I went to an interesting talk from one of the Raventools guys last week. The main benefit that I can see (and I know there are MANY more) is doing everything all in one place. Seriously, with everything there is to do I give major props to anyone who can just organize this stuff for us! So yes, you can do your social media management, your analytics, your SEO research and your adwords (PPC) all in one handy platform. I especially dug the social media management where you can take a look-see at all your social mentions and respond without leaving the environment.
You probably won’t be using Raventools unless you have bigger clients and are doing serious SEO work but they offer free webinars and also a free trial so hey, you never know until you try. If you’re curious about what a more advanced level of SEO looks like, go ahead and visit those Raven folks. Since they are Raventools, they will now know that I blogged about them, that I gave them some link love, and whether or not anyone “likes” or comments on this post. They also have a nifty guide on competitive analysis for SEO here. All you SEO-school students, read up!
Other helpful nuggets: Ravendude (I know he had a name…) mentioned several sites that are handy for link-building (and just good PR). Haro (oh-so-cleverly named Help A Reporter Out), got me pretty excited – it’s a place where journalists post requests for content/expertise and you can respond. How cool is that! Topsy is a fun, free place to see what’s trending and check real-time mentions: Put in a search term, specify what you want to see (Tweets, links, photos, everything, etc.). He gave a slew of other fun tools, but those were my favs from Rav!
About Ravens: Ravens would like me to remind you that they are not crows. Raventools would probably like me to remind you that the picture above is not their logo. It’s a Raven…or maybe a crow. One of the two.