Lots of reasons compelled us to rebuild SEO Effect. User demand is high. We received loads of feedback from readers of my book asking for a tool set that could deal with today’s SEO challenges. We were also inspired by new opportunities we saw in the new APIs from Google. And last, we wanted to capitalize on the lessons learned form the previous version of SEO Effect that now seems so “old school”. However, I was still reluctant to begin. Rebuilding an application from scratch is really a challenging task. But at the end of summer 2008, my friend, colleague at Screenborn on-line marketing, and business partner, Gerard Klein convinced me to redevelop SEO Effect. We found a brilliant lead-developer who recommended the Symphony framework as our platform. Using the outstanding mockup software Balsamiq, we spent many hours discussing and designing how SEO Effect should work. We are presently in version 5 .4 of most screen mockups now. To give you an idea: The average screen design goes through 10 revisions before committing it to the developers. So, we drafted and evaluated hundreds of mockups. Our documentation on the application’s features is (unfortunately 🙂 200+ pages and growing. And as for the real work, Leon wrote about 10, 000+ lines of code on top of the excellent framework. Hans, also my friend, colleague and business partner, then wracked his brains about conceptualizing the branding and communication. This website is the first product of his thorough analysis. He is now adding the finishing touches to the design of the new SEO Effect.
Why a Rebuild?
So much has changed in the SEO world:
- Universal search and search volume data are revealed down to the keyword level, leaving few present day “submit to Google” or indexation issues.
- Nowadays, there are so many new data connection possibilities such as Google Adwords , Google Analytics , Google webmaster tools and Yahoo! Site Explorer
- Today’s development platforms allow rich user features in web applications such as tables sorting, filtering, and drag & drop.
It was clearly time to rejuvenate the old SEO Effect. All of these elements influenced our decision to start all over again on a brand new platform. That was in the midst of 2008. Today, after more than 1.5 years, 1100 developing hours, 600 Skype hours, 150 gallons of coffee (at least), uncountable chocolate bars and late-night hours later, we are very excited that SEO Effect is almost in beta!
New School SEO: SEO 2.0
We anticipated the release of the new Google Analytics API to combine search data with user behavior on your site. AdWords keyword tools also now reveal interesting data. For example: Search volume data is retrievable per month as well as for the last 12 months. Search volume is the amount of times people search for a certain keyword or key phrase. This data provides information about the potential traffic you can generate at the keyword level. That, along with other current changes, gave our development team of the needed inspiration to build a search engine platform for SEO 2.0. We plan to go live with a solid, goal-driven, keyword research tool and on-site optimization. Soon after that we will add tools for link strategy including both “link begging” and”link baiting” tools. All tools are integrated via a rock solid workflow and a set of collaborator tools to help you and your team track your data and successfully complete your SEO tasks. In our next blog post, we’ll discuss two new exciting features of SEO Effect’s keyword tool. Interested? Sign up to stay tuned! Read also:
- SEO Effect is Now Open to Email Subscribers
- SEO Effect passes software audit
- Alpha testers are getting busy