SpyFu Keyword Research Tool Review
Name: SpyFu
URL: www.spyfu.com
Price: $39, $78, $199
Grade: B
One of the most popular keyword research tools out there is SpyFu. I almost hesitate to call SpyFu a keyword research tool though, as it does far more than just perform keyword research. To help you better understand what it does and if it’s the right choice for you I have written this in-depth SpyFu review.
Before you start running ads, find out what your competition or rivals are doing with their advertising. See what’s working for them and then mimic what they are doing with your own ads. This is where SpyFu comes in, a very useful cloud-hosted SEO tool, that basically spies on your competitors. With Spyfu, you can search which keywords your competitors use, their SEO history, rankings, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, including which keywords have been unsuccessful for any of your competitors.
The tool crawls over 75 million domains, a substantial amount, so you can be more confident about any PPC ads you buy or campaigns you set up on Adwords. Another neat feature is that you can compile data reports and brand it with your own business logo and info, in case you are offering paid for SEO services.
SpyFu can also be used to help you work with other advertisers or businesses. With data collected, you can always reach out to an advertiser using contact information and ask if they would be interested in back-linking opportunities.
A Look at SpyFu’s Features
- Backlink Searches & Unlimited Backlink Results:
See which backlinks are the most valuable for your domain, and get an estimation of how much traffic you are getting from each backlink. - Adwords History & Organic Rank History:
Do a domain search and see every place they’ve shown up on Google and which keywords were bought over the past 11 years. - Adwords Advisory Reports:
Based on the strength or weakness of your domain name, you can generate an ad campaign strategy, with advice about how to be more profitable. - Ad History & Ad Spend:
See what wording your competitors use in their ads, now and in the past. See which ads they kept running over time, so you can see which ads are more successful. - Keyword Searches:
Filter a list of keywords to see which ones are more relevant to your niche. See which sites get the most organic traffic, see which keywords are more expensive and which ones are used the most. - Custom Branded Reports:
Compile data reports for a client, export them and easily add your company logo and business information. (Not available in the Basic Plan). - Tutorials For All Tools:
If you’re not sure how to use a specific feature tool, there’s a library of tutorials to guide you through it, step by step, so you can take advantage of your SpyFu subscription.
Use SpyFu’s Ad History to Change How You Build a PPC Campaign
Under the Ad History tab, you can see how an ad has evolved over time for a specific competitor. This a very useful feature of Spyfu and will get the most out of your ad spend budget. Keywords should catch someones attention when combined with the right ad copy. You can see what worked best for an advertiser and what didn’t work out so well. You’ll be able to see every ad variation for that domain on every keyword ever ran.
The most “trusted” keywords are listed first. These are the keywords that have been run most consistently and most recently. If you can find an ad that has been running for 6 months, you know you have a winner!
If you want to narrow the focus of a keyword, you can use the filter. You’ll also be able to see every advertiser who has run an ad campaign using that keyword. The Ad History for a keyword shows up a list of domains that have advertised with that keyword. Being able to see an advertisers keyword choices is a testimony to what has worked for them and what hasn’t, and puts an end to any doubts you may have about actionable keywords.
Pricing & Bonus for Members:
SpyFu offers three different pricing plans; Basic, Professional and Team. You’ll get unlimited access to all the data you want or need, regardless of the plan you choose. They offer a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try it risk free.
Members get an added bonus of several discounts for other services:
- Hotel Engine (save 26% at 150,000 hotels around the world),
- Authority Labs (25% lifetime discount),
- Trusted Pilot (10% off all plans),
- Digital Marketer Lab (30 days for $1)
- 99 Designs (free power pack upgrade worth $99)
- AdAlysis (10% lifetime discount)
- Market Motive (save 15%)
- The Hoth (20% off first order)
- Ten Scores (25% off)
- Day Translations (10% off)
- Prisync (10% lifetime discount)
- ignitur (50% off for 3 months)
- Page One Power (take $500 off first link building campaign)
Learn More About SpyFu Member Discounts
Basic Plan
The Basic plan works out at $33 per month when billed annually or you can opt for $39 when billed from month to month. You will get unlimited search results and data exports, unlimited domain overview PDF’s, 250 sales leads and domain contacts, 5k weekly tracked keywords and their rankings, 10k top lists results.
Professional Plan
The annual Professional plan works out at $58 per month if billed once per year. You have the option to pay $39 for the 1st month and $78 per month after that. You get unlimited search results, unlimited data exports, unlimited domain overview PDF’s, 500 sales leads and domain contact information, 15k weekly tracked keywords, 50k top list results, 10k API rows and custom branded reporting.
Team Plan
The Team plan works out at $199 per month if billed annually. If you prefer to pay monthly for this plan, it costs $299 per month. You get unlimited search results, unlimited data exports, unlimited domain overview PDF’s, 2k sales leads and 2k domain contacts, 40k weekly tracked keywords, 75k top lists, 10k API rows, custom branding and the right to use 5 user logins.
Pros
- Provides excellent competitive ad research.
- Download or view as much data as you want. There is no restriction on this, unlike some of SpyFu’s competitors.
- The dashboard is smartly laid out with an intuitive design making it easy to navigate.
- One of the more affordably priced SEO tools out there.
- They offer great support and tutorials. Support is available through email, LiveChat or phone.
- Members get discounts on other services like Authority Labs, Page One Power and Hotel Engine.
- Fun to use and gives useful and practical information.
Cons
- There can be so much data presented that it can be overwhelming at times.
- Sometimes data accuracy can be off, like ad spends.
- Can be confusing for novice users.
- Some keywords are not related, meaning some manual research is important to do.
- The keyword lists are not segmented by specific search engine, like Google, Yahoo & Bing, so you don’t know which search engine the keyword rank applies to.
Verdict
SpyFu is definitely one of the better keyword research tools avaiable. For competetior and backlink research it is one of my favorite tools. If you have the budget for it, I would definitely recommend giving SpyFu a shot. Have I left any questions unanswered? Do you have experience working with SpyFu? What did you think of it? Leave any questions, comments or concerns in the box below and I’ll get back to you ASAP!
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