Software Promotion + SEOThis blog covers a range of topics concerning the SoftTester Shareware/ Software Download site. Topics include software product releases as well as SEO and software development information and tips.

In the past few years I’ve seen many of my competitors and other software where theres a freeware or free version, which is a cut down version of the real thing. The real thing not being free.

Up till now I’ve considered other factors but not the SEO factor.

There would be more traffic, downloads and people using your software.
All of which have got to be good things.

The only down side I can think of is that people using a freeware program are possibly less likely to pay money for more features. Although I guess when I search for software I don’t start out just searching for freeware.

Apart from attracting extra sales, I’ve always considered then next biggest benefit to be, that your program gets tested more.

Has anyone else got anything to say on this subject?

by JM

Well I’ve been looking for a German keyword suggestion tool.

I translated keyword suggestion tool which translates as Keyword Vorschlags Tool.

I searched for this on google.de and found this.

http://www.ranking-check.de/keyword-datenbank.php

I did a quick search on Informationsverwaltung (which means
Information management) and found it had 259..

Geschätzte mtl. Abfragen bei Google
Which means..
Estimated monthly. Queries on Google.

So I guess this is a good keyword to have, but I’m not sure if people would use it to buy my software.
I’m currently position 19 on google.de.

Maybe I just need to figure out what keywords sell in english and translate to german…
Hmmm

Thoughts?

by JM

I’ve posted a second request to get someone to help re-write my german pages for ideaspad to get better ranking on google. I know these pages don’t have any / many inbound links.

However if we take this page as an example.

http://www.mindwarp-consultancy-software.com/de/karteikartensystem.php

What do I need to do with it?
In an ideal world and I could get someone to re-do it for me?
Or do I just need inbound links?

by JM

I wish I knew the answer to that question. But I hope to add comments to the post to help me do so.

I first tried google base when it was froogle.
If you don’t know what either is, let me explain.
Its basically a service provided by google to allow you to submit your products to googles products directory, you know when you click products on the google home page.

I think there must be some strategies to selling well.

Since I set up my shops sites I’ve had a handful of sales on one site. So this has given me confidence that I can sell well on both.

Using google analytics I’ve seen that people are using keywords to access product pages on my site.

I’ve tonight improved my datafeed used by google base to include some extra keywords.
Also I didn’t realise I was doing this already, but I’ve lifted my product description and put that in the feed a month ago I guess.

by JM

While soubmitted my new pad file I’ve obviouly been examining it on softtester.

Although I do look at pad file addition submissions and convert them to update submissions if they are re-submitted. Somehow I’ve now got 3 copies of mdbsecure on softtester. One from my old site and 2 from the new.

Although the 2 new ones are using the same author record.

Joy, just wonder how many duplicates other authors have

by JM

Now that I’ve got a new website for MDBSecure, I’d like to ditch my old site.

Change my pad file and set the new location in the old file.

I can hear you saying already, “you don’t want to do that” you have an existing / established site, with inbound links and is already on a lot of software download sites. Also got several alternative keyword pages.

Or maybe I’m just giving you to much credit

I do appreciate these points and I’m not 100% sold on the idea of ditching the old site.

I think the idea of promoting the new site with a pad file is a good idea and I think I’ll struggle is I don’t do this.

I guess another idea is to re-brand the product and give it a new name.
Although I think this is a bit of a shame as I like the name.

From a cost point of view I would like to get rid of the old site eventually.
Although I’m not sure how I could add my keyword pages from the old site into the new site without making the new site look unprofessional.

So lots to talk about there and lots of crucial decisions to make for me.

HELP!

Here’s The Fastest And Easiest Way To Increase MS Access Database Security

by JM

In a comment on an earlier post there was a question about getting inbound links. Well, getting links to a website is one of the most time-consuming and difficult activities when first trying to make a site rank well in SERPs. Although web directories are not as useful in this regard as they were a few years ago, they can still be a good way of getting backlinks. I’ve come across websites that have a PR of 3 and don’t appear to have backlinks from anything other than web directories.

