Are you an online business owner or a marketing executive looking to get your numbers up? If you rely significantly on ranking to gain exposure, you may have heard of different SEO tools and online marketing solutions to improve your business position. SpyFu is one such tool designed to give you a competitive advantage in your business niche. If you are new to SEO, you are in luck. Also, if you’ve already heard about SpyFu, but are yet to decide if it’ll be good for your business, then this SpyFu review will be of good value.
With this review, you’ll see all that there is to know about SpyFu, as well as the features and benefits offered. In the end, you should be able to decide if SpyFu is right for your business.
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SpyFu Review: What is Spyfu?
In this section first section of the SpyFu review, we’ll take a look at what SpyFu is, as well as provide an overview of the tool does.
SpyFu is an online keyword research tool that offers a competitive advantage to business owners/digital marketers who need to improve their online search performance.
With the aid of its web-scraping technology, SpyFu crawls the web for any relating-data with the keywords that other websites/companies buy for online advertising (Google ads).
In other words, SpyFu spies on your competitors by matching keywords that drive the highest traffic to give the extra edge you need to stay ahead of competitors. With SpyFu, you’ll gain insight into keyword types and also how strings of words appear on the result pages of Google search.
While many other software solutions provide related digital marketing solutions, SpyFu is one of those tools that focus on competitive analysis, or in other words, ‘spying.’
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SpyFu Overview
SpyFu came into the business scene in April 2005 and was established by Mike Roberts, who is also the CEO of Velocityscape.
This online marketing solution started as a web-scraping project and has significantly evolved, experiencing steady growth with customers in the range of thousands.
Asides ‘spying’ on keywords, the data SpyFu gathers, helps to approximate how much websites spend on advertising campaigns. Companies also use SpyFu’s data to determine the cost of an advertising campaign they want to embark upon.
In fact, in 2008, during the US presidential election, SpyFu’s data was at the forefront in revealing the keywords that election candidates were adopting for advertisement.
Overall, SpyFu has been consistent since it came into the scene, making it not only a real-time tracking solution but also a guide for future projections.
SpyFu Features
SpyFu takes pride in the product’s ability to reveal competitors’ strategies for search engine optimisation. In this SpyFu review, we’ll be looking at the features offered by SpyFu that make it good at what it does and touch on how it’ll benefit you. Let’s begin.
1. Keyword Tool Alternative
This SpyFu feature is used for obtaining keywords that match your preference and is straightforward to use. Once you type the keyword and search, the software generates results streamlined to your needs. You can select from the number of filters such as search volume, cost-per-click and advertisers etc.
2. Domain Search
With this feature, you can initiate a domain search. You’ll have the liberty of connecting easily with domains to discover new strategies and competitors you don’t even know exist.
3. AdWords Advisor
You can use this feature for keyword suggestions. It comes in handy when you’re clueless about the keywords that best suit your niche. The software will generate enough recommendations, all to improve your ratings significantly.
SpyFu makes all searches easy; select any of the recommendations, then type them into the search box. What you’ll get is not only a list of keywords from your competitors but also words that will significantly help your profitability.
4. Keyword Grouping Tool
This search feature also generates reports that bring related keywords into the same group. Altogether, it’ll give you a proper idea of the topics other sites are being ranked highly for and the order of appearance of those topics.
Also, arranging related keywords into the same group, the software will generate CPC data, the number of clicks per day, and search volume.
5. Keyword Ranking History
This SpyFu feature can track any website or keyword ranking history. Furthermore, the software can analyse and give an insight into how your competitors’ performance was in the past. This report may include the strategy that moved them forward or backwards. This way, you’ll know what to focus on and what to avoid.
6. Backlinks Search
This SpyFu report will give you information about any website’s backlink profile. For any given backlink, the SpyFu software will display the domain’s strength, including its traffic per month.
There’s more, you’ll receive the backlink profile according to type, so you can gain an understanding of the kind of site that gives you or your competitors more backlink. Again, a single keyword is enough. Once you enter and search, the software generates a list of backlinks and sites that will likely promote its ranking.
7. SEO Spying
Just as the phrase suggests, this feature offers the liberty of spying on your competitors’ SEO strategies. You’ll receive feedback about content and changes in the ranking of competitors.
This spying feature also lets you on information about the upcoming competition. You’ll also see websites that are ranking well with the same keywords you are using.
