SEO Software I Actually Use – My Honest Opinion of Market Samurai

As a SEO/web developer, I need to do various tasks related to the following:

  • Keyword research
  • Site comparison
  • Rank tracking

Only recently have I gotten a handle on the tasks (and I’ve been trying to find a solution for weeks). Originally, I was using Brad Callen’s SEO Elite software. It was “o.k.”. I used it for rank tracking. But I was never happy with the software – at least, not 100% happy. I mean, it did what it was supposed to do, but the problem is that the program is a bit “clunky” and just plain ugly for one thing – and it’s slow. To do a backlink analysis takes a looong time, especially if you check off a few of the factors (like PageRank and domain age). If I have to measure 10 competitors’ sites it takes all day. Not cool.

So then I started programming my own. I made a dashboard that allows me to see sites’ rank for specific keywords, as well as other domain-related info such as backlinks, etc. A lot of this comes from various APIs. I store all the info in a database and run the scripts via cron. I like doing things myself, because I can get exactly the data I want. And once I store it in a database, I own it and can run whichever types of reports I want.

But I still needed a good tool to do site comparisons. I tried SEO SpyGlass, and I like it, but it was too limited for what I really wanted. I wanted something to do it “all”.

Oh yeah, and I needed SEO software that could run on a Mac. There’s not a lot to choose from in the world of OS X SEO software. (BTW I was running SEO Elite from a VirtualBox Windows XP install.)

I hate buying something only to find out it’s not really what I needed. So I finally (after hearing about for about a year) tried something called Market Samurai. I don’t know why I never tried it before, but it was probably because of the name – it doesn’t sound like it’s primarily SEO software. But they have a free trial, so I was able to take it for a test drive. (You can try Market Samurai for free here.)

It does all the things I used SEO Elite for, and I think it compares well with SEO SpyGlass as well. I bought it right before my trial ran out, and I’m very happy with it. It’s a very well-made, feature-rich, and well-supported SEO program. It’s way more solid than most SEO scripts and programs I’ve seen over the years.

And, another factor that led me to make the purchase decision was the fact that the license allows you to install and use Market Samurai on two machines. It works out perfectly for my wife and I: she has a Windows 7 laptop and I have a MacBook Pro, and we can each run a copy of Market Samurai. (It’s an Adobe Air app, so it can run on both OSX an Windows.)

My wife uses it for mainly keyword research (on her real estate site) and I use it for SEO stuff – mostly comparing site metrics and finding ranking factors.

So, how does it fit into my daily SEO tasks? Well, I use my custom-coded scripts for my daily tasks. But when I see a site I want to gauge or a site where I want to analyze their backlink anchor text, I use Market Samurai. I often export the data (you can throw it into a CSV) and use the data within other scripts. So it’s not my “main” SEO tool but it has a lot of supporting uses for me.

Would I recommend it? Overwhelmingly, yes – because I’m totally satisfied with my purchase. But everyone’s different: If you don’t already have an SEO tool, then just get it. It does almost everything you will need to do. If you have a tool that doesn’t work for you, check out the trial version and see if this would be an improvement. If you already have a tool you use and are happy with, then maybe try Market Samurai – but I’m a believer in using what works for you.

If you want to give Market Samurai a try, get your Free Trial copy here.