When it comes to submitting your website to a directory, you soon find the process a bit laborious if you do things totally by hand. There’s a lot of copying and pasting and selecting of categories - it takes a long time. The alternative is to pay someone to do the job for you. The problem with this is that you can never be sure they put your sites into the best categories. You might also want to be in control of the sites you submit to. For example if you hire someone to submit to 500 directories and you only get accepted in 10% of them then you need to avoid submitting to the same directories in the future.

SliQTools now offer a free directory submission tool that combines the best of both worlds. The tool greatly speeds the process of submitting to directories. You set up your website details with a number of alternative descriptions and titles (anchor text) then start loading directories one by one. All you need to do is enter any required CAPTCHA to complete the submission process. Sometimes there isn’t even a CAPTCHA to enter.  The directory submission software will also help you select categories. You can specify up to 6 possible categories that SliQ Submitter will try and match when loading a directory page. Currently the tool support 450 directories but will support up to 2500 in a release later this month.

by ML

On SoftTester, one of the highest PR inner pages is http://www.softtester.com/keywords-a.shtml. Strangely this page is almost the first link on every page, i.e. the link nearest the top of the page. I remember reading a while ago that the position of links on pages can influence PR pass through. I wonder if this is happening on SoftTester?

The second highest link is the KMF ad. Does this get an unfair kick of PR?

I wonder if SERPs would improve if the “Search by Keyword” phrase wasn’t a link? could it be changed to a radio button or checkbox that is actioned only when the Search button is pressed? Alternatively, could the Search group of controls, or even just the Search by Keywords link, be moved below the main category links?

Unless the blog is drawing a significant amount of traffic I’d be tempted to move that lower down the page too - perhaps to the footer.

I’d also nofollow the Advanced link in the Search group of controls. The page it links to is a bit of a dead end in terms of spreading PR back through Softtester.

by ML

I was thinking how I could get round to climbing my SEO mountain, with all my sites and all those pages which I have to do. Also, that I’m coming to the end of one of my tasks, setting up a new site, the content and the page design, the next job would be to SEO that site.

Over the last few months I’ve tried to organize myself and work on each of my projects in priority of most potential earnings. So I’ve got plastic folders for each of my projects, one for development and one for marketing.

This started to work well, as I did one task from one folder and then moved onto the next. However some tasks may take a couple of weeks. So it could take quite some time to get round to SEO’ing a whole site.

And I really need to do the SEO and wait for for the changes to take effect. Especially on a couple of my shop sites. So if you think about it, by the time its that projects turn and the changes have got onto the search engines, it could maybe be a year.

Scary.

So potential money earning projects which have high priorities now, will never really take off, or any times soon at least

I did think the other day about putting numbers on my folders and rotating round each, but this blows my money priortiy out of the water.

I’m now thinking I should have a period of where I do lots of small SEO jobs in between tasks. That way stuff will get done. Maybe I could priortise those jobs too.

The period could be an hour a day or a day a week, not sure.

Also what would be a high priority SEO job, maybe doing the H1 and ensuring initial content on the page was good. If I was to prioritise things further that could be a long job too.

Ideaspad - An Award winning information manager for home and professional use

by JM

I’m in the process of having a major new featured added, which I believe will help significantly to bring Ideaspad more in-line with similar, more expensive products on the market.

The product does sell at the moment without these modifications.

So I believe it does have a future. I hope to add further functionality.

However I believe the marketing side of things and the website let it down bandly.

Looking at the stats it doesn’t get the page views it should.

We’ve looked at re-branding it under a different name, but haven’t come up with anything which will healp with search engine listings.

Also, the german website is very bad, I believe all the sales I get are from download sites. However, I’ve always thought that if I get the english side of things working well, the german side will follow. So I’m willing to leave the german side for now.

So where do I go from here, with the website.

I’d like to have a new site and a new name, but without the name the site seems pointless.

I’d like to keep the Ideaspad pages and have the new named product aimed purely at business and add industrial strength database functinality.

Ideaspad - An Award winning information manager for home and professional use

by JM