In your efforts of trying to find a good SEO tool, am sure you have come across SpyFu which if you agree with me has quite a unique name that gets you wondering what it’s all about.
And am sure in the process of doing that you have possibly asked yourself how it can benefit your website or rather meet your SEO needs and through this article, I can assure you that you will get all the information you are looking for on it.
In this SpyFu review, you will get comprehensive details on what exactly SpyFu is and other important details on it, so read on because this might just be the most informative ride of your life!
Let’s start by looking at a short summary of the tool
Name: SpyFu
Website: spyfu.com
Price: Varies with each plan
Founder: Mike Roberts
Ratings: 93 out of 100
Table of Contents
What SpyFu is
This is simply a tool for SEO (Search engine optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) Marketing.
It works to provide helpful and competitive strategies for individual professionals and businesses in these areas so that they are successful in their campaigns.
Through it, users can effortlessly find information on websites that they want details on, find good keywords, know how to rank well on search engines, easily carry out PPC campaigns among other important activities. In other words, you can perform any basic SEO and PPC research tasks using this tool.
Now, all the information that you are provided with here is not created out of the blues but rather is factual data that has been collected from trusted sources including directly from search engines and so you are assured of quality data.
Focusing now on a little background information on the tool, Mike Roberts founded Spyfu in 2006 in a bid to help people approach SEO and PPC in a much different way.
His knowledge in these areas is what has led the company to grow to what it currently is and the company has evolved into a reliable platform especially when it comes to PPC research.
How SpyFu Works
SpyFu basically helps you research your competitors in two main aspects, SEO and PPC.
What this means is, they give you the chance to spy on your competitors and learn the strategies they are using to optimize their websites for search engines for both organic and paid traffic.
Organic traffic is the free traffic search engines bring to your website when they rank you in their top positions.
This kind of traffic comes when you work with good website optimization practices such as on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
You don’t get to pay for this kind of traffic but you put in a lot of effort in SEO practices that raise the value and authority of your website.
Paid traffic, on the other side, is the kind of traffic you pay for in search engines to get exposure.
This comes in the form of ads where your website content is placed in top positions without putting manual effort on your side but you pay for every click you get from that strategy.
There are different strategies used by webmasters or website owners in making these two strategies work, some of which bring good results and others don’t.
Now SpyFu helps you know the exact strategies being used by the successful competitors in your industry so that you know what is making them succeed and get to do the same and succeed as well.
So how exactly does it do this? SpyFu uses several tools through which its users can use to find information on keyword research, backlinks, important details of their competitors, PPC stats, rankings as well as SERP information that brings them traffic and conversions.
The data you get by researching the above areas can help you choose the best long-tail keywords for your website that you can use to create content that is well-targeted for your audience that will also help you rank well on search engines.
It can also help you know which places to get good quality backlinks for your website, how to design your PPC campaigns so that they are more rewarding than they have been in the past.
Essentially, SpyFu will help you compare what you have been doing on your website with what the leading competitors are doing and see where you need to make improvements in order to get to their level.
Tools Provided by SpyFu
SpyFu provides the following tools to ensure that you work effortlessly and efficiently in your campaigns in both SEO and PPC:
√SEO research
For SEO research, you get tools such as;
~ SEO competitor analysis. Through this tool, you can carry out research on your competitors to discover which of their content is doing well, which one is doing poorly that you can advantage of and other similar websites you need to keep an eye on and learn from.
~ SEO keyword research. This one allows you to find keywords that drive traffic to your site. Through it you can, export a full list of keywords that a domain ranks for, filter a list of keywords so that you only focus on specific ones, check on the history of ranking content and calculate the total amount of clicks in dollars.
~ Competitor backlinks. Through this feature, you can find influential backlinks for your website that are giving your competitors the edge.
~ Domain comparison. Here, you compare competitive domains with yours so that you come up with effective keywords that they are using which you weren’t and also see where you are better than them.
By seeing their strengths and weaknesses and where you stand as well, you can come up with a proper plan of optimizing the areas you are stronger than them and maximizing your efforts on areas they are weak so that you can overtake them.
You also find a feature called Kombat that helps you discover strong keywords that you can focus on.
~ Rank tracker. This is a tool for tracking rankings. If you want to see where a website has been ranked in the search engines under different keywords, this is the tool to use.
√PPC Research
For doing PPC research, these are the tools you are provided with:
~ AdWords Competitors. This is the tool that you use to see what your competitors are doing in terms of PPC. With this tool, you get to see the paid keywords they are targeting, the ad groups, the ad copy they use, their spending history, and even the mistakes they made.
