BrightEdge vs. Google Search Console

BrightEdge has been a long-standing partner with us. I have had 10 years of experience with using their platform. It is a very large robust platform that allows us to find the information we need and quickly. Unfortunately with the company being so large, they are unable to make quick changes and customers suggested enhancements as quickly as other platforms.

If you just want to understand how much traffic you're getting from Google organic search results, and study the queries and landing pages that make up this traffic, this is a great tool. If you also want to figure out where you may be missing opportunities or making it hard for people to find your site, this can help with that. However, GSC is not going to give you step by step instructions for how to fix SEO issues, and won't help prioritize anything either. It's essentially like a car dashboard, but doesn't do any driving or tell you how to drive.

Incentivized

• Strong analytics
• Integrates with other tools
• Instant provides real time research, ranking and recommendations
• The Client Success team is truly an extension of my team with experts in the industry to help support our team and growing the organic channel
• Education and career growth opportunity—constantly providing ways to connect with others in the industry, user groups, events, and conferences
• Onboard process is very thorough and customized

Incentivized

• Provides details on what other sites contain backlinks to your site, along with the page they direct to within your site
• Displays impressions and click throughs for Google search queries
• Individual page performance by location and device category as it pertains to generating clicks leading to your site
• Basic indexing and readability issues within your site
• The new interface that just rolled out is much easier on the eyes

Incentivized

• The storybuilder feature isn't anything outstanding. I feel like I can get the same type of data and format from Google Data Studio.
• I feel like the Hyperlocal feature is still very junior compared to other features. It provides you good insights, but you have to set all the data fields before you can get a picture as well as it doesn't really give you an idea of how you can improve.
• The mobile SEO solution is a good concept, but it needs some tweaks to be better, especially when building out a mobile story builder. Some of the data isn't simple to read and the mobile keywords functions don't also account for voice searches.

Incentivized

• I'd like more instructions about how to respond to certain errors I see - it can be difficult to understand when you see a red error message what it really means and how to fix it.
• I'd appreciate warnings being 'ranked' somehow to understand what's really a big deal, and what might be a minor issue.
• Search analytics is helpful but not comprehensive - you can only go back so far in the data, and can't see all the search terms that are sending traffic to your site.

Incentivized

BrightEdge has provided our company with more than any other tool/platform could dream of. We've been extremely happy with its use, and have really tailored our strategies and internal workflow around the data in BrightEdge. I could not imagine having a successful, streamlined SEO service without BrightEdge

Easy-to-use and intuitive design make using the BrightEdge platform a joy. Yes, I have familiarity with it and know where to go but there are definitely not a ton of extraneous bells and whistles or unnecessary tools which is part of the brilliance of their UX. Sometimes I get hung up on where keywords and keyword groups are under settings but it is typically because I am moving too quickly, and not because they've moved it.

It's easy to use, but some features are lacking a clear explanation. Somethings don't always match up. For example, the Core Web Vitals often doesn't match what you would see in the Chrome Lighthouse report or the Google Page Speed Insights tool. The tool itself is a little too basic and has to be used alongside other SEO tools and other Google properties such as Analytics

Incentivized

This is a area where the BrightEdge team really shines. Their commitment to training and product support is unmatched not only for SEO platforms, but life in general. I often find myself wishing my internet provide and similar would go to BrightEdge for training on support and attitude. I would rank them an 11 if I could.

As with all Google software, your primary source of help is their forums, their knowledge base articles, or whatever tutorials you can find on the web. Often answers on their forums are not straightforward and may not address the actual issue you're experiencing. The KB articles are typically written like instruction manuals - for better or for worse. Tutorials on the web may vary, but the odds are good someone out there had the same questions as you and was kind enough to document their experience.

Incentivized

For the most part it was seamless. The load time of clients was a little long, but otherwise was quite easy.

BrightEdge has better reports and customizable charts and is better for larger teams. Semrush, you have to pay per user, but it does give you access to a variety of tools. BrightEdge is more focused on SEO, but the tools they have are great, and some of them are the most accurate and thorough.

Incentivized

We are using Ahrefs and SEMRush along with the search console. Ahrefs helps in creating our backlink strategy while SEMRush for content gaps and opportunities. Search console is more preferred as it is completely free and data comes straight from Google. But you cannot see backlinks and ads in search console.

Incentivized

• SEO as best source of deals in Q1 2024.
• An increase of organic traffic of 30% after using Brightedge to identify keywords to build articles for a blog.
• 20% increase in visits to listings of or marketplaces after refining descriptions with the right keywords.

Incentivized

• I have used Search Console for every web project I have worked on. The results have always been outstanding.
• Surprising insights can be gained from the keyword analysis. I have discovered multiple profitable channels that weren't even on the radar.
• AMP has been a game changer over the last few years and this tool makes it extremely simple to ensure your pages are mobile friendly.

Incentivized