Squirrly SEO

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Member since: Jun 2011Deals bought: 637
2 stars
2 stars
Posted: May 26, 2021

Not My Bag, Pricing Gives Me Worries For Longevity

I'm reviewing this as someone who is an SEO expert. I'm not new and probably not the target for such a plugin. I'm comparing this to my favorite WordPress SEO plugin SEOPress PRO which is VERY affordable, but not LTD.

The good:

The wizard-style setup is nice. Overall I think the interface is nice, friendly but a bit silly. It's not my jam but to each their own. There seems to be plenty of hand-holding and guidance which is good.

The on-page stuff seems normal but suboptimal (you can no-index, but need to flip another switch to remove the page from the sitemap. why? no-index pages should never be in the sitemap).

It offers limited pre-made schema and custom schema, which is good (that's a PRO SEOPress feature, but SEOPress has WAY better schema tools).

The bad:

Recommendations don't auto-update. Example: Site is in development, has no-index flag in settings. The plugin tells me to change it. Good! I change it. The site is now indexable. The plugin still tells me I need to change it. I need to manually mark this as "Done" - Why is this not checked when I reload the page? Small quibble, but SEOPress does this check right on the main dashboard and updates on refresh. If I turn it back on, is this not detected? It seems like some of these should be checked on every page load.

The keyword research tools were useless for me. Terrible recommendations. I have specific keywords I want to optimize for, but it won't even let me add them to the briefcase. It makes me search, provides DIFFERENT terms, and did not provide the root term I searched for. Bad bad bad. I compete in tough niches, so I'm very picky about my keywords. YMMV depending on what you optimize for.

My conclusion:

Would I take this for a lifetime over four years of SEOPress PRO? Hard nope! This tool is no for me. I'd rather have something that got in my way less and did more.

It does have features that you'll usually only get in pro SEO plugins, but it's a premium plugin. I hope it's around for the long term, and I hope it gets better over time. The pricing scheme of $71.99/mo for the 7 site business plan leaves me with bad vibes. I can't imagine anyone paying that price for this.

For the SEO novice:

Think about SEO like exercise. If you never exercise, you're not going to see benefits. Even going for a daily walk will be a HUGE improvement for your health.

People are getting the plugin, they're SEO couch potatoes, they go for an SEO walk a few times a week, they are amazed that the site starts doing better. It's not the "plugin is magic" it's that they got off their rump and did SOMETHING!

If this plugin gets you to do something, then go for it. It's not for me, but I'm not going to say it can't help you. Following Squirrly's SEO's recommendations will undoubtedly give better results than doing nothing. It, combined with actual work, will probably be enough to compete on many search terms.

I hope they take a good long look at their pricing and make this sustainable.

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