~ PPC Keyword Research. This one helps you catch wind of new ideas as well as provide you with cost estimates estimate for keywords you’ve not used before or one’s that you overlooked before from the insights you get from your competitors.
~ PPC Keyword Suggestions. This tool provides you with vast keyword suggestions that are specific to your domain that you can use to make your campaigns more profitable.
~ PPC Keyword Grouper. This tool helps with grouping your ad keywords and even have the ability to export them so that you can share them with the people you are working with.
~ AdWords Templates. This tool allows you to choose a good campaign template from the various known-to-work templates, upload it into your account and then customize it so that it fits your services or products.
~ AdWords History. This tool helps you search through a domain’s PPC history and see every ad they have ever run before over a period of 9 years and discover ways on how you can bypass them.
√Keyword Research
Here, you get to have a keyword research tool which allows you to perform deep keyword research easily and a backlink checker to find effective link building prospects.
√Other extra features include:
~ SEO reports which help you find special reports for good SEO practices you can use for your website.
~ A keyword rank checker to help you see how various websites performed on a certain keyword.
~A SERP checker that helps you perform SERP (Search Engine Result Page) analysis
~ Domain overview which provides you with deep data on your competitors so that you know their weaknesses and strengths and as a result know what to do from there to gain the competitive edge.
SpyFu Customer Reviews
Generally, most users of SpyFu found it to be an essential tool and worked well for them. However, when it comes to certain areas, it falls short and that is why other users disliked it.
By and large, SpyFu is a great tool that people have found pretty useful for PPC research as well as SEO research.
Here is what some users have to say in regard to it.
Positive User Reviews
“This service helps me to avoid pissing away my money to google by trying to run my own PPC campaigns and learning on the go, which I tried before finding Spyfu. I’m able to create, manage, and fine-tune my ads to achieve results that without Spyfu 100% would NOT be possible to duplicate.”
“Tons of data, great analysis of competitors, and ways to compete (both strategic and tactical).”
“I have been using SpyFu for more than 3 years now and very much happy to continue using it. It is best tool for PPC clients. I love its reports specially competitor analysis reports. I would recommend SpyFu to my peers.”
Negative User Reviews
“The Ad Spend is clearly off sometimes in it’s estimates. I wish you could connect your actual ad accounts so it could learn and run some better comparisons.”
“The reporting isn’t as clean and updated as other tools but this is a small thing. Overall, there is nothing I dislike that would cause me to cancel my subscription.”
“This is tough as there are not many things I do not like about this product. I suppose the limitations of the lower-tier plan are the only drawbacks.”
you can read more customer reviews here.
SpyFu Pros and Cons
The Pro’s
~ It gives you a 30-day money-back guarantee and assures you that you won’t have to fill any forms, no contracts and you can cancel anytime via live chat, phone, or email.
~ Allows you to get vital details on your competitors by simply keying in their domain names.
~ Every plan can get as many search results as they would like, export as much data as they can as well as access as many domain overview PDFs.
~ Allows users to plan their budgets well by providing them with info such as how much keywords are going to cost and many more figures.
~ Help users determine the keywords they should use as they do content creation.
~ It’s also easy to use and thus can be used by a lot of people
~ Allows users to save money through their annual plans
~ Offers great keyword research tools that users can use when doing their keyword research for their website’s content.
The Con’s
~ The advertising metrics that it provides can be a bit complicated especially for a beginner. So you will want to take your time to understand how it works so that you can work smoothly with it.
~ It provides a lot of data that might end up overwhelming you if you have not planned yourself on how to approach it and use it for your own success.
How to Use SpyFu
To get started with Spyfu and get to make the most of it, these are the steps that you want to follow:
Step 1. Sign up for an account
Step 2. Choose the plan that you feel is good for you based on your needs and the goals that you have for your website
Step 3. Create a plan for approaching the tools. You will want to create a plan on where you are going to get started in your research. Whether it is PPC or SEO, it is entirely up to you.
Then make a list of your top competitors and the areas you want to know more about that they are good with.
Also, break down the plan into small achievable tasks so that you have an easy time executing the plan and using the software.
Step 4. Get started. Now put the plan into action and perform the tasks every day so that you make progress continuously.
Now, to help you further have an easier time using the tool, if you need help navigating various sections in there, you can always watch the tutorial videos provided by the owners so that you don’t get stuck.
You can also ask for help from the customer support team when you have specific problems with Spyfu.
