Axandra IBP 8.0

Anyone who has a Web site and is aware of the need to obtain links from other sites will be interested in Axandra Internet Business Promoter (IBP) 8.0. In short, it reduces the manual labour involved in submitting links manually. The more links you can get for your Web site, the more popular it is considered in the eyes of search engines, and it is a vital ingredient for getting high rankings.

IBP comes with a 154-page PDF file entitled "Beginner's Guide to SEO", which is a valuable resource in itself. It begins with an introduction to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Then it presents the importance of keywords and how IBP's Keyword Generator can help. This is merely a front end to well-known keyword suggestion tools, such as Overture (now Yahoo! Search Marketing).

Features

Another useful feature is the Top 10 Optimiser. It asks you for your main keyphrase, then it goes online and finds the top 10 sites that show for that term. It analyses those pages on the basis that they must have done something right, therefore you would do well to do those things.

The 154-page Search Engine Optimisation Guide

IBP then gives you some generic advice on how to build pages that are the most digestible to the search engine spiders. I found all the tips right on target, eg. "Don't use frames", "Don't use Flash", etc.

IBP's main purpose is to submit your site's URL to search engines and directories, both in a pseudo-manual mode and a semi-automatic mode. The Business Edition version has additional features that enable a SEO firm to prepare reports to send to its clients. I used this to submit one of my sites and I suffered no backlash from any of the sites.

I mean that there is a risk of using submission tools because you are not seeing the destination sites individually and you might commit some faux pas, eg. submit an English language site to a directory that only accepts sites that are in Swahili. IBP enables you to choose such sites before you submit, so you are fully aware of the target sites. IBP can also emulate human-like behaviour, such as not submitting too many queries at once and taking a short break between queries.

IBP also helps you to find other sites that could link to yours. By searching for keyphrases relevant to your site, it finds other sites that also contain suggestive text such as "Add a site" or "Reciprocal links".

You can also use IBP to find your own search engine rankings. This is useful where you don't see a number next to each result, as is the case with a standard Google search. You can also save this in Word format to send to a client if you are monitoring their positions. At the time of writing, IBP supported 379 search engines in 33 countries.

I was pleased to see that IBP also manages pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. You can select key phrases, generate new ones, mix and rehash them. IBP also provides a return-on-investment (ROI) calculator, a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) calculator, impressions calculator, and a cost-per thousand (CPM) converter.

A rather useful tool is the Search Engine Spider simulator. It tries to show you how a search engine spider might read your pages (as opposed to a human using a browser). You can check the keyword density of your pages and validate your HTML code against standards.

IBP also offers marketing and page layout tips that will help your site to succeed.

In Use

It is easy to manage more than one Web site as a project. A suitable interface facilitates this task. The IBP Business edition provides a template for customising various reports you might generate for clients, such as the headings, descriptive text, headers and footers, and so on.

You can automate the running of tasks such as checking rankings, so that they run when you are not using your PC for other work. If you like to work in another language, you can operate IBP in German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian or French. You can also translate your report into another language!

Availability

You can buy IBP online at http://www.axandra.com for US$179.95 or the Business Edition for US$349.95. This gives you free updates for one year.

I consider IBP as a great time saver. It gives you almost everything an online entrepreneur needs to know and do to get a site visible in the search engines. I recommend it.

Reprinted from the July 2005 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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