Start-Up Watch COD: Ginza Metrics makes SEO management easier and more efficient

A dear friend of mine who was cutting her teeth in brand management while I was soaked in Anbesol on the agency side periodically sends me emails explaining her frustration as a senior marketing exec trying to make sense of digital. She once sent me this little missive about SEO:

“We send $12K a month to a special SEO agency that does…something…at least I hope they do something. I get reports that I don’t understand about issues that are poorly explained. Gradually our company rises in search rankings, but very gradually. But on some other words we drop. I call them Wink and Promise Associates. Not one person on our team…not one…has any idea what they do or whether they do anything at all.”

I love her emails because she pretends ineptness when I know she is a genius. But SEO does tend to be a black box for many people.

Which is really silly. It is perhaps the most critical activity for making a website deliver better results, but detachment from it leads to a perception that it is a whole lot of nothing. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is, of course, a real science, and has a set of clear and manageable activities that can make a big difference to your business.

A start-up called Ginza Metrics is not only doing a great job demystifying the space, they are also making more effective SEO management accessible to even small businesses with a SaaS offering that is remarkably powerful.

Getting started with Ginza Metrics is very simple. You visit their site, input the URL(s) you wish to manage, and tell them which of several leading analytics platform you are currently using. From there, you identify the keywords that are most relevant to you and the dashboard gives you a simple and accurate display of your ranking on these KWs on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You can also tell the service to use your site map to identify the pages, and an XML feed to identify the KWs that are relevant. They even color code the rank indicators so you can see where you are climbing (or sinking.)

Ginza Metrics also helps to show you which KWs lead to conversions so you know where to focus your attentions. From there, they offer a set of recommended actions and show which pages need fixing to improve your rank. This is key because Ginza Metrics helps optimize to the page level, getting site visitors to the content that is most relevant. This is definitely not an offering focused only on your homepage.

The service also helps with global SEO management by optimizing pages in multiple languages. And for agencies, you can manage multiple pages and programs from a single account.

Pricing is quite reasonable. Small sites with a limited set of KWs can participate for as little as $49 a month. Very limited versions of the service are even available for free. The pricing increases with the number of pages, KWs, and user “seats.” Enterprise versions also come with account manager support.

What I most liked about this service is how it both demystifies SEO and makes driving improvements actionable and ongoing. And its many pricing and service plans make it relevant to small business, enterprise, and agencies alike. Check them out! Whether you a skeptic like my dear friend, or an SEO veteran looking for an easier way to manage the challenges, Ginza Metrics seems to have you covered.