8. The 3-way competitor research feature
This feature makes your SEO easier. Instead of spying on one competitor, you’ll have the opportunity to spy on as much as three. Simply enter the three competitors and search. The result you’ll get will be a list of profitable and high-ranking keywords these competitors are using, that you are yet to adopt.
9. PPC Competitor Research Features
SpyFu’s software also focuses on pay-pay-click. With this feature, you can keep tabs on PPC competitors, search for PPC keywords and track PPC adverts rank.
10. Keyword Rank Tracking
This feature is what you’ll use to keep track of your website’s position in Google’s search ranking within a stipulated period. You can also use the feature to keep tabs on your competitors’ performance. As valuable as this tool is, SpyFu doesn’t execute the frequency of its operation too well. For the most part, the rank tracker updates every week
11. Competitive Analysis
The reports the above features generate, help you understand your competitors’ marketing strategy. You can not only identify your competitors, but also the keywords they utilise.
12. Top Organic Competitors
You can generate a report about websites with the highest organic search terms similar to yours. This is called an organic Kombat report, and it displays an interesting Venn diagram with details on the top competitive site. A click on any portion of the Venn will display at a glance what websites have in common. As such, any possible intersection in keywords. It’s an impressive feature that helps identify where your competitors outrank you in terms of organic searches.
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SpyFu Review: Pricing and Plans
In the section of the SpyFu review, we’ll take a look at the cost of the SpyFu software. Unlike some SEO programs, SpyFu has no free version. The lowest package is the basic plan which is available for £30 if you are paying monthly, or £19 if you decide to pay for an entire year. The good thing about SpyFu pricing is all available plans have unlimited domain, backlink, competitor, keyword search.
Also, all plans come with unlimited data export. However, the basic plan has a maximum number of 250 sales lead, domain contacts and 5000 track keyword rankings per week. You’ll also get ten domain and PPC reports.
There’s a second professional plan for £30 for the first month and £59 for a subsequent subscription, or £44 per month if you are paying annually.
There’s a significant difference in what you’ll gain with the professional plan as you’ll have a whopping 500 leads and contacts while tracked keyword ranking is 15,000 per week. Furthermore, you’ll receive a customised report under the professional plan.
Finally, on the pricing, SpyFu offers a “team package” at £220 every month or £150 per month if you allow annual billing. Here’s an at-a-glance view of the three plans of the SpyFu platform.
Basic Plan
(£25/month-annually or £29 for every month payment)
- Unlimited domain overview PDFs.
- 5,000 weekly tracked keyword rankings.
- 10,000 top lists results.
- Ten small domain SEO report.
- Unlimited search result.
- Unlimited data exports.
- 250 sales leads & domain contacts.
- 10 AdWords Advisor PPC report.
Professional Plan
(£36/month-annually or £58 for every month payment)
- Custom branded reporting.
- 30 AdWords Advisor PPC report.
- Plus all features of the Basic features plan.
- 500 sales leads & domain contacts.
- 15,000 weekly tracked keyword rankings.
- 50,000 top lists results.
- 10,000 API rows returned.
- 30 small domain SEO report.
- Ten medium domain SEO report.
Team Plan
(£150/month for annually or £220 for every month payment)
- Five user logins.
- 2,000 sales leads & domain contacts.
- 40,000 weekly tracked keyword rankings.
- 75,000 top lists results.
- Unlimited small domain SEO report.
- 30 medium domain SEO report.
- Ten significant domain SEO report.
- 10,000 API rows returned.
- Unrestricted AdWords Advisor PPC report.
- White labelling.
- Add all Professional features.
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What Are the Pros and Cons of SpyFu?
Like every product, some great and not-so-great side, here are the pros and cons of SpyFu.
Pros
- The tool is great for finding paid and organic search programs.
- Reveals your top competitors.
- SpyFu’s database has extensive years of Google data (which is the most popular search engine).
- Amount of data on a competitor is extensive.
- Can help with future projections.
- Results also come in easily readable graphs illustrating the landscape of competition.
- It’s impressive that data covers PPC.
- 30 days Money back guarantee.
- No limit to data.
- Learning from competitors’ mistakes is a huge plus.
Cons
- Data can be difficult for SEO-newbies to handle.
- Fundamental keyword rank tracking capabilities.
- Data can be overwhelming and challenging to navigate.
- As with any database, there are limits.
- Equally, the data it generates is dependent on what’s available in SpyFu’s database.
- The generated data only an estimate and is not 100% accurate.
