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 of those is to handle your optimization efforts in-house, while the other is to hire a consulting firm to assist you in the project.  I have three primary concerns about such companies.  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 the simply disguise themselves as experts, and then go out and purchase links from link farms.  Such links can sometimes have very short term success, but eventually the linking strategies are made useless by sophisticated search engine algorithms that can uncover such schemes and cause your site to drop back farther in the search results than it was before you hired the self-proclaimed masters.  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 will need to take the time to educate your in-house staff on the fundamentals of search engines and optimization for them, and you must also be willing to spend some money for well designed software to assist in the gathering and analysis of the immense amount of data that will be required.  I have a comparison of the important SEO software on one of my websites.

I am an avid enthusiast of SEO Elite (see sales page).  This Callen designed program has been a leader in SEO software for years.  Until now, I have always endorsed 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).  I bought both at the same time and, together, they are still among the best investments I have ever made!

The other top level SEO software is Leslie Rohde’s Optilink (you’ll land on the sales page).  Leslie Rohde is the patron saint of optimization, a genuine genius.  Much of what I have learned about search engine optimization I learned from Rohde.  Pardon the lack of modesty…I know an immense amount about SEO.

If your business can afford the expense, I urge you to buy both software options–and use them both (along with 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.  Only if you are really pinched for cash, Rohde’s company also offers a less sophisticated aid, Optispider, that is only half as costly as the robust Optilink.  Furthermore, if you are shopping in the bargain basement, another software tool you could consider is Mark Ling’s Traffic Travis in the same price range as Optispider, that is about $100.  If you follow the link in the first paragraph of this article, you can get to my comparison of all of these alternatives, and there are direct links there to each of the software products.

I use both SEO Elite and Optilink regularly.  They allow me to save hours upon hours of gather the data, and they make valuable contributions in assisting me in making sense of all the data they collect for me.