Advanced Link Manager*
Author:Caphyon Ltd
Version:7.5 for Mac
Site:http://www.advancedlinkmanager.com
Price:$99 to $599 (see pricing)
Demo available:Yes,30 days
You’ve done all the work to get your site into the top of search engine results. You’ve got a solid PPC campaign in place. You’ve got customers,subscribers,a blog,newsletters,and FaceBook fans.
Now what?
Start building links. Linkbuilding is a lot of work. The research is easy (and fun.) Just look for blogs,directories,forums,and websites related to your site. Once you find out how many potential link partners are out there,it’s easy to get distracted and keep looking for more.
Don’t.
I started with a spreadsheet. That gets old. Fortunately,there are an increasing number of link building applications out there. After about 1,000 rows and an ever-increasing number of columns,I launch Advanced Link Manager.
What does Advanced Link Manager track? The boring stuff:
- Number of current backlinks
- Anchor text of those links
- Kind of site
- Site value (for keywords,for PageRank and more)
- Partners’links
This software is way more than just a link tracking spreadsheet.
- Scheduled Updates
- Reciprocal Linking
- Status Management
- Referral Import
- Automated backups (no more multi-tabbed,multi version spreadsheets)
Competitor Research
- Who do they love,linkwise?
- Who loves them?
- How do I capture these links?
Link Evaluation
This feature alone could replace a wide variety of tools,none of which gather this information easily.
Just add your site URL,pick from a huge selection of search engines and hit “go.”Now add that list of links you’ve been saving in a spreadsheet.
Now rank your results. If you do it by hand,you’ll never finish.
After a few moments,you are looking at a vast amount of link popularity data.
- PageRank
- Anchor text
- Domain information
- Link status
- Outbound links
- Link type
Now that you’ve got all that data,run reports and start weeding through the results and create a plan.
These are the features I believe are bonus,extra and worth the price alone:
- Keyword Research Tool
- Scheduled tasks. Auto check your rankings (have you been paying for a developer’s API? Are you limited to 1,000 a day,or once a week,like SEOmoz?
- Google/Yahoo API (not sure about Bing))
- Competitor research,review and tracking
- Link evolution charts
- Reciprocal Linking
- Integrated address book and email program (not just a link,but email directly from the file you’re tracking). Find a great link,send it to the right follow-up person and move on!
- Site evaluation (ever tried pulling PageRank for more than one site at a time? Major PITA!)
- Google Maps Webpages Importer:Analyze the web pages displayed in Google Maps for a specific local business result. I love doing SEO for local business. This should be a killer feature.
What I really love:
The data are so refined,the drilldowns are dizzying! Imagine the reports you’ll be creating!
Normally you pull up your SERPS for the day and seeing how it compares to yesterday,the day before,last week. One client,one keyword at a time. Plus I can journal my activities (so can subcontractors if you use the Enterprise edition.)
Link Text: What are people using when they link to you? Is it product-specific? Should you ask for a link directly to the (long tail) URL? Looking at your site through the eyes of another can be a goldmine for brainstorming keywords and additional PR ideas.
Scheduling:Remember when you had to remind yourself to check and snapshot your SERPS? Or download the reports from a pay service that doesn’t keep them for you? You can also schedule reports and backups.
Reports:
How well are your actions paying off? Charts help you brag about your progress.
How well are your link partners keeping up? How are your affiliates performing? Should they be rewarded or do they need a little motivation?
- Competitor links
- Dead links
- Tasks
- Progress
- New sites
- New links
- Dead links
Do you struggle to find the right format so clients understand what they’re reading? You can create then send via ftp or email (hey,why not send it directly to Basecamp?)
Site Crawls:Why switch between SEs,downloading and re-formatting your site performance data? If this software can help me slice and dice my errors and suggested fixes,I will be a fan for life.
Tasks:Did I mention the on-deck email program? No more copy and paste,no more scribbled notes about contacts and dates. Don’t duplicate your efforts and annoy your prospects with repeated,formulaic requests for links! Group them into sub-campaigns like referrals,customers,newsletter recipients,dealers,directories and you’ve saved weeks worth of time.
Tracking
- New prospects
- New customers
- New users (got a subcontractor? If you’re using the Enterprise edition,you can mount it on a server and give them access)
Building Expert Insights
How well are your backlink referrers performing? Are they growing? Did they change their site structure?
How is that competition doing?
Has anyone reviewed a product of yours? Did you tell them about it?
What about those other referrals you’ve been watching in Google and Bing Webmaster dashboards? Newsletters,sign-ups,customers,reviewers:are they adding value or do they need to be contacted? How? What can you offer them?
Once you’ve become comfortable with the program,you and your clients can move on and ask,“What do we conquer now?”A good link manager can answer that.
Advanced Link Manager has a variety of license options for both Windows and Mac. Download their 30-day trial. How many hours of boring linkbuilding drudgery will you offload? How fast will that pay for the software? How many clients will benefit from your insights rather than your ability to keep lists?
Want to know the really scary part? For the $99 (that’s the cheapest version),there are so many hidden tools which don’t directly related to linkbuilding,it’s a secret weapon I may consider as a replacement for quite a few of my other services.
* Caphyon offers a free version of Advanced Link Manager in return for a review (and a link to their site…Crazy,I know!). I wouldn’t have spent this long on a review if I didn’t think it was an amazing product. At my hourly rate,I’ve already paid for it.:0)
