RankSense SEO Software Review

When I first wrote about RankSense a couple of months ago, some of you emailed me asking for more details. I decided therefore to write a more extensive review about it.

RankSense is basically an all-in-one SEO software solution. It has 12 integrated tools that you can use to optimize most aspects of your website, and its objective is to make the whole process as user friendly as possible.

Upon signing up for the service, you will be able to download the installation file. One drawback is that the software only works in Windows. I am an Ubuntu user, so I was forced to install it on my laptop. I guess this will not be a problem for the majority of the people out there though.

The installation should be pretty quick, and after that you are welcomed with this screen:

As you can see, the software comes with a tour of the features and with a collection of tutorials. I explored the tutorials briefly, and they cover some of the SEO basics. The material is not exhaustive, but it can help out the newbies to get started.

Once you click on “New Website,” you will be asked to add the details about your website, including its URL, name and target geographical market, landing pages that you want to optimize and so on. You will also need to give a source for the traffic details. If you don’t want to put your FTP login details, you can simply download your raw log files to your computer and use those local files with RankSense.

After that you will be directed to the dashboard, which looks like this:

The four main modules are:

1. Search Engine Friendliness: Where you can find your actual search rankings, search engine coverage and diagnosis problems in your pages.
2. Market Research: Where you can perform keyword research and competition analysis.
3. On-Page Optimization: Where you can analyze the internal SEO factors.
4. Off-Page Optimization: Where you can analyze the link portfolio and anchor texts.

Then you also have two secondary sections: “Scheduled Tasks” and “Analytics.”

Module One

Let’s start with the first module. The first task here is the “Discover Rankings” one. The task will analyze your log file (my example used a daily log), and it will create a list with all the keywords that are sending you traffic from search engines, including the landing page of that traffic, the position in the SERP, and the number of visits over a certain period of time.

After that you will proceed to the “Search Engine Coverage.” That task basically analyzes the log files to determine which pages from your site have been crawled and indexed. The output will be a list of pages that have been visited, not visited, indexed and not indexed.

Then you have the last task in this section, the “Detect Problems Page”. Here you are able to specify how many clicks the crawler should follow, and the maximum number of pages that should be visited. The task takes a while to get concluded, but after that it will report redirects, client and server errors that the SEO software found while crawling your site.

Module Two

Now let’s move to the second set of tools, called “Market Research”. The first task here is the “Search Engine Selection,” and it will show where your search traffic is coming from. You will also be able to specify which search engines you want to target in the future.

The second task is called “Keyword Selection.” Here the software will make keyword suggestions for you, based on the keywords that it finds on your site. You can also input keywords directly if you prefer. Once you have the desired keywords in your basket, another task will start, called “Keywords Appraisal.” This part will try to gather different metrics for each of your keywords, including the traffic, value and competition.

The last tool in this module is the “Competitive Intelligence” one. Here you will be able to select the keywords from your basket, and the tool will analyze the competition around the keywords for you. It will find the competitors that rank in the top positions, and it will gather a bunch of data about them, from link popularity to traffic level and social media exposure.

Module Three

Inside the third module you will find the “On-Page Analysis” tool. It asks you to list the keywords that you want to target, and then it will map the keywords into the internal pages that are relevant for those keywords. The result is an analysis of how well you are positioned for those keywords.

The second tool is this module will carry on this analysis, and it will analyze the on-page SEO factors of your pages that were listed in the previous step. It will list information like the frequency, prominence and weight of your keywords inside the individual pages. There is a useful tab in this tool that will “guide you” with steps that you can implement directly in your pages.

The other tool you will find here is a “Sitemap Builder.” Inside that tool you can specify the pages that should be included, their priority, and how often they are updated. After that the sitemap will automatically be created for you.

Module Four

The fourth module is all about backlinks. The first tool here, the “Link Structure Analysis,” will let you specify some keyword and some competing websites, and the tool will gather the sites that are linking to your competitors, including some information about those links and their anchor text.

The second tool is focused on your own website. It explores your backlink portfolio and analyzes the anchor text used on the links.

The last tool, called “Link Research,” will help you find potential link sources for your website. After specifying your keywords, you will be presented with a link of potential lists, divided into blogs, directories, social media sites and article directories.

Other Features

The software can be run under a “Smart” or “Classic” mode. The “Smart” mode is useful for people who don’t have search engine optimization experience, because it will guide them across the tasks. This mode also forces you to complete specific tasks before you can proceed.

I found the “Smart” mode a bit annoying, exactly because it tried to impose an order of tasks on me. The “Classic” mode solves this problems, as it allows you to access any tool anytime.

One feature that I didn’t have the time to explore but I suspect could be useful is the “Schedule” one, which lets you schedule certain tasks to be run automatically.

Conclusion

Overall I found the RankSense software useful, but keep in mind that it is geared towards users with limited search engine optimization experience and users who don’t want to spend time learning about SEO but still want to make sure that their website is well optimized for Google and company.

Try it Free and Decide for Yourself

You can also download the software, play around with it, and decide for yourself whether the product meets your goals or not. It is free for the first 30 days (and has a money guarantee guarantee for another 60 days on top of that). Just click here to download and try it.