SEOPressor – Godsend? Or Garbage?
SEOPressor has been cleverly branded by it’s creators as ‘Your Mandatory WordPress Plugin’
Nice sales pitch, but I beg to differ.
Don’t wanna spoil the surprise too much but the headline of this post probably gave the game away already – SEOPressor has been officially confined to my trash and I don’t plan on recovering it.
This is a first in the Blogger’s Alchemy ‘Friday Tools and Resources for Bloggers’ series. This tool simply doesn’t pass my quality control standards. I’m a fair guy though, so it’s going to get a fair trial before the aformentioned banishment to the bin…
‘The Truth’ – An Impartial Review of SEOPressor
SEOPressor is an ‘ensuite’ SEO guide which tells you what to tweak in your posts to maximize their potential to rank well in the search engines.
All well and good – Everyone wants to be ‘up top’ on Google, right?
Of course we do, and SEOPressor can help you get there. Here’s how:
Every time you publish a post or page, SEOPressor sits beside your post editing box and offers a simple little ‘to do list’ for your in post SEO.
Follow the guidelines it sets out, and you’ve got the basic ‘on-page SEO’ factors sorted out.
As well as listing the factors still to be addressed to optimize your post fully, SEOPressor gives you a percentage score to let you know how well SEO’d it is.
Here’s a couple of screenshots to let you see it in action:
Why SEOPressor gets the ‘Thumbs Up’
- SEOPressor is great for learning SEO. It’s handy as a reminder of some of the elements you want to cover when you’re writing, optimizing and tweaking your post. For the complete beginner, I have to admit it does make it easier to get all the key SEO elements in place for your posts.
- For that same reason, it would be helpful if you wanted to outsource post writing to someone who didn’t have a basic grounding in SEO, or want to check a guest post or similar for general SEO at a glance.
- I like the percentile scoring system to ‘rate’ the optimization of my post – not because it’s useful, I just take pleasure in getting high scores. Daft really.
- Although I haven’t used them SEOPressor has ‘site-wide settings’ designed for optimizing large autoblogs (just for the record, I no fan of autoblogging, but I do admit this is a clever concept)
- Also, I have to admit that I got all my first #1 and other high rankings in Google with SEOPressor. And for that I’m genuinely grateful.
But there’s another side to the coin here…
Why SEOPressor gets the ‘Thumbs Down’
- The sales page is full of tripe, balderdash and nonsense (aka ‘BS’) such as “it will put all those so-called SEO Professionals out of a job” and “You also know that SEOPressor will catapault your WordPress website to the top ranks of the search engines and drive massive amounts of traffic to your website 24/7 all on autopilot”Now that’s a crock of doggy doo.
- The implication is that SEOPressor is the sole key to high rankings in Google. It is a key – but alone, it will only get you ranked for very quite search terms, and you’ll do better if you know what it does but don’t use it.Want the top spot for serious money or traffic searches? You’re gonna need a lot more than this tool on your team.
- It encourages high keyword density which almost amounts to keyword stuffing, encouraging an optimum of around 3-4%. 2% max is fine. Not only does this limit the related keyphrases you may otherwise rank for, but it also makes for crappy reading. Put simply, you don’t need the same phrase 23 times throughout your content.As I mentioned in my post 9 Reasons Your Blog is Generic and How to Make it More Unique – You can smell and SEOPressed post, and it’s not a good smell.
- It wants you to add your keywords to an H1 header tag within your post. Although it’s good to have an H1 tag on the page, WordPress themes generally assign an H1 tag to the blog title or post title with the H1 tag, and you don’t want more than one on each page. So it’s just plain bad advice from SEOPressor (apart from looking bad)
- You can get other in-page analysis tools that do the same job FOR FREE. The one I recommend is WordPress SEO by Joost De Valk. It’s comprehensive page optimization analysis gives more precise recommendations than SEOPressor, and it does a whole (huge) heap of other stuff. Oh, and did I mention it’s free? Couple it with my free Blog post SEO cheat sheet (see below) and SEOPressor is largely redundant for most bloggers.
The Verdict (As if You Didn’t Know)
Don’t buy SEOPressor.
