SEO Tools… They’re everywhere! From web based interfaces to downloadable apps, if you’re involved with SEO work, you’ve probably tripped over a dozen already.

While tools are en excellent asset for any practicing SEO, they’re not the only thing required for success. There also seems to be this weird notion that SEO tools are a one-size-fit all type of resource, which I struggle to understand.

Let’s take a dive in… #SEOLunch is only an hour long!

SEO Tools and Exclusivity
Are you stuck in a monogamous relationship with your SEO tools? I’d ask why – but I have to be honest… I don’t want to know… Really.

I frequently speak with clients who are familiar with some of the more commonly used SEO tools. These tools normally include SEOmoz, Raven, SEOBook, etc. When I ask them why they enjoy a particular tool, I tend to hear one of these standard responses:

I really liked [tool name] but I’ve found that [tool name] works better for our needs here, so we went ahead and bought that.

When I was with [former company] we used [tool name], so when I got here, I pushed to cancel [tool name] and we now have a subscription to [tool name].

It is normally around this time I ask them why they’re exclusive to a particular tool – and the response I get is one of bewilderment matched with eyes glazing over like I’m crazy and they just don’t have the heart to tell me.

So then I add in a kicker like, “Unless your budget is so incredibly restricted… Why would you only choose one tool set over another?”

And from there, we have a fun little discussion.

It’s not that I’m trying to be offensive – I simply don’t believe the current landscape of SEO tools are a one size fits all solution. Some tools excel in some areas, and others apply in different circumstances. You need to find the right blend of tools to fit your needs without making sacrifices.

Tool Belt, Tool Box or Tool Chest?
This is where experience comes in to play. Think about a carpenter’s tool belt, a standard tool box rattling around in the back of a pickup – and one of those beautiful (to me, anyway) Craftsman tool chests on rollers that you can live in…

…And now wonder: Which is the best visual reference to the tools I need for SEO?

SEO is a very involved technical effort. You could be doing maintenance work like title tag revisions (changing the oil) – or – you could be rebuilding a hosting platform with redirects, a new CMS and dynamic insertion models in place (similar to rebuilding the bottom end of a Ford 302).

My point here is that the tools are a representation of your capabilities. I’d never want to rebuild an engine, but when it comes to SEO – simple keyword research tools and superficial technical alerts just aren’t enough for me. I need more, because the work I want to be doing is much bigger than that.

Throughout my career I’ve found that there are a few areas that require different SEO tools… There’s on site SEO, link building, server / webmaster issues, and programming.

I think you’ll be hard pressed to choose one standalone tool that addresses all of the above for you.

The Experience Factor
Lets keep the comparisons flowing and assume that an SEO project is like some home remodeling. You call up a couple of contractors and they come walking up your driveway ready to check things out for you.

There is this one hardened, salty vet with beat up and calloused hands wielding a worn hammer and decade old stains on his Carhartts. And then there’s this other guy with his freshly laundered polo tucked into his jeans with a fancy new powertool in hand spewing out laser beams and rechargeable batteries.

The hardened vet starts climbing around, inspecting things and asking questions. The polo-wearing guy takes some pictures and starts asking you about money, time, and his “crew.”

Now, I’ll come clean here… I’d immediately judge them on the spot.

I’m already partial to the hardened vet with experience who’s put in his time. Why? Well, for starters, I don’t care what you look like so long as the job gets done, done right, and done on time. The tools don’t make the man in this instance, the capabilities do. And I’d trust the ugly tools and experience over relayed information any day.

Tying it back in a bit, I see this happen a lot with SEO tools. There are a ton of fancy tools that give you beautiful reports… But those reports aren’t really filled with actionable information. They’re limited. They’re sacrificing some substance for portability and readability.

My point here is that all the fancy tools in the world won’t get work done. They just create effeciencies for the people who know how to use them correctly. If you can’t get those tools in hand and become more effecient — what’s the point?

Wrapping Up
The search and online marketing space is becoming deeper and deeper every day. As that happens, there are bound to be new tools, new things to research, new ways to dissect information.

When the dust settles a bit though, look back and what your end goals are. It is very easy to get wrapped up in a particular tool’s reporting style or metrics – leaving you succeptable to other problems you’re no longer monitoring or making yourself aware of.

