salegurus

With Market Samurai experiencing a rough time lately i thought i would give SECockpit a try.
Firstly i don't like tools with a monthly fee but they have a 30 day refund period so i bit the bullet and signed up for the business-class package.

Here is a summary of my full review:

1. The range and diversity of the keywords – You can greatly increase the number and diversity of keywords you are searching for by using the SECockpit Google Suggestions and Wonderwheel options.
2. Competition Analysis – Most significantly, the competition analysis makes use of data supplied by SEOmoz.
   In the event that you are not familiar with SEOmoz, they crawl the internet and gather their own search data and metrics which are far more comprehensive not to mention more accurate than what Google offers.
3. SECockpit is a web based App – Meaning the application is Operating System independent because it runs in your preferred browser.
   It also comes with the advantage that your IP address won’t receive a temporary ban from Google for performing too many requests in a short period. In addition, because the processing is carried out in the cloud, the results tend to be fast, even if you are on the economy plan.
4. Integrated Project and Job Management – I have as yet not used the project and task abilities of SECockpit, I can see that they would be useful for some people, even though I suspect most users wouldn’t bother with it as they have their very own methods for tracking their projects.
5. SEOmoz on it's own costs $99 per month, if you get SECockpit you pay less plus you benefit from all the SEOmoz data.
6. Makes it easier to find keywords in niche's that are less competitive but still have good search volumes, this feature is more intuitive than MS comp module, you don't have to click keywords individually to get an overview of the competition.

I need to spend some more time using SECockpit before i decide weather i can bring myself to pay another monthly fee.
I would like to hear what other users think about SECockpit.

PS! I am still using Market Samurai, just hope Alex and crew can get it stable again.

Cheers

herriott51

I don't like the monthly fee but ... for my circumstances I think the software is extremely valuable, and I don't know of anything else that does what it does.

Assessing competition on the basis of the basis of "number of competing pages" has never made sense to me so for my niche blogs I used to painstakingly check scores of keywords one by one to examine the characteristics of the top 10 ranked sites using Market Samurai's SEO module or Traffic Travis's similar (free) module. Then I sped things up with webcompanalyst which allowed me to check the characteristics of the top 10 ranked sites for a bunch of keywords at the same time, but it still could take hours for a long list and it wasn't always reliable and sometimes stopped working only part way through a list.

By making the keyword search and the competition search simultaneous (and fast), SECockpit is saving me hours, plus it's finding me (in minutes) winning keywords I would never have found even in hours, and the improvements they say they are going to add to the "Expand" functionality makes it even more powerful.

The way the software interprets the SEOMOZ data to come up with a simple bar graph estimate of the difficulty for getting positions 1-3, 4-7 etc is never going to be perfect but single-click access to the SEOMOZ data for the top 10 means I can make the same eyeball judgment call I used to make, but with arguably better data, and in minutes, not hours.

Now, for someone with few web sites the monthly continuity model probably doesn't work - just get your research done and walk away for a 1-month cost. But for anyone working with multiple sites and adding new ones regularly, the non-trivial monthly premium is a pain in the wallet but might well be profit-justified. I'd rather not be paying so much but I have no doubt that I'll make a lot more money as a result of it, than I'm paying.

One feature I'd love to see ... to be able to plug my own keywords in there and not rely on Google's.

Another ... for the top 10, the domain's age and whether the keyword's in the url and the title, to save me a few seconds of eyeballing.

Steve

bfas

I've had a chance to play with SECockpit pre-release, and I've been *extremely* impressed.

My business revolves around keyword research; reducing the time it takes me to find keywords and apply the -right- analysis to them is worth it's weight in gold.

SECockpit is one of very few applications that gets my full recommendation and is promoted in the "Adsense $100k Blueprint" forum.

Michael

MikesTraffic

+1 very good stuff

daddykool

Its a really cool service and has some very interesting +'s compared with MS, however the brand name just sucks BIG, if it was called something else other than Cockpit, it would sell far better! :-)

Sam Haenni

Thought I'd jump into the conversation. Together with Shane Melaugh (IM Impact - Shane Melaugh's Marketing Site) I'm developing SECockpit.