By all means have a squizz on the ‘other side of the fence’, and read what it’s creator, Daniel Tan, has to say about it.
If you’re completely new to SEO and don’t mind spending almost $50 to make ranking your blog as easy as possible, it’s probably right up your alley.
Or if you want ‘at a glance’ insight into the optimization of other people’s posts on your blog, it could well be worth looking into SEOPressor.
Otherwise – there’s far better ways to spend your ‘cashola’ (starting with CommentLuv Premium)
Still determined to have a look at it? (I almost recommend it just to check out how suspicious – but persuasive – the sales copy is) Be my guest. This is my SEOPressor Sales Page link.
Here’s My ‘SEOPressor Alternative’ Recommendation
But my recommendation is that you get install WordPress SEO, and download my free Blog Post SEO Cheat Sheet (by clicking on the +1 button below)
Got anything to add? Love it? Hate it? Uncovered a use for SEOPressor that will persuade me to eat my words and download it all over again? Share your thoughts in a Comment Below
Don’t forget to check back in every Friday for more Blogging Tools – I’ve got some very interesting stuff lined up for you.
Screenshot image incorporates adaption from Pitch-In by dvs – CC 2.0
SEOPressor: Why I threw a $47 WordPress Plugin into the Trash © 2011 Blogger’s Alchemy
Here at Blogger's Alchemy, Jym shares simple tips, tricks, strategies and techniques to make blogs remarkable, successful and exceptional. For a long time, he felt like his blogging career was going nowhere fast. That is, until he learned and implemented the things that you'll learn if you stick around... Get the best from this blog by Subscribing Now
facebook comments:
Hi Jym,
A nice unbaised review of SEOPressor, actually I had been thinking of buying this tool for quite a while now but after I read your review then I came to know that it is not worth it. As far as I can see the function seems to be quite similar to WordPress SEO by Yoast offers so I do not think it will be a good idea to waste extra money. I would have thought otherwise if they were offering some extra features
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Hi Jym,
I have heard about SEOPressor, but never tried it. I find many of these SEO plugins/tools overhype what they can actually accomplish. It gets to the point that it become unbelievable.
I have WordPress SEO installed and have enjoyed using the tool. It may not display such a long checklist as other plugins, but it does enough in terms of SEO to help out. You also can’t beat the free price tag…well actually you can, but I don’t think Joast will be paying users of his plugin anytime soon.
Your review is probably one of only honest reviews about the plugin, mainly because everyone else is trying to make money by selling it.
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Hey Jym, I’ve actually used SEOPresso when I did a guest post on Miss Ileanne’s blog and I thought it was kind of cool.
I agree with the H1 tags part of to but I thought I did a pretty good job of not keyword stuffing that post even though I got the required keyword amount. Then again maybe that is because I am an exceptional blogger
Having said that I think I’ll give it a miss and continue doing it my way
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I’m sure it’s because you’re an exceptional blogger Sire!
Ileane’s blog is an example of where SEOPressor does have some value, since it makes it far easier for her to monitor the optimization of posts from so many folks…
But I stick to my guns, for anyone with a basic grasp of content SEO, or willing to put in a small amount of effort to get the information from less ‘immediate’ sources (such as those mentioned in the post), it’s not a worthwhile investment…
Thanks for dropping in mate
Jym invites you to read…Magnetic Headline Writing Made Easy – 5 Simple Steps to Dynamite Headlines
As is your Right Jym.
Of course you realize that when I stated I was an exceptional blogger it was tongue in cheek
Sire invites you to read…How To Really Improve Your Bounce Rates
Very Interesting Jym. I know many people are very impressed with it… but of course it is nice to hear both sides.
It is really amazing the amount of work people are willing to do for free by building great plugins such as the WordPress SEO plugin.
Many times things are free… but with that said, you can’t knock the creators for charging for it.
It sounds to me that it would indeed be a great reminder to check density, etc.
To be honest, I tend to ‘stuff’ a bit … quite by accident sometimes… not 100%sure if I’ve been hurt by it or not.
I am still looking forward to checking out the above free one you mentioned.
You are just cranking them out these days Jym. Having a heck of a time keeping up with what you’re upto.
