Raven Tools has been around us for more than 5 years and I have to say we @seo_pal also use it a lot. For us it is a great way to show the benefits of our work to the client. Since we think Raven Tools is suitable for every webmaster, who is responsible for more than 5 websites, we decided to make a getting started for Raven Tools and show you its most important features (at least to us).

Link Manager

The Link Manager is the feature we use most. There we upload all links we have created to the client’s website and track them. The best thing about it is that it alerts you in case something happens with the link – for example – URL has 404, 500, 302,301 status code or the anchor text is changed. Additionally the Link Manager allows you to add lots of information about your links, so you can easily get them organized. Here are the fields, you can fill in if you want to important lots of links to the manager:

Column header: Status

• Queued
• Requested
• Active
• Inactive
• Declined

Column header: Link Type

• User Submitted
• Content Exchange
• Paid (Permanent)
• Paid (Temporary)
• Blog Comment
• Organic Link
• Indirect / Other

Column header: Link Text

Column header: Link URL

Column header: Website Name***

Column header: Website URL

Column header: Website Type

• Social Media
• Personal Blog
• Corporate Blog
• News / Media
• Community
• Directory
• Other

Column header: Original PR***

Column header: Contact Name

Column header: Contact Email

Column header: Content ID (located in the Content Manager)

Column header: Cost*

Column header: Cost Type (Payment Frequency)*

• One Time
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Yearly

Column header: Payment Method*

Column header: Payment Reference*

Column header: Start Date*

Column header: End Date**

Column header: Creation Date (leave blank unless you want to force it to a past date)

Column header: Comment

Column header: Owner Name

For more information and a sample visit this page. Addittionally, you can use the Link Manager and its integration with the users and tasks. This will allow you to keep track of the link building efforts carried by different people.

Research Central

The next great feature we love about Raven Tools is the Research Central. Although, it is currently being further developed, the Research Central works quite well and allows you to analyze your website for crytical onsite issues, backlinks, organic search competitors and new keyword opportunities. Here is a video overview of all features that the Research Central have to offer:

The best thing about using this tool is that you can easily push all your data to the rest of the Raven toolset. For example, if you find profitable keywords, you can get them tracked immediately by just clicking on them. It sounds easy and it really is!

SERP Tracker

No matter what you are doing to make your website more visible in the search engines, you need to have a tool to track your results. There are many SERP trackers out there, but using them for more than 100 keywords, usually gets you banned from Google for a couple of hours. In Raven Tools, the SERP tracker updates every week and you get your data by Thursday latest. Beside your rankings in various search engines, the SERP tracker also keeps your keyword history since the time you actually added the keyword.

Keyword/Competitor Manager

All keywords you select for your SEO efforts will be placed in the Keyword Manager. It allows you to also see their Adwords local search volume and other statistics. It is very important to remember that not all keywords present in the Keyword manager have their rankings tracked – you have to choose which to track and which not.

The Competitor Manager on the other hand allows you to find your top competitors in Google organic search based on your keywords and then search see how they perform their SEO efforts by digging into data about their backlinks and lots of other information. Here is a quick video about both features:

Social Media Features

Raven Tools also comes packed with lots of social media tools that allow you to monitor mentions of your product, brand or any keyword that is important for you in various social media websites. You can create monitor of 20 of the most popular social networks using the Social Monitor and additionally you can create separate ones for Twitter, Facebook and Youtube + get detailed reports about the activity for your accounts. The best thing about the social media features of Raven Tools is that you can create a Social Stream on topic important for you and keep track of it, participate and answer questions related with your business.

To Sum Up

Raven Tools can be quite useful for your business, if you want to keep track of your marketing efforts. Since it is not limited only to SEO tool, it can come quite handy for managing Adwords, social media and brand management campaigns. If you want to see for yourself, try the Free 30 Day Trial.