Matt Inman - 0at.org - Marketing & Design

My SEO needs are surprisingly modest. Although I have a lot of keywords I track, I have a need for a tool that would be particularly useful to beginner or mid-range SEOs. I mocked up this tool idea in an hour or so. If I coded it, would you use it? Would you pay for it?

This is a tool I need, built exactly with the features I want. It's not intended for massive SEO campaigns, and I'm sure there's a huge list of potential features you could come up with. If I were to build it, I'd keep it dead simple and create it just like this mockup. It wouldn't require an account, either, so you'd just visit it, set up your keywords, and be on your merry way.

I'm probably going to build this SEO tool whether the SEO community needs it or not. I'm just debating whether I should make it public or keep it for myself.

Comments

• Nick writes on 27/3/09
  Yes, I would definitely use this service, but as a young entrepreneur and college student I wouldn't be able to pay for it.
• Ryan writes on 27/3/09
  YES. It looks like a very useful tool but it seems the trend in the SEO community is a lot of tools are free.
• James Hua writes on 27/3/09
  Doesn't SEMRush has something similar to this? I think they only allow you to see a few of the rankings and then require you to pay more to view more.
• dan barker writes on 27/3/09
  yep, i'd use it. have been looking for something like that for years. have used various versions where it's bundled into clunky, overdeveloped software but what you're talking about is just what i need - nothing more.
  i actually do this manually at the moment with aaron wall's rank checker. i just stick it into an excel spreadsheet with:
  col 1: domain
  col 2: keyphrase
  col 3: rank today
  col 4: rank at last check date
  col 5: rank at prior check date
  col 6: rank at ... etc.
  hope that helps!
  dan
• Alana Taylor writes on 27/3/09
  Hell. Yes.
• helloandie writes on 27/3/09
  i'd use it. and i'd pay for it if more features were offered, assuming they were very useful features.
• Goob writes on 27/3/09
  I'd use it in a heartbeat. I do a more or less manual version of what you're proposing and it grows tiring after about 2 minutes.
• Fredrik writes on 27/3/09
  I'd definitely use it! With just the one feature that's described in the image, i could probably see myself paying like 10-15 bucks as a one-time fee for using it.
• mayank writes on 27/3/09
  Same as Nick Said
• Bryan Williams writes on 28/3/09
  I'd definitely use it. I don't do a lot of SEO, but I've been looking for an easy-to-use tracking tool just like this. I mostly do it manually. I've seen the stuff you've designed and I'm sure it will turn out great.
• Steve Krzysiak writes on 29/3/09
  I would use it as well. In fact, I asked about this at the last chicago seo meetup, and I was told about a few sites out there that did this. I know semrush was one, but I forget the others and my notes are at the office. Bottomline is that this would be useful and I need a tool for this! 'If you build it, they will come'
• Mark writes on 30/3/09
  It's already been done a few times for free :)
  http://tinyurl.com/cf3yo7
• Filo writes on 30/3/09
  I would use it. I like the idea of being alerted as soon as the ranking changes
• sean writes on 30/3/09
  hi matt,
  SEObook have an excellent rank checker which is already free - http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/
  Yours have a few more functions, but it not worth paying for.
• ffff00 writes on 30/3/09
  Yes. This would be very useful.
  Nice design to boot.
• Matthew Inman writes on 31/3/09
  Mark: that link you provided goes to a rank checker, but it's nothing like the one I mocked up above. Basically I want one that automatically checks for me every day and reports back.
• Curtis Ludlow writes on 31/3/09
  I'd use that!
• Jon writes on 6/4/09
  Mathew, how about this model: You let people use the simple version free, and you charge companies for a more feature-rich version. Or you create a private-label version that web marketing companies can offer their clients.
• JP Dela Torre writes on 9/4/09
  will definitely use that...
• Zach writes on 10/4/09
  I would be curious about it, and would want to use it. I've heard that search engines might penalize you for using tools that ping their systems. Maybe this is just a rumor, but it makes me wonder.
• Catalin writes on 22/4/09
  It would be a fantastic tool!
• Private Label writes on 22/4/09
  I would be interested in selling your service/software on a private label basis, please contact me
• Jim writes on 8/5/09
  Any update on this becoming real? :)
• stefano sandano writes on 8/5/09
  I would restrain from using softwares and I would hunt for juicy links manually
• Matthew Inman writes on 8/5/09
  Stefano, what does this software have to do with looking for links?
• Meredith writes on 11/6/09
  I'd love to see something like this done on an open-source basis, or at least available with an open plug-in architecture, so that a tool with a good UI can be expanded on by the user community.
• Ralph Jones writes on 14/6/09
  An seo tool sounds really great, I think you should go ahead and release it in beta and let people test it out, I know you intend to keep it simple but the feedback you receive will enable you to make the tool all the better and who knows it might be good enough to create a hype and rake in some serious $
• Matthew writes on 16/8/09
  Stop guessing if your link partners are playing by the rules or breaking them!
  www.xpelo.com
• SEO rab writes on 2/10/09
  hi Matt! I would use it
• Ben writes on 22/10/09
  seo-ranking-monitor.com
• Mike writes on 23/12/09
  I would deffinately use it. I'm always interested in finding out where sites are for certain keywords, but never get round to checking regularly.
• Scott writes on 31/12/09
  YES! I was using Digital Point's tool for ages, but that seemed to quit working for good a few months ago. I would even pay a monthly fee for a good tool like this.
• Search Engine Reports writes on 31/12/09
  OK this is weird.
  Considering we just thought up and built this tool last month...
  Considering that I would kill to have Inman make me a concept page for it.
  Considering that it is located at http://searchenginereports.net, to have Matt doing the same thing would make me cry because I know his would be better.
• David writes 3 weeks, 5 days ago
  Hi,
  This is David . I am team leader of a SEO company . I agree of your post .