Best
Jayne
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I agree Jayne, nothing wrong with charging for our work and there is a lot of free content and tools out there online these days, which makes it increasingly difficult to do so unless you have some real value to give!
But the whole marketing concept of ‘Moving the free line’ is what drives a lot of marketing sales funnels on the internet… WordPress SEO is a great example – I’ve gained so much value from it that I’m largely sold on anything Yoast, it’s creator, produces.
As for keeping up with my activities – I’m having to make some considerable effort to keep up with them myself Jayne… Thanks for making the effort to pop by and comment!
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I bought a similar piece of software called Easy WP SEO a couple of months back. Don’t know if that is what you are referring to when you mention WP SEO?. I have used it on three of my sites and thought that using it would highly optimize the site but I’m not so sure now. I have one particular site that was ranking number 1 on Google page one and was making me quite a bit of money. Then all of a sudden it dropped right off onto page 2 near the bottom and that was the end of the site making money. Is it possible that this plugin could be responsible for the drop?
This is the plugin site’s URL – http://easywpseoplugin.com/. Would really love to know what you think?
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When I mentioned WP SEO I was abbreviating ‘WordPress SEO’ which is a little different from either SEOPressor or Easy WP SEO, but has some functionality which covers the same areas (in post and on page SEO) – amongst other things.
I highly recommend using it, it’s a free plugin which takes care of some ‘under the board’ SEO stuff automatically, as well as making it easy to add keyworded meta data, as well as giving feedback on your content SEO.
I’ve never used Easy WP SEO, though it seems to be a more ‘powered up’ parallel to SEOPressor. I’m not sure about your rankings dropping as a result of Optimization – unless it’s giving bad recommendations which Google is reading as keyword stuffing or some other attempt to sneak up the search results.
I think the rule with any of these ‘one size fits all’ Optimizer plugins is to bear in mind that Google’s getting smarter, and doesn’t need so much of the heavy keyword, all boxes ticked, italicized and underlined stuff anymore.
With basic optimization (follow my cheat sheet or the suggestions in WordPress SEO) in place, it’s better to spend your time building quality backlinks, which are a much ‘heavier’ ranking factor anyway (once Google knows what your post is supposed to be ranked for)
Hope that helps Peter. I’d love to know if you find out more about your ranking drop and this plugin… Thanks for the comment
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I thought that the SEOPressor would get me huge traffic, but unfortunately it also brought my ranking down, so i just throw it away and stuck to my old and gold SEO rules..Now am happy!
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SEOPressor is superfluous on your own posts if you have a basic grasp of content optimization.
Thanks for sharing your experience Sara.
Jym invites you to read…How to use Strategic Blog Commenting to Market Your Blog
I’m glad I was directed here after seeing your post on the BMMC on Facebook! This is good information to know. I thought it would do more than your description of it says.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve read that having a GOOD headline that draws people in is more important(even for Google) than having the keywords at the front. Then again, that’s my problem…I never know for sure what to believe!
But I DO definitely believe you!
Thanks.
Well I appreciate your trust Paula! I do my best
Part of my issue with SEOPressor (though this is rife throughout the online marketing world) is that the propaganda about it inflates it up to be some kind of total solution for getting ranked and watching the traffic and $$$’s roll in. But it isn’t true.
It does have some usefulness, though (more in the comments below than in my post) that’s been mentioned here as well.
To be honest I’d say it’s vitally important to have good headlines. And sacrificing those for keywords isn’t the way to go.
But the art of writing killer headlines which are also devised for maximum SEO benefit? That’s an art in itself.
The other plugin mentioned here – WordPress SEO – allows you to get the best of both worlds though. The title of the post, and the SEO title don’t have to be the same: One crafted for the search engines, one for sharing and purely for the reader with a far lesser focus on keywords.
I agree with your problem though. Find sources you trust and check things out for yourself!
Thanks for coming by.
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I find that SEOPressor is actually ideal for people who are primarily NOT bloggers, but do blog, and who want a super easy to use memory jogger in their post editor to prompt them through the stuff that does not com easy to them.
However, I also carefully tell people that there are alternatives and that it is not a plugin that anyone with fluent SEO understanding needs.
