Memo: Ditch the SEO consultant, we’ve got Hubspot

If you don’t know it, Hubspot gives you a 30 day free trial of their marketing software. I decided to use the free demo to see if it would make a good fit for some of my clients.

After about a week of fiddling around with it, the benefits are becoming obvious.

I’ll be reviewing the whole pack throughout this month. But for now, this post will concentrate on the SEO tools.

In terms of SEO optimization, the Hubspot Dashboard recommends that you first create a keyword list. Hubspot suggests keywords for you based on your present keywords or a URL.

I found the tool worked fine and gave similar results to Google’s AdWords. Once your list is created, you can filter it by making different campaigns and assigning your keywords to a particular campaign. You can also export the lists to Excel sheets - standard.

Out of curiosity, I tested the “get (keyword) suggestions” tool on a Danish language website to see how it would do. The results were fine.  (That is, if you speak Danish)   

After creating the list, Hubspot like Google, ranks the keywords according to CPC and searches. They also advise you, as they do in the SEO-focused eBooks they publish, to target long-tail keywords. 

They recommend that you go for the low-hanging fruit or keywords with a higher number in the Searches column and a lower number in the Difficulty column.  You can organize your keyword list by these criteria.

As with the other steps I’ve demoed, they basically hold your hand and walk you through the process, which is always nice. They also offer lots of tutorials to help you move along.

Low Ranking Keywords

Interestingly,when I tried to get keyword recommendations based on my keywords I was given this message:

Problem: Your keywords are ranking in search results, but only barely. If you make it to page one, your visits may improve dramatically.

How to get there:

1. Get inbound links: Generate more inbound links to the pages ranking for these keywords.
2. Improve on-page SEO: Click on each keyword to see which pages the keyword is ranking for, and to fix the SEO bits that need improvement.

This makes perfect sense as my website was created without these present keywords and I have never utilized any inbound linking strategies.  

Because I am using my site for this demo, I will begin integrating the keywords and optimize my site according to their SEO recommendations.

Screenshot of the "Page Optimizer"

Optimizing my website

 

Hubspot’s website optimizer is a great tool for your SEO. Upon reviewing my website’s pages the “optimizer” pointed out the many SEO problems existing on my site.

These included everything from a lack of using my keywords (we know why), to meta descriptions missing, “alt” texts on my various images, inbound links as mentioned, and much more.

All very standard operating procedures in terms of inbound marketing strategies but nice to have them catalogued and spelled out, so you can go through your site step by step to fix them.

Again, as part of this demo, I will follow their recommendations on my pages and report what happens.

Should you take the SEO consultant for a ride?

I don’t want to put anyone out of business but this is a pretty robust tool. I worked with an SEO expert with one of my clients and he basically provided the same info that Hubspot is giving me – albeit at a slower, more costly pace.

Does that mean curtains for him and his colleagues?

After I make some of the changes and incorporate some of the keywords I’ll get back to you. There are also many other features in Hubspot’s toolbox to investigate so my aim here is to consider the ROI on the whole pack, not just SEO – although I’m already impressed.

There’s also plenty of other SEO do-it-yourself kits out there if you are just looking to ditch the SEO consultant. But again, I’m not interested in putting anyone out of business and every organization has their own needs.

About Andrew Singer

I provide cost effective communications and inbound marketing services to a wide variety of Danish companies that do business globally. From hi-tech firms like Siemens and TrackMan to more mainstream organizations like Carlsberg, Coloplast, Novo Nordisk and the Confederation of Danish Industry, I deliver strategic creative development and English copywriting expertise.

Check out examples of my work on my website www.andrewsinger.dk or online portfolio.