@salegurus: thanks so much for your review!

@herriott51: thanks for your motivating feedback! I've added your ideas for the "top 10 results" (age, inurl) to our development list! A Keyword Import feature is in the works & should be ready for release soon.

@bfas: thanks too for your awesome review! looking forward to next week's webinar!

@daddykool: thanks for your honesty :-) any suggestions for a better name? I think the biggest problem is that there's another product out there called SEO Cockpit. I called it SECockpit, because originally it was meant to become a tool for SEO and SEM Marketing. The focus has shifted to SEO now.

Cheers Sam

herriott51

Hi Sam.
I appreciate your willingness to listen to and respond to feedback ... actually, your *pursuing* the feedback.

This is the #1 keyword tool for me at the moment, and the enhancements you're planning will extend the gap between you and the competition even farther.

The SE Cockpit versus SEO Cockpit name issue is not good for you IMO, glad you're open to changing it, and hope you find something more suitable. During the webinar where I was introduced to this, when you gave out the name and the link, you were having to correct people messaging you with problems because they were misreading it as seocockpit, if I recall correctly.

Cheers,

Steve

oda

SECockpit has been great to use for me, i am New to the porgram about 2 weeks and have been able to dig up some pretty cool keywords in competitive niches.

The competition analysis is simply awesome and the ability to see the TOP ten sites and have all that data about their site gives you an excellent idea of what your up against as far as competition is concerned.

Probably the best feature is the task List!

Get this, once you pick your keywords and commence a project the software literally gives you a list of things to do that will increase your ranking faster. It is a complete No brainer Just log in, look at your task list for the project and complete the tasks Listed. If you've got some time SECockpit will just give you a few more things to do.

Frankly I love the program and was sitting on the webinar just waiting for the order link. I was very surprised to get access for the price asked, It is a steal.

If your considering this program get on it now before Sam and Shane raise the price, because beleive me this is worth a lot more than they are charging right now. Get in on the next webinar and you'll see what I mean.

Take care all

ODA

rody

I see that the cheaper package doesn't include the wonder wheel and google suggest keywords...is it better to just go for the bussiness class then? I would rather get the cheaper version but I'm sure I would be missing out on lots of great keywords...

salegurus

Maybe Sam could give a better answer...
If cost is a factor why not try the economy plan i am sure you can upgrade.
Yes you will get more keywords but a lot of them may not relate directly to your seed keyword plus they will have very low exact match search volume.
But like you said you won't get the full benefit meaning you could miss a good keyword.

Cheers

msudawgs56

Where are y'all seeing prices? Can someone help me with prices? Thanks

Sam Haenni

Users who come in now are locked in at the current prices. This means you can upgrade at these prices for as long as you remain a member.

Regarding Google Suggest and Wonderwheel - I guess most people just use the related suggestions the Google Keyword Tool provides. With these additional sources you do have a new approach to research, which does in my experience return keywords you probably wouldn't find otherwise.

Sam Haenni

Unfortunately, SECockpit isn't publicly available yet. However, we are currently holding several Exclusive Webinars, where we're letting in new users.

Simply sign up on secockpit.com and you'll get an invitation.

daddykool

Will do Sam, bit bored today so will have a play on a more appealing tool name for you, that maybe encompasses the niche for it!

msudawgs56

Signed up...

AUKev

I have not used the product and have been on the fence. I was extremely impressed with the webinar I was invited to check out. I have been using MS for 6-8 months and have been happy with the results, but it seems as though this product will remove a bit of manual searching for those 'gem' keywords. Was hoping for a one off price. The monthly model is the only thing that has kept me from jumping in. May jump in to lock in the pre-release price even if I just stay in for a few months to analyze the value. I do a ton of deep searching for keywords, looking for decent kw with low to medium competition. This tool appears to do that well and fast.

Tony Shipp

It hard to pay monthly from something you want use on a daily basis. Keyword research and competition analysis are very important, but once its done you are finished. Unless you publish pages/sites frequently, you wouldn't use this enough to justify the monthly payment.

