by Ana Hoffman 112 comments

Do I still Use Market Samurai?

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Review of: Market Samurai
Price:
$97 (with my 35% off discount)
Market Samurai

Reviewed by:
Rating:
4.5
On March 12, 2012
Last modified:October 10, 2012

Summary:

Market Samurai >> Used to be great, but is it still? Did Market Samurai bring 14,000 search engine visitors to Traffic Generation Cafe?

No one pours new wine into old wineskins.

If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.

That’s what it felt like when Market Samurai was going through its recent changes, caused by… well, not even Market Samurai team really knew what.

Was Market Samurai stretched to the limits and bursting at seams?

Did this once popular SEO tool outlive its shelf life?

Judging by the comments I’ve been getting lately, it certainly seems that way:

market samurai not great

I’ve been using Market Samurai to grow search engine traffic for Traffic Generation Cafe for over a year now and quite successfully I might add: my SEO traffic doubled in the past 6 months:

market samurai increases seo traffic

So the question is “How reliable MS data really is?

“Is it time to move on to greener pastures?”

I will address all these questions in a minute, but first let’s see why this post is relevant to YOU, no matter the niche, the experience, or the background – as long is you want to bring in search engine traffic.

Why Market Samurai to Begin With?

If you’ve been in the online world for longer than 5 minutes, you most likely fall into one of the following two categories:

  1. You already own Market Samurai.
  2. You’ve heard of it and it’s just a matter of time before you break down and download your own copy.

And why do most online business owners end up buying it?

Because they are told that Market Samurai is THE tool to have if they want more SEO traffic.

While I am not arguing with that statement whatsoever, the problem is that most of us are not here to become SEO experts.

All we want to do is to learn enough SEO to become dangerous.

To our competitors that is.

We want to claim our share of free targeted traffic search engines are capable of bringing to our sites; preferably, buyers with credit cards at hand.

The kind of traffic I drive to my review posts, like:

If someone is looking up a product by name, it’s most likely because they are about to make a purchasing decision.

All they are looking for a confirmation to validate that decision, as well as someone they feel comfortable buying from.

That’s EXACTLY where you want to be.

My Market Samurai Bite-Sized Tutorial

market samurai video tutorial

In the Market Samurai video below I’ll walk you through the basic functions of the software that you, an online business owner, need to know about to target that coveted search engine traffic.

I am not going to teach you everything there’s to know about Market Samurai.

Quite frankly, I don’t even know myself ALL there’s to know about it.

And I don’t need to.

All I need to get out of it is HOW to use it for my business quickly and efficiently.

>>Click here to download your FREE copy of Market Samurai

I run this kind of Market Samurai keyword research for almost every post I write.

Since I am putting all this effort into each and every post anyway, I might as well milk them for all they are worth in terms of traffic.

Ranking your posts for narrow targeted keywords in demand is the best way for you to leverage your content for traffic.

Market Samurai: Before and After

If you already purchased Market Samurai or have been looking into getting it, you might be concerned about all the recent changes the software went through.

market samurai changes

Here are my thoughts on it in random order:

1.  Market Samurai is not perfect.

2.  Sometimes it’s sluggish and unpredictable.

3.   It now relies on Bing and not Google for a large chunk of its data.

With that said:

4.   Market Samurai is still the only software I found that brings me the closest to an “all-in-one” SEO tool.

5.   It’s a one-time fee product; there are NO monthly charges (a rarity these days).

6.   It gets constant updates and Market Samurai team pays the bill.

7.   It gets the backlink data from Majestic SEO – excellent SEO service, but at a monthly price. I get it for free with Market Samurai.

Plus, Majestic SEO is a great Yahoo! Site Explorer alternative; I dare to say, the data might actually be more accurate.

8.   It still gives me the best bird’s eye view of my potential competitors and I don’t have to dig through a bunch of (free) tools to get it.

Bing issue:

So we all have been happily using Yahoo! Site Explorer for years.

It was great, free, and no one complained about data quality or reliability.

And now Bing owns Yahoo!…

Do you see where I am going with this?

If Yahoo! was good enough to provide solid data relied upon by most professional SEO’s, how’s Bing any different?

True, most of our target market still uses Google.

However, if you take a look at the difference between Google and Bing results, they are not that far apart.

If you must, you can always double-check with Google on any given keyword.

Personally, I don’t care.

I want quick and efficient results and Market Samurai gives me exactly that.

Market Samurai Marketing Takeaway

Market Samurai remains the only all-in-one SEO tool I’d recommend to any online business owner.

With all its pros and cons, it’s still the very tool that gets me over 14,000 search engine visitors per month.

>>Click here to download your FREE copy of Market Samurai

Market Samurai

Market Samurai Discount

Market Samurai comes with a 7-day free trial.

Even if you decide not to purchase it, the keyword research section will remain active and yes, free.

However, if you know that Market Samurai is the right tool for you, here’s how you can get a 35% discount on it:

>>Click here to download your FREE copy of Market Samurai

(but don’t purchase it right away)

Wait till Market Samurai emails you a 35% discount code – THAT’S the perfect time to join the Market Samurai community.

