The speed at which search is changing either exhilarates online marketers or makes them run for the
hills. Those of us crazy enough to stick around need fast tools with the right data and lots of it.
Searchmetrics Essentials is a new database product line from Searchmetrics, a global search analytics
company known best for its dashboard SEO tool – Searchmetrics Suite. Available both as an extension
of Searchmetrics Suite and as independent databases, Essentials introduces a brand new keyword
database covering organic, paid and universal results in 15 countries (Essentials SEO+SEM) and a social
media database covering Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+1, Delicious and StumbleUpon (Essentials
Social).
The Good:
First of all the price: $99 is a ridiculous price for a well-rounded suite like that!
Introducing intelligent metrics for domains like SEO Visibility (factors in position, search volume and
traffic estimation) and Social Visibility (factors in 6 social networks weighing the results based on
influence), what really stands out is the clean interface and how easy it is to pull a ton of data about
your own website, competitors and industry trends. Also, the ability to see domain and keyword history
is perfect for SEOs to show just how badly a site was doing before they started to work on it.
For those of you familiar with the Searchmetrics predecessor, Rapid, Essentials SEO+SEM has taken this
database to the next level with features like industry analysis, which looks at the industry categories of
your keywords. The reporting is also clean and easy to assemble.
Down to a link level, Essentials Social this gives you instant information on where your links, and anyone
else’s links for that matter, are going in the social media space. Which article or blog post was most
popular on Twitter? Do users tend to like, share or comment on your content on Facebook? Where are
my competitors having success and is that an opportunity for me?
The Bad:
Like all keyword tools, not every important keyword for your business will be in the Essentials SEO+SEM
database. This is to remind customers that they can fully customize their keyword list in Searchmetrics
Suite, but this like all things comes at a higher price. Also, as some parts update monthly, the PPC
data is not going to be 100% accurate for the current moment in time. In Essentials Social, you look
up information by website, so not being able to look up information by topic or mention could be
challenging for professionals that don’t always tie their social media campaigns to their website.
Overall review and rating:
What I like best about Essentials is that I can enter in a domain or a competitive set and pull information
instantly. No wait time for my keyword positions or social media references to load. Searchmetrics
has been at data analysis for quite some time and they are very good at it and the new tools are fast.
Essentials definitely has the potential to replace existing keyword tools and become known in the social
media space. Test it out for free.