SpyFu Pricing Plans
Here are the plans you get with Spyfu:
√Basic Plan
(You pay $33/month for the annual plan and $39/month for the monthly plan)
With this plan, you get:
~ Unlimited data exports
~ Unlimited domain overview PDF’s
~ Unlimited search results
~ 5k weekly tracked keyword rankings
~ 250 domain contacts and sales leads
~ Unlimited search results
√Professional Plan
(You pay $58/month for the annual plan and $79/month for the monthly plan)
~ Export as much data as you would like
~ Unlimited search results
~ Unlimited access to domain overview PDF’s
~ 500 domain contacts and sales leads
~ You also get 15k weekly tracked keyword rankings
~ Personalized reporting
~ 10k API rows returned
~ Access to the top 50k results
√Team plan
(You pay $199/month if you go annual and $299/month with the monthly plan)
With this plan, you get:
~ To do as many searches as you want
~ To export as much data as you wish
~ Access to as many domain overview PDF’s as possible
~ Access to 75k top result lists
~ 2000 domain contacts and sales leads
~ 10k API rows returned
~ Access to 40k tracked keyword rankings weekly
~ You also get 5 user logins
Competitor Comparision
Let us look at how SpyFu compares to Ahrefs, SEMrush, MozPro, Jaaxy, and Ubersuggest, which are some of its competitors.
√Ahrefs vs SpyFu
This is an SEO software that provides users with all necessary tools for carrying out their SEO work such as backlinking, content creation, keyword research, and analyzing competitors as well as various learning materials.
It is among the top 5 SEO softwares and has some quite powerful tools which are fairly easy to use both by beginners and professionals and thus a viable option.
Regarding how it compares to SpyFu, its prices are considerably higher with its lowest plan going at $99 per month.
So in terms of affordability, Spyfu takes the trophy.
Also, in my opinion, I feel like SpyFu is better than Ahrefs when it comes to PPC research. It offers more data than Ahrefs.
Other than that, Ahrefs is great for SEO research.
So if you want to focus on PPC research and a bit of SEO and you are on a budget, Spyfu is the best option.
But if you want a more comprehensive software for SEO, Ahrefs and SEMrush are the best.
√Jaaxy vs SpyFu
Jaaxy is another great keyword research tool and that helps its users perform keyword research tasks.
It offers the most comprehensive keyword research experience with different features to further enhance your work. I have been using this tool for years and it is awesome.
In terms of keyword research, it is way better than Spyfu.
However, if you want an all-round tool for SEO and PPC, then Spyfu is the best option as Jaaxy mainly focuses on keywords and website rank tracking.
√SEMrush vs SpyFu
This is a marketing toolkit formulated for digital marketing professionals.
Compared to SpyFu, it definitely offers higher features because it offers over 40 tools in areas such as content market research, SEO, advertising, PPC research, among others.
When it comes to pricing, it is slightly more expensive although you get value for your money.
SEMrush is better for you if you are looking for a software that offers tools for almost all areas of digital marketing but if you want a simple but effective tool for PPC and SEO only, Spyfu would be good for you.
√MozPro vs Spyfu
This is another SEO suite that helps you increase your visibility on search engines and boost your website’s traffic and rankings.
It helps with keyword research, SEO audit and crawl, domain analysis, rank tracking, and backlink analysis. It is the pro version of Moz, the famous SEO suite that also offers a browser extension.
The only aspect that Spyfu has beaten Moz with is PPC Research, otherwise, for the other areas, MozPro is better. Moz is also a great local marketing tool.
√Ubersuggest vs SpyFu
This is a tool created by Neil Patel and helps users with different SEO needs.
It focuses on metrics such as competition analysis, domain overview, keyword research, and rank tracking, backlinks, and content analysis.
In my opinion, SpyFu and Ubersuggest offer almost the same value when it comes to SEO research. And Spyfu gets the extra edge to great PPC research resources.
One thing I like about Ubersuggest though is, you can buy lifetime access for any of the plans, which are quite affordable by the way.
This is something I have not seen with many SEO softwares.
My Final Thoughts
Paying attention to all the features that SpyFu offers you and how effortless it makes keyword research, I would strongly recommend the tool for your SEO work whether a beginner or SEO professional because it gets the job done effectively.
Regardless, if you are a webmaster and seeking deeper functionalities maybe because you need to perform certain intricate activities on your website, I would recommend that you invest your time and money in a tool like SEMrush since it provides many superior features to SpyFu.
And that is just about it.
I hope all your questions and worries about it have been well addressed in this SpyFu review.
If you still have more questions, feel free to leave them below and I will get back to you soon as I see them. 🙂