I am going to have to disagree with your H1 remark on two points. The first is that there is a setting in the admin panel that lets you mark that your theme has the h1 in the title. No biggy, flip the switch. The second is that there is a video by Matt Cutts that says that multiple instances of the heading tags is not a fault. This would imply it hasn’t really hurt those that didn’t know any better. He stresses not to be spammy but that multiples are not necessarily bad. Some folks still argue that G doesn’t use H tags at all, but I’m inclined to believe they do. I tend to pay attention to what I can document Matt as having said.
Regarding their sales page however, I completely agree with you that it is full of BS. The most glaring problem is that “In Post SEO” is only a portion of the game, and on site aspects (post-panda) play a huge role. And then lets not under estimate the power of backlink even post-panda.
As your points in closing mentioned, there ARE people that want an in-post cue-card AND never want to invest the brain space to memorize any of this. There’s nothing wrong with that – but there is something wrong with those that act like this is a cure-all to world hunger!
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Yup Kim… There’s still a hole in the ozone layer too…
Thanks for adding such a comprehensive comment – I’m glad to know of the Matt Cutts video, I’ll track that down.
There are so many ‘theories’ about all the elements of good SEO that it makes sense to get what we can from the ‘horses mouth’
I have to say my slightly over-dramatic negative opinion of SEOPressor is probably fuelled at least in part by the sales copy, so I’m happy to find others agreeing with me on that score!
Great to have you here and thanks for sharing.
Jym invites you to read…How to Write Great Blog Posts in Half the Time
For me, the plugins usefulness to some people stands on its own outside of the sales page. Regarding that sales page however, Daniel Tan destroyed his reputation in my eyes when he released a FB Fan Page app that he touted as seen on CBS/etc (major news networks). If you followed that trail you discovered it was nothing more that that they had republished a press release he’d paid to have syndicated and that he personally had wrote. So it was accurate but underhanded. I stand behind there being some uses of the plugin and that it does good things for certain types of readers – however, everything that comes through his email list I always know to look at real carefully.
Kim
Kimberly Castleberry invites you to read…CommentLuv Premium Giveaway!
Several people seem to agree that SEOPressor is good for beginners, which I pretty much still am. However, it’s for WordPress. I’m on Blogger. Is there some plugin/software that would work well with Blogger, preferably free, that you would recommend for SEO optimization?
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Have to say I don’t know Christian.
How about changing over to WordPress
Will let you know if I hear of anything.
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Hey Jym,
Thanks a ton for the review on this software. I’ve been reading alot in to similar products, and it’s always good to eliminate the bad/useless ones first before wasting time and money on them. Sorry to hear you lost that $47, but at least you are now able to warn everyone else before they make the same problem.
The problem with some of these softwares is that purchasing them makes you an affiliate – so often it can be hard to find honest reviews from people who aren’t trying to sell you the software!
I don’t mind too much abut the cash. We live and learn. But I do think that SEOPressor – is very much over-rated.
Thanks for your comment Matt
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I like it, honest and straight to the point. I have used the SEOPressor plugin for a while and I think that it is in fact a great tool to “guide” you through the process of optimizing content.
And thanks for sharing such a good tips to us.
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Sure, some like it and it is a ‘hand-holder’.
I still maintain that for most people, the prie could be better spent elsewhere.
Anyway – glad to have more points of view here, thanks for sharing.
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Hi Jym,
Very interesting review. I am glad you shared it as I was looking into buying SEOPressor. Now, of course, I changed my mind. I pretty much know how to optimize my posts for SEO, so it would be a total waste of money.
As far as WordPress SEO I installed it after watching Kim’s video but got lost in some of the settings so I uninstalled it and went back to All In One SEO Pack. Guess I need to take another look at it and install it again
Thanks for the reminder!
Ilka
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I’m sure that at you’re level of SEO knowledge and blogging experience that this wouldn’t be worth it for you Ilka.
Unless you’re planning on having a lot of guest posts or one of the other possible scenarios mentioned below in the comments…
I still love WordPress SEO, and certainly find it easier than All-in-One. I know there’s other who prefer All-in-One though. I may well do a post on WP SEO soon in fact, it probably sits up on a pedestal with CommentLove Premium as one of my favorite plugins!
