Should You Develop Your Own SEO Software?

Nowadays, the key to business success largely depends on the marketing strategies a company utilizes, in order to promote both itself and its products or services.

One particular marketing strategy that's become mandatory instead of just optional is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The main reason is that the market is now quite oversaturated and highly competitive.

This makes reaching out to consumers or standing out from the rest of the competition increasingly difficult. Fortunately, SEO can level the field for every business, no matter their size. However, when it comes to leveraging SEO tools available on the market, there are various solutions to opt for. Still, having a multitude of options to consider doesn't mean you'll find a tool that will suit your every need.

In that case, should you develop your own in-house SEO tool? The answer to that question depends on your needs, your budget and what you want to achieve with your SEO campaign. In most cases, companies find what they need from a wide variety of tools available on the market. But when they just don’t have the options you need, developing your own software might be a better option. Therefore, here are a few things you should know about developing an SEO tool on your own.

Determine your needs

The first order of business is to determine why you should develop your own SEO software in the first place. Are the available tools on the market insufficient or are they perhaps too expensive? Next, you should identify your company's needs, in order to determine what kind of SEO software you should develop. As an example:

Do you need an SEO tool for keyword research?

Monitoring SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Competitive analysis.

On-page optimization

Technical SEO audit.

Off-page monitoring.

All of the above.

When developing an SEO tool, it's better to opt for a single feature rather than to develop a tool that encompasses multiple requirements. The more complex a software is, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to develop. Therefore, opt for what you need the most, then develop new things in the future, in order to save both time and money in the long run.

Consider the expenses

As mentioned before, the more complex the software is, the more difficult and costly it becomes to develop it. When software is being developed by your company, all funds available are poured into the project, so that it can be finished properly and on time. In such cases, companies can easily run out of cash.

These expenses can be a major setback if you're not adequately prepared. Luckily, as a business owner, you can take a reliable personal payday loan, provided by companies such as MyFi NZ. That way, you can cover important expenses your next paycheck is due. Having a budget for software development is all well and good, but you never know if you'll need to account for additional expenses. That's why you should consider the costs and plan a bit in advance so that you're not taken by surprise if additional expenses happen to rise up.

Opt for a data source

Most of the SEO tools are based on data collection. The information extracted from big data analysis allows for accurate reports and analytics results. Therefore, in order for your SEO tool to work properly, you'll need to opt for a data source. For instance, you can collect and analyze the data yourself. This, however, is a more demanding and more expensive option.

On the other hand, you can opt for a third-party data provider, but there are oftentimes limitations involved in this option. For instance, Google's AdWords API (Application Programming Interface) allows you to directly interact with the Google Ads Platform. However, their Token Application may hinder you in building your tool on top of this platform. There are other sources at your disposal, just make sure you opt for an option that is best suited for your needs.

Find the right developers

One of the more important factors in developing an in-house SEO tool is who is going to develop it. Do you have an in-house development team or should you outsource this task? Having an in-house development team make things a lot simpler and cheaper but not every company has developers on standby. In that case, you'll have to outsource and you'll have to choose carefully.

Word of advice, try to find a development team who base their practices on the Agile methodology. Agile is more flexible than traditional methods and it's a lot cheaper to implement additional features into the software during the development cycle.

 

The question of should you develop your own SEO software comes down to your needs, funds and what you want to achieve. If you cannot find a good solution on the market, it's better to make one yourself. After all, you want the SEO tool to deliver viable results and not leave you stranded in the middle of a marketing campaign.