The New WebPosition Gold 3 . . . Definitely Worth the Wait

At the special request of my students, I've taken a long look at
WebPosition Gold 3 (http://www.webposition.com), and I can
honestly say I'm amazed at how this software program has matured
and developed through the years.

Let's take a tour of the most popular software program in the
search engine marketing industry, and let's see "what's new" in
WebPosition 3.

The New Interface . . .

When you first open the software, past users of WebPosition will
be surprised at the totally new interface. It's clean, simple,
and quite appealing. You can still click on New or Open on the
top toolbar to start a new project or open an existing one, or
you can click on any of the icons on the left-hand side of the
screen.

Important: If you experience any problems connecting to the
Internet via WebPosition, try adding WebPosition to your accepted
programs list in your firewall software. Or, you could try
temporarily disabling your firewall to see if it's related to
that. If you still have any problems, simply write to
help@webposition.com. WebPosition is well known for having a top-
notch tech support department.

Wordtracker Keywords . . .

With WebPosition 3, you can now conduct keyword research with
Wordtracker right through WebPosition 3! If you don't have a
Wordtracker account, you'll be using the free trial version of
Wordtracker, which means you'll be researching using the MSN
search engine and Keyword Universe. If you have a Wordtracker
account, you can enter your Wordtracker username and password by
clicking on the Edit menu on the WebPosition toolbar and
choosing, "Wordtracker Settings."

Important: Since WebPosition 3 now has the Wordtracker keyword
area, if you have a Wordtracker account, should you cancel that
account? No! Unless you're going to be happy with the free trial
version of Wordtracker, don't cancel your Wordtracker account.
Instead, use the WebPosition 3 interface to pull up your existing
Wordtracker account.

Reporter . . .

Though this feature isn't new, my favorite part of WebPosition
has always been Reporter, and it still is. This one area is worth
the cost of the entire software program.

As search engine marketers, it's important to keep up with your
search engine rankings. You need to know which pages are ranking
in the top 30 for which keywords.

While it's important for you to know your rankings, remember that
you don't need to check your rankings every day or even every
week. Once a month or once every other week is sufficient.

Use moderation! Don't check hundreds or thousands of keywords
across several domains. Don't hammer the search engines. Remember
that you're using their resources when you check rankings. Run
ranking reports at night PST.

Page Critic . . .

After creating your pages, you'll want to run them through a
software program for some last minute checks.

For example, is the page too long? Too short? Are you overusing
your keyword phrase? Underusing it?

WebPosition 3 offers some very helpful suggestions that you may
want to consider.

With WebPosition 3, they've introduced a "Generic Search Engine,"
which I'm particularly pleased about. Over the last few years,
many search engine marketers no longer create engine specific
pages, so having a generic choice in Page Critic will be
extremely helpful.

Tip to make Page Critic easier to use: When you first begin using
Page Critic, you may find it easier to focus on the Page Averages
section only. Click on that tab at the top of the Page Critic
results. Go through each of the suggestions.

But, if you can't make the change or if it doesn't work for you,
move on. Don't spend hours stressing over it. If you want to work
with other sections of Page Critic after you get used to the
program, you can certainly do so. But by cutting down on the
amount of information you're focusing on in the beginning, you
may feel it's not as overwhelming.

Mission Manager . . .

I'm very impressed with this new addition to WebPosition! But
first, let me explain what "missions" are.

Every time you work on a project in WebPosition, you're creating
a "mission." For example, when you run a ranking report on a
particular domain, you're running a Reporter "mission" on that
domain.

When you run a page through Page Critic, you're running a Page
Critic "mission" on that page.

Mission Manager lets you manage those missions from one central
location. I can see where this area will be particularly handy
for those people who manage several domains. You can see at a
glance which missions are scheduled to be run and at what times.

WebTrends Analytics . . .

This one area of WebPosition is a little confusing, mainly
because WebTrends has many different software and Web-based
solutions.

However, please don't let the choices stop you from trying
WebTrends. Analyzing the traffic to your site is a crucial "next
step" to success for your online business, and WebTrends has
always been a leader in log analysis solutions.

In the beginning, why not try WebTrends On Demand, which is a
Web-based service where you're given a small amount of code to
cut and paste to the bottom of each of your Web pages. When you
want to check your log files, you can log into their Web site.
It's an easy-to-use, cost effective solution that you'll
certainly want to consider. (Trial version:
http://www.netiq.com/webtrends/products/webtrends/trial.asp)

Cost Remains the Same . . .

One thing that has really impressed me is that WebPosition has
kept the cost of this new version the same, though they certainly
could have justified a price increase. Plus, if you have a
current version of WebPosition, you can upgrade at a 50%
discount. Very fair! (Trial version:
http://www.webposition.com/order/trial.asp)

In Conclusion . . .

WebPosition Gold 3 (http://www.webposition.com) has once again
proven to be the leader in search engine marketing software. This
exciting new software program deserves a long look by anyone in
the SEO industry.