Thanks for your comment, and I agree with your decision about SEOPressor.
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Hi Jym,
I have to say I own SEOPressor too but deactivated it a few weeks after I bought it, mainly because I just found it annoying.
I could add all the keyword elements it suggested myself because I knew enough about this to do so but I can definitely understand that it would help someone just getting started.
Also I don’t always want to write a keyword structured post. As much as these get ranked, they are often just very boring posts in my opinion.
Anyway Jym I was quite pleased to read your review as I did feel bad for at least 5 minutes when I de-activated it.
~Marcus
Sounds like a similar experience to mine Marcus.
I think the bottom line that’s come out of this post and discussion is that SEOPressor does have some validity as a tool to help the beginner at on-page optimization.
I regularly write posts with complete disregard for keywords for the very reason you shared here. Even done subtly it changes the flavor of a post in some way, and sometimes it’s nice to simply write…
Glad you were only sad for 5 minutes mate
Thanks for the comment!
Jym invites you to read…How to be More Productive by Harnessing Your ‘Ultradian Rhythms’
Things would definitely be easy with SEOPressor, but if a person have enough idea on optimizing a page, I guess this would be pretty useless. Anyway, $$ worth of it won’t be a big deal for those people who earn lots of money. But for newbies, its pretty expensive to start their online ventures with this additional costing. Nice points you have there!
That’s the deal exactly Greg.
For those beginners who aren’t making anything from their blog, laying out almost $50 for a plugin can be a big deal.
And the returns from this one simply aren’t what they’re hyped up to be.
It certainly has it’s uses (check out Ileane’s comment below for a good example) but unless you have a big budget to spend on plugins and gadgets for your blog, I don’t recommend it.
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I checked Ileane and read some cited advantages of having a SEOpressor. As for other bloggers, they would recommend Yoast plugin because its for free. They said that its function is almost simlar to the SEOpressor, but haven’t really discovered the advantage of the latter plugin. Any idea?
Personally I’d be happy to pay for Yoast’s plugin. Without going into too much detail here (I will in a post sometime) it:
- takes care of multiple important SEO elements of your blog
- allows for easy control of Meta-Data
- Gives feedback on the optimization of your post for a keyword or phrase
- Offers related keyphrase suggestions
- Probably some other stuff too.
Highly recommended, if you ask me!
Jym invites you to read…How to use Strategic Blog Commenting to Market Your Blog
I use Seopressor just because I bought it in the start, as everybody said its a good tool at the beginning. Though I still use it to check my old post and see for what else they can be optimized etc.
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That’s much the same for me Sanjeev.
Over time I learned to ignore some of it’s recommendations, then deactivated it when I began to found it increasingly unhelpful for actually optimizing my content properly.
Nothing wrong with running it against old posts, since you have it, you may as well squeeze out some value!
Thanks for coming by and commenting mate.
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WOW Great post love it sooo much
because I was thinking about buying it with Keyword winner!!
now i don’t think i will
maybe the creator will hate your for this review lol^^
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Probably he will Faissal. But I’m happy to stand by everything I’ve said here.
Besides, I don’t think I’ll make much of a dent in his revenue!
I actually tried keyword winner for a short time, but didn’t keep it, again I found it didn’t offer much more than I could get from other tools. Between WordPress SEO (yup, same one) and Market Samurai, there was imply no need.
But I didn’t test it thoroughly, others may be able to give you a better idea of how useful that one is.
Jym invites you to read…Marketing Your Blog: How to Make Your Readers Need You
Great post here Jym. I was actually about to get this plugin. I pretty much agree to everything you’ve said. I will be checking out the alternative plugin you’ve mentioned here. Thanks for sharing this and it’s definitely a great review! Keep it up!
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I highly recommend WordPress SEO anyway Pete – it does a whole load of stuff and is right up top on my ‘compulsory plugins’ list.
As with anything I recommend checking it out for yourself. The purpose of this post is to diffuse the spin about this plugin – the claims made in SEOPressor’s sales copy are outrageously hyped up and it simply isn’t that wonderful, in my opinion.