Natlex

Hmm I seem to have bugs with it that in adwords it gives me no search results as soon as I put a minimum number. Also, not being able to log in an adwords account at business is quite annoying, doesn't feel like this is slower than alternatives to me even if I greatly enjoy the competition analysis. Currently I would actually use SEcockpit only to gauge the competition quickly if I could insert a large list of keywords that I gather somewhere else faster (like maybe even the normal adword tools were I could select 800 results).

IMSeoPlan

Just a question, comparing NF that brad callen created and this online keyword research tool, what are the major differences? hmm

IMSeoPlan

Just a question, comparing NF that brad callen created and this online keyword research tool, what are the major differences? hmm I recently bought the NF and I use traffic travis to do some competition analysis which is pretty similar to MS in one way or another.

I've been receiving emails from Michael as I'm also part of adsense100k members but haven't got the chance to listen to the webinar due to some time constraints that I have in the office.

Just like to know what are the key points regarding advantages and disadvantages.

sentient

How do you lock in at the pre-release price? I haven't been able to attend a webinar because of time differences, and can't see anywhere to sign up to the tool when it's released.

Natlex

Secockpit is in the cloud, NF is not

Secockipit is way more expensive if you intend to go beyond a month because to compare it to NF were you can add a google login by default you need the $50+/month subscription at SEcockpit (really disappointed by that personally).

I've been comparing how they both judge competition metrics for keywords and I know Secockpit uses SEOMOZ data (pretty sure anyway) NF probably just uses basic data (yahoo backlinks etc). Either way, I did not see major discrepancies of how either returned difficulty numbers for similar keywordsin most cases, but overall SEcockpit is a bit more accurate (I tested some of the keywords I myself reached number 1 on and the difficulty I perceived in reaching them)

Pubster

Michael can you give a quick rundown on how and what parameters to use for Adsense KW Research with SECockpit....I have had SECockpit for quite a few months now....been with Shane a long time...
PM if preferred

bfas

I'll answer here for the benefit of others, and will copy a PM to you.

We're working with Shane and Sam and are in the process of building a custom "Adsense $100k Blueprint" profile for the 'tasks' section which will translate the Blueprint's 'step-by-step' section so that you'll be able to execute the entire A100k plan from within SECockpit - niche & keyword research, domain name, and ranking steps.

In terms of the particular keyword criteria, it's simply a translation of the criteria in the book: minimum daily search volume of 80-100, CPC's of $1, and competition such that you can realistically achieve top Page 1 rankings.

One great benefit of SECockpit is that the competitive analysis takes into account all the factors we want to look at, and actually provides accurate assessments. This is perhaps the single hardest thing to get 'right' - and makes this app worth it's weight in gold, literally!

BTW, thanks Shane and Sam for the *terrific* webinar you did for our A100k customers; I've gotten a ton of great feedback!

I have to say, this is the the tool to get. Period. Forget Micro Niche Finder, forget Market Samurai. This is head-and-shoulders above those tools for serious users, or anyone who is serious about this stuff.

Michael

cypherslock

Is there a trial version?

anislagan

After seeing the monthly's, I hit the browser 'x' button.

bfas

I don't know about a trial version - the app hasn't been released publicly yet - but the offers available through the webinars carry a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Michael

cypherslock

webinars? Where? I did a search online, only thing I came up with was an opt-in page. I'm trying to find info, screenshots, price, etc...?

ShaneRQR

Sorry, there is no public access to SECockpit yet. There won't be until sometime in May - maybe even later.

You can opt in and we'll send you an invite if we do another webinar.

Keith Price

"Literally"??? LOL!

How much does software weigh, exactly? And, THAT's how much you're saying this is worth?

bfas

Well let's see, the app is actually in the 'cloud', and while clouds float, they're made up of dust and water vapor which have mass. If we figure it as a gram per cubic meter, and an average cloud size as a thousand cubic meters, that's uh, let's see, one thousand grams; current price for gold is appx. $1400/oz., with 28 grams/oz., that gives us $50/gram, sooooo, that would mean for SECockpit, worth it's weight in gold, at a weight of 1000 grams and gold being $50 per gram, we have an approximate valuation of $50,000 - which makes the webinar discount *especially* attractive!





