Complete Review of SEO Spyglass

SEO Spyglass: The Link Detective’s Super Tool

Most SEOs understand that Google uses a link-based ranking algorithm(s) to determine rankings. The more quality links you acquire, the higher you rank. So SEO Spyglass aims to provide users with the best link intelligence on the Web to help them triumph in the battle of the SERPs.

The key SEO metrics you can extract from a target website with SEO Spyglass are:

• Backlink Pages: The URLs that contains the link pointing back to your rival's site
• Link Anchor Text: See which keywords your competitor is targeting in their link building
• Toolbar PageRank and SEO Link Value: Determine the value that each backlink provides, based on TBPR and SEO Spyglasses own metric "SEO Link Value"
• Alexa Rank: See which links are sending your competitor the most traffic

And that's just the tip of iceberg. SEO Spyglass gives you a ton of additional analysis info, such as domain age and IP block data, outgoing and incoming link-to-link targets, trusted directory presence and more.

SEO Spyglass Review: Discover a Website’s Backlink Profile

First and foremost, SEO Spyglass enables you to check the backlink profile of a website.

It doesn’t just give you the links, though. I also provides useful data about each link, including its PageRank.

If you’re unfamiliar with PageRank, it’s a metric that identifies a page’s value as a backlink. The better the PageRank, the more “link juice” the page will pass to your site.

The more link juice you earn, the more likely it is that you’ll get a top rank.

Use the SEO Spyglass backlink report to see where your competitors are getting their backlinks and you aren’t. You could find several opportunities that will help you improve your site’s search presence.

Uncover Keyword Anchor Text in Backlinks

SEO Spyglass also shows you the anchor text in backlinks pointing to a competitor’s site.

Why is that important? It helps establish relevance for keywords.

For example, let’s say a competitor of yours is selling conventional saltwater fishing reels. You check that competitor’s backlink profile and find that a number of backlinks are using the anchor text “conventional saltwater fishing reels.”

Now, if you Google “conventional saltwater fishing reels,” don’t be surprised to find that the competitor outranks your for that term. The anchor text informs Google about the nature of the destination page in a backlink.

Use the anchor text info to find opportunities about the phrases that you should use when pointing backlinks to your own website.

SEO Spyglass Reporting

Once I’m done with the analysis dashboard, I can generate a slick report with SEO Spyglass that accomplishes two things:

• Educates you on how to turn the data into action: This is a big feature for the average business owner or anyone getting their beak wet with SEO
• Ties it all together: The report also extracts the key takeaways from the competitor link analysis work you’ve just performed and summarizes them in an easy to understand format. Doing this exposed even more opportunities for me that I’d glossed over in the data dashboard.

The report I generated is formatted into slick, comprehensive nine page document (that you can customize with company or client logo, colors, etc,) which includes an intro, followed by seven steps which are detailed how-tos, and ends with a final words page that wraps it all up for you and stresses the keys to ranking well.

This is great for shooting around internally within your company for monthly or quarterly competitor reporting or to send to clients for next steps. It's also very information rich and explains best practices and acutely details next steps so even a novice can understand how to take action.

So how is SEO Spyglass different from other link analysis tools?

Answer: link volume.

SEO Spyglass is in a class of its own because it can gather more than 1,000 backlinks per domain. Yahoo and other search engines are capped at 1k link limits. What this means is that you’re only get part of the story. To effectively evaluate your competitor’s link data with accuracy, you need to see all the data. With SEO Spyglass, though, you get so much more link data than any other link analysis tool. That way you get the whole story and you're much better able to do effective analysis.

Another aspect that differentiates SEO Spyglass from other tools is that it queries a number of search engines, not just the big three (Google, Bing, Yahoo), and uses a combination of advanced search operators to dig deeper into the search index returning 5,000-30,000+ backlinks depending on the site's backlink profile (up to 50,000 for large domains). That level of link analysis is a data junkie's dream come true.

Check Data from Hundreds of Search Engines

You’re probably accustomed to seeing data from the “Big 3” search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo. However, SEO Spyglass allows you to check data on regional and foreign search engines.

That’s especially useful if you’re running geo-specific campaigns or would like to start marketing internationally.

Also, the more info you have from various search engines, the more likely you’ll know what to do to earn a great rank.

SEO Spyglass Review: Run a Custom SEO Report

How would you like a blueprint for SEO success? SEO Spyglass can give you that with a custom SEO report.

The report will show you all the steps you need to take to outrank your competitors.

Additionally, you can save your reports, email them to clients, or upload them to the web.

Reports are published in PDF format.

Pricing

The good news about SEO Spyglass is that it’s a one-time fee.

In other words, there are no recurring monthly costs. You pay for it once and you’re done.

If you’ve shopped around for SEO tools, you know that many of them charge a monthly “rent.” That’s not the case here.

The Professional Edition of SEO Spyglass cost $124.75. The Enterprise Edition costs $299.75.

What’s the difference? The Enterprise Edition is designed for SEO shops. It offers more flexibility on reporting.

There’s also a free edition. It’s got a limited feature-set but it will give you an idea about whether or not the tool is right for your business.