That’s a reflection on you. If you intend to master your craft, you need to apply the work. That doesn’t come from the SEO tools you use to tee up information — it comes from getting dirty in the code.

So, remember:

• Tools are intended to assist, not automate
• There’s no substitute for experience and learning on the job
• Shortcuts hurt your end results, and your skillset
• There are many tools for many jobs; Don’t be restrictive
• Old tools can still be incredibly effective tools
• Get creative; Use a combination of tools to hone your approach

For all the pomp and circumstance, Google+ really is a floundering mess, isn’t it? While that’s surprising to some, it’s not like Google has been very successful with their other social endeavors, either.

Since launching the service last Summer, Google has tried incredibly hard to sell us on their (no longer) new and (not so) exciting social network. Now, I haven’t shied away from expressing my views on why the social network is (for me) considered as a failure.

For the past few days though, I’ve grown confused by Google’s recent decision to bring Digg founder Kevin Rose into their business. Digg is easily one of the few sites that I would point to as having been responsible for pioneering the viral aspects of socially shared content.

So, credit to Rose there.

But as a maturing business, Rose and Digg made some incredible (and to some, unforgivable) mistakes. They literally pulled the rug out from their users. They changed designs. They altered their algorithms. They failed to listen to their power users and brand champions.

And nearly overnight, Digg was dead. Rose later moved on to Milk – a company that was central to Google’s recent acquisition of Rose and his crew. But… why?

SlashGear reports:

Kevin Rose has announced that he has taken a job with Google, just as rumored earlier this week, along with the team brought together for short-lived mobile app incubator Milk. The Digg founder somewhat appropriately took to Google+, the search giant’s social network, to confirm his new employer, though there’s still no indication of what it is that Rose will be doing at Google.

That brings me to one critical issue here – and it’s not a new thing for me to introduce… The end user. Last week I said (as it applies to Google+):

Google has become a vehicle to user’s end destination on the web. Google’s ideal users don’t stay and hang out in a Google environment. They engage, review, click and leave. Therefore, creating an environment that disrupts their core business should be expected to fail. Miserably.

Let’s get back to Rose.

Rose’s tenure at Digg proved that in this space, the end user runs the show. I tend to think that with Google and Google+, the users themselves have built up a desire to use Google services and quickly flee, making the notion that Google+ is a sticky community a tough pill to swallow. So, would Rose really see himself as a good fit there?

Perhaps not. And, perhaps the work of Milk was more Android-oriented, as some reports suggest.

I’m still left wondering though: Where can Rose actually find some success here? How can he turn his career around?

Was the hiring of Rose simply a way for Google to address their issues bringing in someone with a large degree of relevance? Did they just throw money at a problem hoping that it would go away?

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now… and I just don’t see why Google would expect Rose to help them build something they’ve already failed with so many times.

Failure as a result of trying is great. I’m all for that. But I also know how Einstein described what “insanity” was, too. So, there’s that.

I hope that for Rose and the Milk crew, they find success. I have my concerns about Rose’s personality (as we viewed it at Digg) fitting in within Google’s less flexible structure. Hopefully that’s all issues of perception, though. It would be nice to see Google find some traction and improve their social tools. finally.

What do you think? Comment below — and enjoy your lunch.

Every week there seems to be more and more news involving Google’s various products, services and now – investor relations. Since the launch of Google+ though, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to find non-industry sites discussing Google’s changes as they happen in the search envinronment.

Last week I caught an article on Search Engine Journal that highlighted some comments that Amit Singhal made as part of an interview. Here is how SEJ author David Angiotti referenced the interview:

The algorithmic shift is partially motivated by Google’s plans to launch Google Assistant later this year on Android devices. Google Assistant, which will compete directly with Apple’s Siri, will provide users with answers to questions and specific information rather than traditional search results. Singhal, who is a senior Google VP and Google Fellow, recently indicated that semantic search is a necessary for a company to be competitive long-term in the mobile space.

“When we can deliver small nuggets of information, that system is far more suited to mobile phones and searching with voice.” — A. Singhal

While search engines already do an excellent job of analyzing the words a user types in the search box and matching the query to web pages that contain similar words or topics, matching the intent of a specific user is much more difficult.