Thanks for coming by mate
Jym invites you to read…Marketing Your Blog: Know Your Perfect Reader
Jym I came to your site from a comment post you made at Ming Jong Blog. But I am in love with your blog. Your candid review of SEOPressor professionally is great with a professional presentation. I have added your blog to my list of fav. Keep up the good work
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Thanks for the kind words Henry. I always appreciate it when new visitors tell me how they found my blog as well.
Glad you appreciate this post, I have tried to be as candid as possible.
I find it’s all too easy for us as online marketers to get swept along with the need to promote the products we are affiliates for – even when, deep down, we know they don’t deserve to be promoted!
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Hey Jym,
I have been on the verge if buying this tool for a while since I saw it and used it when guest posting on comLUV (or BlogEngage, not sure).
But, I just couldn’t get what all the hype was about. I mean, it simply points out basic things that any bloggers needs to know.
I mean, if you are that far in your blogging that you can afford to buy tolls, then you probably know these few SEO rules and you would be implementing them anyway (don’t most bloggers?). So I really dont see whats so especial about it.
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This is exactly the point Satrap.
If you are beginner blogger without a big budget, there are numerous better ways to spend 50 bucks, and this stuff can fairly easily be learned and implemented using a cheat sheet and free plugins as mentioned in the post.
Over time, once you get used to what’s required for good content optimization, there’s no need for the training wheels, even if you do then have a budget to afford them.
In short – it has it’s uses, but the hype is just that. Hype.
Thanks for commenting mate
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Jym,
I don’t have time for detailed comment right now so I figure that a short one is better than nothing! I have So Often wondered about this plugin and if I should be using it and recommending it to my clients. I definitely don’t want to border on keyword stuffing. I downloaded your “cheat sheet” and cant’ wait to look at it. Needless to say, I won’t be recommending this plugin to anyone, but I will be recommending this article!
Thanks again for another great post!
Jupiter Jim
Jupiter Jim invites you to read…WordPress Tutorial: Add the Latest Version of Google Analytics to your WordPress Blog
No problem Jim, sometimes the ‘short memo’ does just as good a job!
Look there’s clearly different schools of thought on this as can be clearly seen from the comments, but my view is that it’s not worth the investment.
That said, for someone running a blog with loads of guest posts (read Ileane’s comment below) it’s of far more value, and it does make it somewhat easier for beginners to grasp the content SEO process.
Thanks for the support and recommendation, I appreciate you coming by mate
Jym invites you to read…How to be More Productive by Harnessing Your ‘Ultradian Rhythms’
I like it, honest and straight to the point. I have used the SEOPressor plugin for a while and I think that it is in fact a great tool to “guide” you through the process of optimizing content. In a way, I will tend to agree with you in the longer term as once you get familiar with the “ropes” of content optimization, then this plugin will most likely of less use. Like Ileane said, it also boils down to the type of site you are managing. In her case, I think that SEOPressor works extremely well as most the guest bloggers tend to “forget” certain things when writing a post. Being there alone reminds them of that. If you ask me, I still recommend the plugin, specially for those who are just beginning. Eventually, when you are used to optimize your content, then it might be of lesser value.
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I do like to be honest DiTesco
Look I basically agree – there is some silver lining to the cloud, and Ileane’s situation is definitely one in which SEOPressor has a role to play.
Also, as you say, it can help to ‘learn the ropes’ but I’d still recommend the checklist and pending the $47 on something with more real value to a beginner.
Anyway great to have your view here too mate, I appreciate your visit and comment.
Jym invites you to read…How to use Strategic Blog Commenting to Market Your Blog
Hi Jym,
I have a different experience with SEOPressor and here’s what I did to avoid some of the pitfalls.
The first thing I had to learn the hard way was about the H1 tag. For some reason it was not sinking in and to make matters worse my setup of the plugin when I first installed it added to my confusion. Finally, I discovered what I needed to do is check the box in SEOPressor next to “H1 tag already in theme for Post title.” therefore as long as your keywords are in the title there’s no need to add a second H1 tag and you will not get a warning from the plugin.
You know what’s really funny, all of the older posts where I had the second H1 tag are the ones that rank higher in Google search – so I left them alone.
