just the meta description, page title, and page contents.
As far as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc are concerned they do not read the keywords metatag anymore.
It's also worth looking at getting keywords into your html page names, and image file names for SEO.
This is worth a read : http://www.netmagazine.com/features/top-10-seo-myths section 4.

[Mike Hughes]

I fully agree. Though putting keywords in the keywords meta tag isn't going to do any harm so I wouldn't make a big thing of it.

I no longer advise people on seo specifics. The basics are all most people need to get their site ranking well and there's so much info on the net these days that anyone willing to spend some time on it can soon find all the info they need.

Mike

[Steve G Griggs]

Yes I agree, it's sometimes just finding the time to keep up with what's going on, especially the rate at which Google change their search algorithms now.
Yes no need to worry one way or the other with with the keywords metatag does no harm, but no need to worry too much about it.
I try to put more effort into good copy, with keywords and "call to action" etc.