Michael

ShaneRQR

Well played, good sir.

Traxior

I'm using TrafficTravis, Bogan Marketing Rain Man, and several other software in my toolbox to search keyword. Well, i used to do that. I bought SeCockpit some hours ago and find it extremly useful for my searches. And all the time saved that I can spend smoking more cigarettes or something else is just brilliant.

Ok, it wont do everything, but im not sure if im gonna bother looking for cool niches when i get the diamond function. But yes, i have found something that im not happy with, but the perfect software only exist in each users brain...

TBInternetMarketing

Yea not a fan of the monthly fee either to be honest. Do they offer a column to indicate the commercial intention of the keyword? I.e. is it a buying keyword or a browsing keyword.

kellio48

I'm also not keen on the monthly fee and think it's dying trend with so much new software now being developed with a once off payment.
I also think that 30 days is not enough time to properly evaluate the product as it's not enough time to learn how to use it, implement it and evaluate the results as a niche marketer which really can only be done over a longer period such as 6 months or so in several different niches as most successful niche marketers are involved in more than one niche..

Incidentally, if anyone has not yet seen a webinar, Daniel Tan ran one a few days ago and can be be seen below.
http://whitesquareim.com/s/webinars/...it-daniel-tan/

Wechito

I have been using SEcockpit for maybe 2 months now and I only have good words for it.

I totally agree with what others are saying about the data SEcockpit uses and how it interprets it. Here is what I want to add:

- Great usability. The interface is very clean and intuitive.

- You can be working with different tabs at a time. While the application is, for example analyzing the data for a specific keyword, you can switch to other tab and play around with another keyword.

- You can organize your keywords using colored tags, what it a great visual aid and use folders to group and organize keywords.

- It works very fast.

Nowadays, it is my main keyword research tool and I will strongly recommend it.

ShaneRQR

I'd like to quickly address the issue of the monthly pricing that some have brought up.

First of all: I understand that no one prefers monthly fees. We'd all like to get everything for a one-time fee (preferably a fee of $0, right?).

However, it's very important to understand why there's a recurring fee for this product. We didn't just make something like MS/KE2/MNF and decide to charge monthly for it because we like money.

What SECockpit does can not possibly be done from a desktop application. SECockpit runs off of very powerful servers and does staggering amounts of data processing on hundreds of threads, involving proxies and all sorts of technical stuff that I don't even begin to understand (Sam is the tech genius behind all of that).

It also pulls in data from SEOmoz which is the best damn SEO data you can possibly get, gathered by their crazy server-farm where they crawl the web and do an insane amount of data-crunching and testing to emulate Google as closely as possible.

As you can imagine, this data isn't free.

Every search you do through SECockpit costs money. Offering this for a one-time fee is simply not possible, because we'd go out of business if we did that.

If you are new to SEO and keyword research, then I can absolutely understand that you might not see what the fuss is about or why we would have to charge a monthly fee. But I think everyone who's used other tools extensively and has "been around the block" has seen very quickly that SECockpit is a very different beast from other keyword tools.

And in terms of cost: If you're doing a bit of niche marketing for digital products, what does it take to cover the SECockpit fees? Two or three commissions a month? Something like that.

Anyway, just wanted to clear up the monthly fee thing.

aclacy

Was on the webinar, I just can't justify it's monthly recurring expense. Rather give it a miss.
The would have been better off selling as a once of $197 product IMO.

Mike Grant

MS does all this, too. MS also pays for Majestic, theoretically costing for every search. They've made it work quite successfully.

bfas

Here's what seems to be missing from this thread:

SECockpit is using different, better data, which leads to better, more accurate results. In other words, you will get more accurate actionable opportunities.

If your goal is to find keywords from which you can make money - usually translated as more keywords that you can effectively rank for, and fewer misleading avenues - then this is the app.