While it is no surprise that Google will remain heavily invested in their Android lifeforms, I found the desire to attack semantic mobile search technology the same way Siri does as a bit of a surprise. I’m not sure why, but it’s an emphasis that Singhal is clearly trying to reinforce.

Now, Google Assistant doesn’t have the same sexy appeal as Siri, but if the accuracy and benefit to the user is there – that opens up an entirely new mindset from which optimization needs to take place.

The focus will certainly move a bit to focus on specific phrases that are commonly said, not necessarily typed.

As Angiotti mentioned in the SEJ piece, Google has been hard at work with their “Knowledge Graph” too. While the mention of that sounds all well and good, I’m a little worried about how Google will find ways to mesh this KG into the mobile platform while also tying in the Android operating system and mobile components.

It’s simply too big brother for me to be happy about at the moment.

Am I alone in having that concern?

Has anyone ever thought to consider how much more information Google Assistant could pick up on?

And… How would Google’s recent update in privacy policy impact those of us who are using Android devices?

Please share your thoughts (or concerns) in the comments below!

A couple months ago there was a tremendous amount of commotion as Google was outed in what boiled down to a sponsored post campaign where more than 400 bloggers were paid to help build up backlinks to the Google Chrome browser download page.

There is a lot of background on the core situation as well as the subsequent fallout, backpedaling and industry reaction.

I personally found the poll over at Search Engine Roundtable to be particularly interesting.

Earlier today Search Engine Land reported that the self-imposed penalization was lifted. Therefore, in theory, Google’s Chrome page should have been cleared of any wrong doing so that it could perform normally in the SERPs.

In other words, Google cleared up their problems and (expeditiously) lifted their self imposed penalty.

While that’s all well and good for Google today – I was curious to find out how the browser’s business may have been impacted. While not at all a surprise, this is what I learned:

• Google Chrome’s usage share continued to increase.
• Month to month growth in the market also increased.
• No one in Google’s targeted audience really #$%^&* noticed (or cared).

I pulled the numbers from W3C and quickly threw together these visuals.

Short of a cyclic trend in growth (spikes followed by 4 months of declines) there’s really not that much substance here.

And that’s the big problem.

Google was all gung-ho on the penalization and Matt Cutts even weighed in from his vacation (on Google+ of course) to let us know that it was a serious issue, it was a legitimate offense and corrective actions were to be taken. They marched around trying to give off the impression that they’d treat Google the same as they would any other content publisher.

But the business impact just wasn’t there.

• Google didn’t lose downloads.
• Their domain wasn’t hurt.
• They didn’t lose users.

…They just kept on marching forward.

I understand that negative press can still be seen as “good press.” But in this case, there really wasn’t much mroe involved than smoke, mirrors, and a tongue-in-cheek reaction by Google.

In other words, I think the penalization was simply a load of BS. It was PR spin. It was damage control. It was, as we’ve all come to expect by now – unfair treatment by Google that benefited the biggest of Internet brands.

I have worked with countless clients penalized for any number of things from these same types of paid links, on down to aggressive on page content, duplicate content issues, etc. etc. When real penalties are in place, business suffers. Jobs are lost. Paychecks aren’t cut.

…And do you know what happens when you’d call attention to fixing the situation?

Nothing.

Reinclusion requests, historically speaking, produce little to no results.

I won’t continue to beat this horse dead, but I would love to hear more about how this may have impacted Google’s Chrome business beyond what’s publicly available. I’m sure any response will be canned, forced, peer reviewed by a dozen Googlers and directed only at the most high level issues.

But seriously guys… Quit the dog and pony act. You’re not one of us. You never were. You never will be.

A lot has been made of James Whittaker’s comments regarding his tenure with Google and how there appeared to be a fundamental shift in Google’s approach to social content and sharing.

In short (in my Rick Pitino voice..): It stinks. And it sucks. And I don’t like it.

And you can bet your ass that Facebook’s users aren’t walking through that door.

Now, despite having created a Google+ page for my blog yesterday, I have never minced words with my thoughts on Google’s approach to business or with how “successful” they have been with Google+ as a social networking community.