Just make sure you use the discount code by the end of your 7-day free trial; it’ll become invalid after that.

Have fun storming the search engines!

market samurai traffic generation cafe

Image Source

traffic generation cafe comment below

{ 112 comments }

vinodh October 21, 2012 at 11:58 am

Ana,
I agree that MS is a great tool. other tools are not reliable or expensive. I rectified my mistakes by using MS as identifier. it works for me. Further I dont write for search engines. further I dont comment in blogs for link juice. hence I dont mention my website.
regards
vinodh

Azubuike September 20, 2012 at 8:28 am

I haven’t tried Market Samurai before, I just heard of it last two weeks and here reading about it again, thanks for the review, I will try it and see how it works.

Mark July 6, 2012 at 8:55 am

I’m not sure if this has been asked already, but does market samurai provide “non – personalized” results? I will sometimes show that I rank high for certain terms or phrases with ms, but my traffic results are no better.

Thanks in advance, Mark

Ana Hoffman July 10, 2012 at 11:33 am

Good question, Mark.

Since MS uses search engines to draw their data from (used to be Google, now mostly Bing), most of the information will come from the data server closest to your IP.

From that respect, there’s no such a thing as “non-personalized” search results, do you know what I mean?

Mark July 10, 2012 at 2:27 pm

Thanks Ana,
I understand what you’re saying, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a profile (so to speak) that google gives results for “any location”. I’ve been giving this probably more thought than I need to, but at least at the end of the day, this affects everyone, right.
Another thing that blows my mind is the (not provided) in google analytics. That’s another story, I’d love to hear your take on! :)

Ana Hoffman July 10, 2012 at 4:56 pm

In theory, I agree with you, Mark.

Yet in practice, even if a tool that shows completely non-personalized results existed, chances are our customers are not using it. So either way, we have to assume and hope that they see in their results (personalized in every possible way) exactly what we would hope for them to see.

As far as Google “not provided” keywords are concerned, mine are at all time high right now: about 44% of all the searches.

I let a bit of steam out on the issue in this post: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/semrush-review/

Nothing we can really do about it, but what would blogging be without talking about problems we can’t really solve?

Mark July 10, 2012 at 5:32 pm

Ana,
My thoughts too on the personalized search results. They say there’s a silver-lining… It’s something between website managers I guess. Sometimes my passion gets carried away with me!

My (not provided) is about the same %, but I’d bet a good percentage is spam. lol

Thanks for getting back with me, it’s great to share thoughts and ideas!
I’ll check out your other post soon.
thanks, mark

Fiona Cooper May 1, 2012 at 6:37 am

Hi Ana, Been off doing a project for a while….. but I’m back ;-) Just wondering, when you’re doing a phrase to broad cut on your keywords shouldn’t you look at the number of searches in conjunction with this since if there are a huge number of searches at only 10% ptb this is better than a small number with a higher ptb ratio? no?
The flippin’ “actions on selected” seems to have changed and there’s no “delete” there now…. struggling to find how I selectively delete stuff…. any ideas? Cheers Fiona

Ana Hoffman May 7, 2012 at 7:28 am

Good to have you back, Fiona.

Logically, you are right: either way, you can get some targeted customers.

On the other hand, it takes effort to rank your site for any keyword; so wouldn’t you rather maximize your effort and target the customers who are looking for EXACT phrase?

I suppose there’s no exact science in any of this.

When I look at my “Actions on selected”, I do see “Delete” as a choice at the very bottom.

Jason "J-Ryze" Fonceca April 11, 2012 at 5:50 pm

It’s funny, Ana, my Dad introduced me to Market Samurai when he was dabbling in internet marketing. I loved it and found similar things that you did (a bit unpredictable / sluggish).

It was a few businesses ago, and I haven’t access to it in a while, and it’s great to get the refresher/reminder. :)

Ana Hoffman April 13, 2012 at 7:28 am

No such thing as a perfect tool, but this one comes close, Jason.

Sire April 8, 2012 at 5:43 pm

Hey Ana, I love Market Samurai and so I was most interested to see how exactly you were using it. I learned quite a few tricks which I’m going to use the next time I fire MS up.

Thanks so much for this tutorial.

Ana Hoffman April 10, 2012 at 9:26 pm

Glad to hear it, Sire!

Mark April 3, 2012 at 7:34 am

interesting and informative as usual ana. can you tell me anything abot the rankranger SEO tool? it was highly recommended to me but there isn’t so much info about it online. have you had any experience with it?

Ana Hoffman April 3, 2012 at 9:40 am

Sorry, Mark; never heard of it.

Sherryl Perry March 28, 2012 at 1:23 pm

Great review Ana. I’ve used Market Samurai but after watching your tutorial, I realize that I wasn’t taking advantage of all that it offers. Time is of the essence and I appreciate what I was able to learn from you in such a short period of time.

Ana Hoffman March 28, 2012 at 8:44 pm

“Time is of the essence” – that’s exactly why so many people end up not using MS, Sherryl. It looks too complicated on the surface of things and their tutorials are designed for people who do keyword research for living; seems like it anyway.

Glad you took away some useful tidbits, and as always, thanks for coming by!

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