New Tools for the New Year

Happy New Year, everyone! We decided to celebrate the new year by giving away presents. No (unfortunately), it’s not cookies. In true Bruce Clay, Inc. style, “presents” means tools, of course!

Chocolate chip cookies, photo by dyanna
 Yummy cookies photo by dyanna.

Today we unveiled two brand-new SEO tools that are now on our Web site. They’re available free (as presents should be, of course, but I’m just making sure we’re clear on that). And they’re “cool” — that’s a direct quote from Bruce. I’ve tried these tools and would have to agree. But I’m no SEO, so I’ll just tell you about them.

Shiny-new SEO tool number one is the Search Engine Optimization/KSP. It’s a keyword traffic and statistics lookup that’s different from other keyword tools. It displays query counts with pay per click stats like click-through rates and CPC, for up to 12 keywords at a time.

Search Engine Optimization/KSP tool

You might be gathering chocolate chip cookie-related keyword data for a cookie-lovers’ Web site. Using the new Search Engine Optimization/KSP tool, you can mouse over a keyword to see demographic data, and then roll over the last column to learn the top three categories for that keyword. How could that help you? Well, for one thing you could figure out who’s your best target audience. If the site offers cookie-baking tips and products, for example, the demographics for “baking cookies” could tell you to zero in on the 35-50 year old male audience (who knew?):

Search Engine Optimization/KSP demographics

Or if the site sells baskets of delicious cookies, the categories for the keyword “cookie baskets” suggest that some cross marketing to people ordering flowers online might pay off:

Search Engine Optimization/KSP categories

The second new SEO tool is actually the showstopper. The new SEMToolBar is a browser plug-in that pulls data from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, then selectively compiles only the data that’s most helpful to Internet marketers (and leaves out a lot of other technical details that could easily be shown, but why clutter?). And being a toolbar, it stays put at the top of the browser while you run searches and visit Web pages, which makes it really handy.

Basically, the toolbar gives you extra intelligence as you work online. Transformed search engine results pages display keyword statistics at the top, and the results are numbered and annotated with useful data and links (including PageRank score, backlinks total, site count, last cached date, last date spidered, cached text links, and more):

SEMToolBar annotates search results

You can also see Web page statistics on every site you go to:

SEMToolBar enhances Web pages

But I think the coolest features are built into the toolbar itself:

  • Languages: More than 20 languages are supported, so if you or your client prefers reading information in German, Chinese, Portuguese, or some other language over English, that’s no problem.
  • Proxy Search: Imagine being able to run a “local” search anywhere in the world, without buying a plane ticket. That’s basically what you can do by running a search from the SEMToolBar. Proxy search makes it possible to optimize sites for local markets in other cities or countries, which is becoming a bigger deal as search engines expand their localization of results. Available proxy servers are currently limited but will be expanding quickly over the next few months.
  • Search Engine Choice: Not only can you run a search from another city or country, and see the toolbar data in another language, you can also choose from many different search engines to run it in! So if you’re serving an international client, you could be in California and run a local search as if you were in Paris using a British search engine in Japanese! (C’mon, that’s totally plausible.) [I do it all the time. Doesn’t everyone? –Susan]
  • SEOToolSet® Access: Subscribers to the full Bruce Clay SEOToolSet can also run reports right from the toolbar, without going to a separate login page.

Did I mention that both of the new tools are free?

Search engine choices are still being added and for now the toolbar only runs in an Internet Explorer browser. But don’t worry, the Firefox version is coming — we couldn’t wait to release this. Our tools will only get better from here.

These are just the first two tools, and there will be more to come. The programmers have actually been completely rewriting and super-charging the Bruce Clay SEOToolSet® for 2009. The Search Engine Optimization/KSP tool and the SEMToolBar are only the beginning.

People don’t usually give presents for New Year’s, but hopefully we’ve set a precedent. At least we hope our new tools will be among the first of many good things to come this year.

Paula Allen started at Bruce Clay Inc. in 2008 as a senior technical writer and now manages the company's content and documentation. An English lover at heart, Paula enjoys working in a team where grammar is frequently discussed and in an industry where there's always more to learn.

See Paula's author page for links to connect on social media.

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3 Replies to “New Tools for the New Year”

Paula Allen

Saad & Susan,
Thanks for your questions. The demographic and other data shown in the Search Engine Optimization/KSP tool come from a Microsoft keyword API. The only exceptions are the query counts for Yahoo! and Google, which are pulled from those engines.

How do you get the demographics? Whats the source of these data?

THANK YOU! Sorry to shout but I have been looking for an accurate proxy search for some time now. I am a In-House SEO and this feature alone in your toolbar has a significant impact in my ability to help our global divisions. Thank you so much for this great feature and the many others provided with these new tools! As a current SEO Toolset User, I can’t wait to see what else is coming! I just have one question, how are you determining the category information for these keywords? I just want to make sure as I train my internal folks, that I can convey to them how these are defined.

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