- Data reporting is not extensive for some industries such as biotechnology, life science research.
- Geo-locations, where rankings are coming from, is not easy to decipher.
- Other countries can’t buy in as data is strictly available for the US and UK- based industries.
- Can be confusing how to choose correct keywords based on recommendations.
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SpyFu Review: How Does the Keyword Tool Fair?
At this point of the SpyFu review, we’ll look at an overall view of the software. To be honest, an overall picture will be a bit cumbersome if we are going to address it from the stance of every feature. So, let’s touch on some of the key areas instead.
1. Keyword Search
First, SpyFu’s keyword research is easy to handle with the single keyword search. All you need to do is to type in a simple keyword, and the magic just happens. Tons of data starts to roll out.
For every keyword you search, SpyFu will unfold cost-per-click, ranking, the difficulty of keyword, number of clicks per month and number of searches per month. What’s impressive about this feature is the ability to sort your keyword search in various understandable categories.
2. Ad Click-Through Rate
Here’s another pass for SpyFu, the platform can generate average ad click-through rate, meaning how often web users are clicking on an advert when searching the keyword you entered. Furthermore, we won’t rate the SEO difficulty that much. It’s better than having nothing, yet it’s not a comprehensive data.
SpyFu’s ability to tell you the number of clicks to expect each month is just another bar set high. Overall, when it comes to keyword researching, SpyFu is doing pretty good.
3. Competitive Analysis
In the area of competitive analysis, we think the software lives up to its name here. You can instantly check your closest competitors by entering a domain, whether its organic search engine optimisation or Google ads. Altogether, competitors’ highest-ranking keywords pop-up just like that.
That’s not all; the list of all the adverts your competitors are cashing-in is exposed to you, including their advertising budget. You’ll even get a full history of their rankings and backlinks.
4. Tracking Result
Yes, our next stop is the tracking result. A search engine optimising tool is not standard if it doesn’t have a proper way to track results. Permit us to say, the coders and the brains running the show at SpyFu knows this too well. From your SEO to PPC ranking and your most aggressive competition, all the reports are available easily.
So, you’ll know it’s time to bring in the big guns and take your place in your industry. On the downside, the fact that the ranking result comes weekly is a little disappointing. This report should have been a daily or ‘every other day’ report. Still, the tracking result is decent enough.
5. Backlink Analysis
Looking at SpyFu’s backlink analysis, the approach is pretty different. You’ll notice that the software measures your domain against that of the competition is a traditional way. Still, the analysis of the keyword is an entirely different ballgame. When you enter your chosen keyword for ranking, the software analyses every top ranking website and their backlink profile.
You then get a list of the highest backlink opportunity within your industry or niche. The implication here is that SpyFu is prioritising quality over quantity of backlinks. While quality is a good thing, the possibility of missing out on other opportunities is possible.
6. User Interface
Generally, the user interphase is fantastic, however, there’s room for improvement, especially in data organising. The SEO veterans don’t have issues when it comes to data analysis, but the newbies can find the data organisation a bit too overwhelming. As you know, SpyFu delivers tons of data with a single search.
7. Pricing
It won’t be fair not to touch on the pricing because everyone wants to know if a product or service they are trying to buy into is worth it. SpyFu’s lowest plan goes for $39 a month, which I think is fair, considering it has many unlimited features in common with the professional and team plans. Besides, SpyFu’s lowest plan has features alternative SEO tools don’t have, e.g., unlimited data.
Overall, SpyFu presents excellent features that will do your business a lot of good. The platform’s features are brilliant, keeping it very simple by making it easy to access tons of reports trough a single keyword search.
Nevertheless, Spyfu may be lacking in some areas, e.g generating ranking reports on a weekly opposed to alternative software like SEMrush which turn in ranking reports daily. Still, it’s not a bummer if you aim to improve your business position in the industry. Also, the pricing makes SpyFu attractive, especially if you are on a budget.
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Honest SpyFu Review: Conclusion
SpyFu presents an excellent digital marketing suite that offers you a competitive style of SEO management to improve your ranking. The all-in-one system makes searches easy by a single keyword or domain and generates tons of data about your business and the competitors. The pricing is also fair. However, lacking in some areas that alternatives like SEMrush can fill in. Should you get SpyFu for your online business? That’s totally up to you. If you are on a budget and need an online marketing solution that’ll improve your position, we suggest SpyFu.
