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At
the special request of my students, Ive taken a long look at WebPosition Gold
3 (http://www.webposition.com), and
I can honestly say Im amazed at how this software program has matured and developed
through the years.
Lets take a tour of the most popular software program
in the search engine marketing industry, and lets see "whats new" in WebPosition
3.
The New Interface . . .
When you first open the software, past
users of WebPosition will be surprised at the totally new interface. Its clean,
simple, and quite appealing. You can still click on New or Open on the top toolbar
to start a new project or open an existing one, or you can click on any of the
icons on the left-hand side of the screen.
Important: If you experience
any problems connecting to the Internet via WebPosition, try adding WebPosition
to your accepted programs list in your firewall software. Or, you could try temporarily
disabling your firewall to see if its related to that. If you still have any problems,
simply write to help@webposition.com. WebPosition is well known for having a top-
notch tech support department.
Wordtracker Keywords . . .
With
WebPosition 3, you can now conduct keyword research with Wordtracker right through
WebPosition 3! If you dont have a Wordtracker account, youll be using the free
trial version of Wordtracker, which means youll be researching using the MSN search
engine and Keyword Universe. If you have a Wordtracker account, you can enter
your Wordtracker username and password by clicking on the Edit menu on the WebPosition
toolbar and choosing, "Wordtracker Settings."
Important: Since WebPosition
3 now has the Wordtracker keyword area, if you have a Wordtracker account, should
you cancel that account? No! Unless youre going to be happy with the free trial
version of Wordtracker, dont cancel your Wordtracker account. Instead, use the
WebPosition 3 interface to pull up your existing Wordtracker account.
Reporter
. . .
Though this feature isnt new, my favorite part of WebPosition has
always been Reporter, and it still is. This one area is worth the cost of the
entire software program.
As search engine marketers, its important to
keep up with your search engine rankings. You need to know which pages are ranking
in the top 30 for which keywords.
While its important for you to know
your rankings, remember that you dont need to check your rankings every day or
even every week. Once a month or once every other week is sufficient.
Use
moderation! Dont check hundreds or thousands of keywords across several domains.
Dont hammer the search engines. Remember that youre using their resources when
you check rankings. Run ranking reports at night PST.
Page Critic . .
.
After creating your pages, youll want to run them through a software
program for some last minute checks.
For example, is the page too long?
Too short? Are you overusing your keyword phrase? Underusing it?
WebPosition
3 offers some very helpful suggestions that you may want to consider.
With
WebPosition 3, theyve introduced a "Generic Search Engine," which Im particularly
pleased about. Over the last few years, many search engine marketers no longer
create engine specific pages, so having a generic choice in Page Critic will be
extremely helpful.
Tip to make Page Critic easier to use: When you first
begin using Page Critic, you may find it easier to focus on the Page Averages
section only. Click on that tab at the top of the Page Critic results. Go through
each of the suggestions.
But, if you cant make the change or if it doesnt
work for you, move on. Dont spend hours stressing over it. If you want to work
with other sections of Page Critic after you get used to the program, you can
certainly do so. But by cutting down on the amount of information youre focusing
on in the beginning, you may feel its not as overwhelming.
Mission Manager
. . .
Im very impressed with this new addition to WebPosition! But first,
let me explain what "missions" are.
Every time you work on a project in
WebPosition, youre creating a "mission." For example, when you run a ranking report
on a particular domain, youre running a Reporter "mission" on that domain.
When
you run a page through Page Critic, youre running a Page Critic "mission" on that
page.
Mission Manager lets you manage those missions from one central
location. I can see where this area will be particularly handy for those people
who manage several domains. You can see at a glance which missions are scheduled
to be run and at what times.
WebTrends Analytics . . .
This one
area of WebPosition is a little confusing, mainly because WebTrends has many different
software and Web-based solutions.
However, please dont let the choices
stop you from trying WebTrends. Analyzing the traffic to your site is a crucial
"next step" to success for your online business, and WebTrends has always been
a leader in log analysis solutions.
In the beginning, why not try WebTrends
On Demand, which is a Web-based service where youre given a small amount of code
to cut and paste to the bottom of each of your Web pages. When you want to check
your log files, you can log into their Web site. Its an easy-to-use, cost effective
solution that youll certainly want to consider. (Trial version: http://www.netiq.com/webtrends/products/webtrends/trial.asp)
Cost Remains the Same . . .
One thing that has really impressed
me is that WebPosition has kept the cost of this new version the same, though
they certainly could have justified a price increase. Plus, if you have a current
version of WebPosition, you can upgrade at a 50% discount. Very fair! (Trial version:
http://www.webposition.com/order/trial.asp)
In Conclusion . . .
WebPosition Gold 3 (http://www.webposition.com)
has once again proven to be the leader in search engine marketing software. This
exciting new software program deserves a long look by anyone in the SEO industry.
Robin
Nobles teaches hands-on search engine marketing workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com)
and online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com).
They have opened a networking community for SEOs called The World Resource Center
for Search Engine Marketers (http://www.sew-wrc.com),
and they have expanded their workshops to Europe with Search Engine Workshops
UK (http://www.searchengineworkshops.co.uk). |