Also, I turned off underlining and italics but I left but the plugin will bold the first occurrence of the keyword – I’m experimenting with that one and might turn it off too eventually.
Now I think you already mentioned in a comment on my SEOPRessor Review post that you understand how handy this plugin is for guest posters. In fact it’s now a requirement for anyone who wants to guest post on my blog to use WordPress and the SEOPressor plugin. This way each guest is reminded to do 2 important things that the Yoast plugin doesn’t do:
1. Add deep links to my other posts
2. Stay on track with their topic (because of the H2 & H3 tags)
For the high volume of guest post that I receive, it’s so much easier for me if I’m not getting posts emailed to me all the time. Actually, at this point, it’s pretty annoying for me to get guest posts by email. Keep in mind, some bloggers don’t even know what keywords are or how to use them – so in that sense SEOPressor is like a tutor for them.
btw – please feel free to let me know if you want to do a guest post.
With that being said, I love the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin. Kimberly Castleberry did a fantastic video, showing step-by-step set up that I highly recommend that everyone check out. The reason I say everyone is because, even if you don’t use the plugin yourself, you never know when you’re going to do a guest post and the blog owner has WordPress SEO installed. With Kim’s instructions you will be much more confident in filling in all of the elements required by the plugin. Here’s a link to the vid.
http://just-ask-kim.com/3-things-to-improve-your-seo/
Thanks Jym for your review and for stopping by my blog to with your feedback!
Ileane invites you to read…Review of the SEOPressor Plugin For WordPress
Hi Ileane, I’m glad to have your perspective here too – there certainly is value to SEOPressor and I’ve given it a fairly rough treatment in this review.
As you highlighted, beginners can certainly benefit from it (although a tight budget could be well spent elsewhere in my opinion).
Also – and this is where I’m super grateful to have your input here – a blog with a high volume of guest posts (like Basic Blog Tips) has a very real reason to use SEOPressor to keep both guest blogger and host aware of the state of optimization within posts.
In fact, that’s the one situation I’d highly recommend it.
Thanks for sharing Kim’s link – I’m intending to put an introduction to WP SEO together sometime and I didn’t realize she’d made that video. It’s a very cool plugin, but certainly has a few layers of depth worth getting one’s head around.
As for your invitation, I would certainly love to contribute to your blog and will be getting in touch soon…
I appreciate your comment here and perspective here, and very glad to be invited to participate at BBT. Thankyou Ileane
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Jym,
Thanks for the honest review. It’s uncommon for people to write about a product and NOT recommend it. Especially in this niche.
50 bucks sounds awfully expensive for what that plugin does.
I agree with your advice about the use of H1 — it should never be used in the post content of a WP blog — and also keeping KW density to a reasonable level.
No one’s getting rich because their on-site SEO is just amazing. It’s a combination of on and off-site, with a rather large bias towards the latter.
Regards,
Bruce
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‘Large bias towards the latter’ – absolutely Bruce.
Have to say part of what drove me to write this post was the constant stram of ‘this plugin/tool/course is amazing blah blah’ reviews across the internet marketing genre.
Just because we’ve bought a product and have an affiliate link, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to sing it’s praises…
The thing is, if I had $50 to spend to improve my blog, or SEO, SEOPressor would be far off the top of the list, and I think it gets far too much credit considering what it actually has to offer.
Thanks for commenting mate, I appreciate it.
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Jym,
Simply awesome. I have used SEOPressor to help guide me through my novice blogging period. I must say, it has helped me to learn some seo tactics and it might be good for a new blogger to eliminate some time while learning.
SEOPressor articles do tend to stand out with their cookie cutter style layout. I also learned that keyword density should be in a range of around 1-2.5%.
You learn as you go. Even if someone has spent the money, it’s all part of the learning process.
Thanks for sharing your guide.
Steven Schmeltzle invites you to read…SEOPressor Review – Is SEOPressor Really Worth It?
I agree Steven, and as someone who has spent the money on this plugin, I can also say that I learnt things on several levels which I’m very glad about.
I certainly don’t want to completely discredit SEOPressor’s validity in certain areas – as a set of training wheels for on page SEO is one – though I feel it’s pumped up to be something it’s very much not, and doesn’t deserve the price tag.