Google+ simple isn’t an engaging atmosphere. It’s trying to be Facebook, but it can’t be. It’s trying to be “Googley” (their own word, not mine) but it’s just… not. It’s not fun. It’s not interactive. It’s not cohesive. Paying Google Apps for Domain customers can’t even get in with their premium accounts.

Ok… Back the issue at hand. Whittaker had some pointed words regarding the culture of the Google environment itself:

No one had to ask me twice to promote Google and no one was more surprised than me when I could no longer do so. In fact, my last three months working for Google was a whirlwind of desperation, trying in vain to get my passion back.

The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.

In short, Google changed. That’s fine. Change is normal. Evolution is necessary. But there’s a difference between changing organically and forcing change for the sake of profit. Forced change isn’t cohesive. And that’s why the whole social experiment is a bad, bad thing.

When I was reading Matt McGee‘s post on Marketing Land this morning about it all though, a staggering (and new, to me) statistic jumped out. M2 explains…

He’s referring to what’s generally considered to be very minimal adoption of Google+ among the general public. ComScore recently reported that Google+ users spend only three minutes per month using the service, compared to more than 400 minutes per month that Facebook users spend there.
[Bold emphasis is mine]

Three minutes? That’s 179 more seconds than I’ve averaged per month.

Does anyone else find it ironic that a search engine that champions usability and a quality user experience in search can be capable of producing such an awful experience with a massively scaled social community?

I mean, wow… They even laced it with a direct impact on their core business of search. How much more integrated can it become?

Here’s my final thought:

Google has become a vehicle to user’s end destination on the web. Google’s ideal users don’t stay and hang out in a Google environment. They engage, review, click and leave. Therefore, creating an environment that disrupts their core business should be expected to fail. Miserably.

Note… I’ve been enjoying the #SEOLunch trend, but I’m not falling off the bandwagon tomorrow. I’ve simply got an out of office client engagement that’s much more important than a 20-minute rant and rave session. I hope the four of you reading this don’t miss me too terribly.

Okay, it’s time for another #SEOLunch! …and since no one provided me recommendations on topics to discuss, I’m choosing my own.

SPOILER ALERT… I’m upset with something Google is up to. Such a shock, right? Cue the sensationalist headline…

Today I’m going to rant a bit about Google’s Webmaster Tools. Why? Because they’re making changes again – and typically – that means that the abilities of webmasters and online marketers are compromised or altered.

That’s precisely what has happened.

Another note… When you, as Google Webmaster Tools, do enough to upset Vanessa Fox enough to write a compelling post like this one – you had better check yourself.

Disclaimer: I’ve been on a couple of Vanessa’s SMX conference panels in the past discussing various components within Google’s Webmaster Tools. She’s awesome, accomplished and incredibly insightful. While her decision to include me on panels was always a surprise, I feel a little confident in being critical of Google Webmaster Tools here.

All that said, I’m assuming (or now asking) that you’ve read Vanessa’s post on SEL, “Google Webmaster Tools Revamps Crawl Errors, But Is It For The Better?”

I want to discuss the some of the changes and recent options that have been removed from the Webmaster Tools interface. Specifically, the following:

• Download Crawl Errors
• Caps at 10K Erroneous URLs
• Redirect Errors
• URLs Blocked by robots.txt Files
• Site Level Errors

Now, I won’t get into each one of these issues specifically, but I’ll pose the following points and questions:

1. If SEOs are actively developing tools that rely on exported information (or information available via APIs) – what benefit would these changes have? Is it an intentional case of limiting an SEOs ability to make actionable, productive changes to a site?
2. If you have a track record for telling webmasters to enhance user experience and preach efficient, operative sites… what added benefit would there be to hiding critical site issues from those empowered to correct them?
3. The robots.txt thing annoys me more than anything. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m baffled by the number of people who do not know how to work with these files despite being in a position to modify or make recommendations for them. Those same people (and others, with good intentions) often slip up and insert bad code that can render entire site sections (or worse) unavailable and unindexable. Again… Why would you pull a feature this useful?

I’m open for some ongoing discussion on this because it seems incredibly counter-productive to me.

Does Google genuinely care? Or, are they taking the easy way out by spinning the removal of these essential tools as a bonus for their users? Weigh in with the comments area below!