SEO Elite

In 2004 & 2005, SEO Elite was the hottest piece of internet marketing software on the planet. In many ways it heralded the end of Web 1.0, showing the canny webmaster how to quickly manipulate the search engines to provide top rankings for reasonably new sites.

In the early days of the web, when search engines were pretty unsophisticated, webmasters frequently created a directory of sites that they recommended surfers mught also visit.   When that process was reciprocated, the process became known as Reciprocal Linking.

However, as webmasters became a little more sophisticated, they discovered that having links from other websites (even when they had nothing to do with your own, gave a website gravitas and better search engine ranking. Thus the Reciprocal Linking industry was born.

What made SEO Elite so revolutionary was that with just the url, it could analyze the incoming links of any website, noting all the websites that were linking to it...enabling you to approach those websites for links as well.  At the time, SEO Elite could turn a new website into a successful website within a few months (perhaps even weeks!).

That is no longer the case!

By 2006 that bubble had burst as the search engines' algorithms became more sophisticated and these backlinks were seen to be less meaningful than they had once been considered. 

Personally, I had always considered the "getting links" thing really time consuming...and I'm glad it's not as important as it once was. Instead, I concentrate on getting backlinks via other methods  such as writing articles, which is easy for me because I'm a natural communicator. However, for those who aren't...

Why SEO Elite Can Still Cut the Mustard

So, why am I bothering to waste your time telling you about SEO Elite?

Well, simply because I still use it...and it still works beautifully when used in the right way (see this recent and quite specific  SEO Elite testimonial)!

SEO Elite is actually 8 (now 7, project 3 seems to have disappeared) software packages housed under one name and it's really worthwhile checking out the sales page, because the well-made videos (all of them) really explain SEO Elite's capabilities much better than I could. 

However, here are my text versions: 

Project #1 find out the incoming hyperlink text on the top ranking sites' pages. This provides you great natural-like data if you can control the link text of your incoming links (e.g. through the resource box for posted articles...see Article Marketing) 

Project #2 this used to be the biggie, finding top ranking sites for reciprocal linking. Nevertheless, it's still a great way to find complementary websites and a back-slapping link exchange can still create great results (e.g. I mention/mini-review your site and you do the same) Restrict it to e.g. 3 pages in a 100 page site and it can appears very natural and become mutually beneficial.  

Project #3 No longer there

Project #4 Find out if your sneaky link partners are no longer linking to you...and you're unknowingly bleeding Page Rank to them. I don't use this function because I don't participate in reciprocal linking any more...but if you do, it's a very important part of site maintenance!

Project #5  Find out where you rank for any keyword in the major search engines...and how it's been going over days, weeks, months etc. I tend to use this project to monitor new web pages.

Project #6   Find out which of your pages are ranked in the major search engines. If they aren't, start getting some deep linking links.

Project #7  Similar to project 2...but in relation to authority sites. I don't use this function.

Project #8 a directory submitter. This project has now been released as a FREE tool by SEO Elite's makers, Bryxen Software, though the PRO version has greatly expanded capabilities.

As you can see, I only use this nifty piece of software for a fraction of what it used to do because I no longer exchange links. However, if you didn't have one-way links being created by:

• articles &
• Article Underground's traffic system
• a publicity buzz
• a great blog etc.

...SEO Elite would be a pretty good investment as reciprocal links are much better than no links! Once again, here's that post from the SEO Elite forum, it's well worth reading for just how effective reciprocal linking can still be...and how much cash it's made this little business online and offline in a very short time!

I think that the key is to only link to related sites, preferably within your normal text or perhaps as references at the bottom of your pages.

What Google Thinks About Reciprocal Linking

Here's Matt (the unofficial voice of Google) Cutts take on Reciprocal Linking. Incidentally, that link, the link in this paragraph, is exactly the natural sort of linking that he's talking about. Now if I could only get him to link back to me!

SEO Elite