Additionally, following it’s recommendations to the letter will actually limit the degree of optimization possible.
Thanks for coming by mate, I appreciate the comment.
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Seriously Jym! I liked your review. I find that SEO Pressor is a very basic tool and there are many tools and guides helping us do the same for free (including your guide). I like WP SEO plugin by Yoast! It simply rocks!
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It sure does Saksham.
SEOPressor can make things a little easier in the short term, but it can’t offer any value that’s not available for free via other resources.
WP SEO rocks indeed! Thanks for your comment mate
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Hi Jym,
Thank you so much for sharing this great review! I have just installed WordPress SEO at your recommendation! I have found that a lot of the free plugins are of very high quality. I’ve only paid for one or two and the rest I use are free.
Thanks again!
Stacy
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I’m the same Stacy – generally there are free versions or equivalents of many premium plugins.
Often they do the job well enough (or even better!) – But occasionally there’s simply no substitute for the premium option.
SEOPressor is an example where forking out the cash simply isn’t worth it, in my opinion.
WP SEO is one of the best free plugins around – I’d love to know how you find it…
Good luck and thanks for commenting!
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Great post, Jym.
Personally, I think that the SEOPressor and similar plugins are geat for beginners to always be reminded to optimize their contents, while also reminding them of where to place keywords in posts.
In my keywords placement post, I made sure to tell my readers that they buy it if they would be lazy to pull up their written checklist every time they write a post.
After a while, one will naturally do the optimization without the need of the tool. It’s a checklist, that is nice to have (for beginners) but they can do without, if they use a written checklist.
Yoast’s WPSEO is clearly a great plugin especially since it can replace a couple of other plugins, besides SEOPressor.
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Thanks for sharing your take on this too Stella.
I like the way you’ve put this and I tend to agree. SEOPressor is a good ‘lazy bloggers’ plugin, and certainly has some value for that reason.
The thing is, after a short while, it won’t save any time, and following it’s suggestions to the letter will actually diminish the optimization of a post.
WP SEO is one of my faves, and comes right up at the top of my recommended plugins list.
Thanks for visting and commenting, good to see you here
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Jym- Thanks for a thorough review. For some reason, some people equate “free” with worthless. A free app or plug-in can be just as helpful (or even more helpful) than one you pay too much for. And I couldn’t agree more about stuffing a post with keywords. The only word to describe that tactic is cheezy!
I’m going to check out SEOPresser.
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Writing primarily for search engines is a guaranteed way to de-value your blog in the eyes of your readers Lisa – cheezy as you say!
I agree with your point about the way ‘free’ products are viewed. The thing is, there’s often other kinds of value and exchange going on in addition to the price tag – even if it’s just being added to someone’s email list.
Thanks for your comment
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A while back a friend of mine was pushing SEOPressor pretty hard. I haven’t heard him mention it lately, now I’m curious why.
I just downloaded and installed the Yoast WordPress SEO. I need to play with it a bit and see how it works for my next blog post.
I appreciate your honest review of SEOPressor.
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I’ve done the same thing myself Brian.
All too often online, bloggers and marketers seem to get ‘seduced’ by effective sales copy into buying products, which are not always as useful as the makers would have us believe.
Then they sign up to the affiliate program, and promote their ‘shiny new object’ to others regardless of the actual benefit they receive from them.
THe problem is that your readers will trust you less if they follow your recommendations and end up spending money on products which simply don’t help them.
With all that said, I believe that the only way to really get an idea of whether something is helpful is to ignore the reviews and try it out for yourself!
Love to hear how you get on with WP SEO, it’s one of my two favorite plugins. I ought to give it a write up sometime…
Thanks for coming by mate, I appreciate it.
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Hi Jym,
thanks for sharing this impartial review. It proves once again that the best stuff online often is available for free and that the pricing of many products is purely arbitrary, completely unrelated to their quality.
Be blessed
Oliver
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It certainly is Oliver.
There’s so much quality information and so many good resources online available for free. Many paid tools and resources are simply unnecessary if you know where to look for free alternatives.
SEOPressor has its uses, but as noted in this review – if you only have a small budget for your blog, it’s an awful investment.
Thanks for coming by
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