How much is that worth? If you know how to take advantage of 'good' keyword opportunities, via Adsense, affiliate marketing, etc., the question becomes, how much do you want to make? For many people, the main 'problem' is just finding reliably 'good' keywords. For some, it's the time & resources spent doing all the manual research, or time & resources wasted pursuing 'bad' opportunities.

While there is a whole lot more to it, for me the huge advantage SECockpit has over other apps is the ability to reliably uncover 'good' keywords, an ability that just isn't available elsewhere.

Michael

Mike Grant

What constitutes the data being better from SE Cockpit than that of MS? SEOMoz vs. Majestic SEO?

ShaneRQR

See reply above yours.

No, it really doesn't.
With MS, you get a list of keywords and then you manually pick the ones you want to run the full competition analysis on. It then goes through your connection to gather all the competition data, which takes about a minute per keyword.
SECockpit does the full competition analysis for every single keyword it returns at a speed of about 200 keywords per minute (i.e. about 200x faster than MS).

Even if MS speeded up, how long could you keep running analysis before your IP got banned? In my experience, I can't get through a list of 100 keywords without getting blocked.

Having said that, if you're happy with MS, then that's absolutely fine. Not trying to force a product or opinion on anyone.

Two things make the data "better":
1. Majestic has awesome backlink data and a crazy large index, there's no doubt about that. But it's all about backlinks and mainly about backlink volume and various metrics derived from that. SEOmoz go much further than that. Without going on forever, they basically run their own "Google Simulator" and take tons of ranking signals into account, beyond just backlinks.

2. It's the immediacy of the data that makes the big difference.
With every other keyword tool, it's a list of keywords first, then a bit of deeper analysis (often based on misleading, competition-volume based metrics), then deep analysis for keywords you specify. With SECockpit, it's full analysis on every keyword, right up front.


If your doubts are about the quality of all this, just wait till you can try the software out.

If the issue is the pricing: When I started out with IM, I shunned every recurring cost. Even something as money-making as an autoresponder. Not necessarily smart, but I understand the sentiment. At a certain point, your time becomes more valuable than money and you'd rather pay for a good solution than slave away for hours to get something for free or cheaper.

I understand both perspectives, because I've been there myself.

Hortensia

I recently bought 'WebCompAnalyst' and am quite impressed with it. Compared to MS I find it easier to evaluate the competition.

Of course I understand the value of SEcockpit, doing this research much faster and for ALL the keywords automatically in the background.

But for those who don't want monthly bills, it's worth checking out.

Cheers,
JanPaul

moneymarker

ah my maestro! muy bien

Steadyon

What if Sam got run over by a bus god forbid? What is the contingency plan for that?




What if you guys had a big disagreement with SEOmoz or they just decided they didn't want your business? What would you do?

moneymarker

opportunities come and go....

nothing in this world is of permanent status.... things can get better or get worse..

instead of waiting for the "what if's" to happen, why not just seize the day and make
the most of it while they're here..

if you come up with 2-3 profitable keywords that would make you some handsome
profits, one that makes your one month membership a good ROI, then it won't matter if your 'what if's' did actually happen...

you're most likely to move on and probably find another membership that offers a similar service...and who knows, even better perhaps...

ShaneRQR

Whoa, that's not exactly optimistic...

1) We do have backup and it doesn't all rest on his shoulders. But we're also not pessimistic enough to be actively planning for the case that people involved with the project die...

2) We'd have to get data from elsewhere. Depending on how far along we are, we might aspire to do the same as SEOmoz/Majestic and start crawling the web ourselves, we might make a deal with Majestic and add out own analysis algorithms to make the data more suitable for our purposes, Blekko or some other source might have risen to new prominence by then...


The same catastrophies could befall pretty much any system or software you're using. Don't let what might go wrong tomorrow stop you from making some money today.

Mike Grant

MS uses your connection, but not your IP.

Pricing doesn't bother me, nor the quality. Just making some corrections on things I noticed in your post.

Thanks for the explanation.

ShaneRQR

I wasn't aware of that. Is this something very recent?
Because I constantly get blocked when using MS on many keywords. Last time I tested this can't be more than two weeks ago...

Mike Grant

Always been that way. They've built-in proxies, and they also allow for user-added proxies.