Premium Series: Scribe SEO Plugin Review

In my Premium Series I’m taking a look at Premium WordPress plugins and WordPress themes that I personally use, either for myself and for others. All opinions are my own and not influenced by affiliate commissions or anyone connected to the product.

WordPress software is already known for being highly search-friendly. The templates are structured in a manner that’s easy for spiders like the Googlebot to read, and it’s super easy for even non-techie users to integrate some basic keyword optimization using the tags, categories, and permalink management features. Most bloggers looking to get paid for their efforts prefer WP for these reasons.

I’m going to look at a nifty little device for cranking your existing SEO efforts up a couple of notches. If you’re really brand new to the idea of onsite search optimization, go ahead and read this piece but know that you’ll need to hit a few basics before making the most of the info presented here.

Scribe Plugin for SEO

The Scribe plugin is a complete content optimizer that allows you to enhance the search-readiness of not only your blog posts, but of any WP pages, landing pages, sales letters, etc. that you might add using the WordPress platform. You’ll end up saving time, advancing your personal skills, and generating more traffic after you’ve put in a small amount of practice time.

The first thing you should know is that Scribe is not a free tool; you’ll need to invest at least $17 per month to use this resource. It’s totally worth this nominal fee for serious professionals but understandably, if you’re just blogging casually, you may not want to drop the cash on a recurring basis.

Ultimately the price you pay is based on usage. You can apply Scribe to as many WP sites as needed, and you’ll be charged in direct response to the number of evaluations you request within the course of the month. The $17 Starter level gives you 15 evaluations. Publisher accounts bill at $27 and include 30 evaluations. The Professional account level (best value) provides 120 total evaluations, and the Advanced 300 which you can disperse however you want. Using the Advanced level as an example, you might have 100 blog posts that need 3 evaluations each, or 300 blog posts analyzed one time, or 30 different posts on 10 different blogs; you get the point.

You’ll need a base SEO plugin before Scribe will be helpful. I recommend the All in One SEO Pack. Upload and activate Scribe in the same way you’d handle any other simple plugin, then it’s ready to integrate with your All In One or other SEO device.

You’ll continue to enter your HTML Title tags, META description, keywords, and post/page content as per usual via the WP editor and All in One form. With Scribe installed and running, you’ll see a self-explanatory “Optimizer” in the upper-right corner of your posting page; this small box will display title, description, and content listings with red X until you’ve entered all your data, at which time the Analyzer will show green checkmarks alongside all three items. Click the Analyze button and a few seconds later the Scribe tool will pop up a “Review” window that provides you with a detailed analysis of any problem areas and a suite of recommended actions for revving up the search-friendliness of your content.

The Review window displays a prominent optimization score in the form of a percentage, with 100% obviously being the ideal result. To the right of your score you’ll find the list of problems and recommendations. As you can imagine this is incredibly handy because it prompts you to check your optimization for each blog post and you get the benefit of automated expert feedback each time you add new content.

On a quick side note, one thing that sort of bugs me about this product is the fixed nature of the Review window. It’s totally static and immovable on your screen, meaning you actually have to close it out and return to your content in order to apply any fixes; then you need to hit the Review button again every time you want to check your progress and move onto the next recommended item. This is a relatively small issue, but one I definitely felt worth mentioning as many users will likely be irked (albeit temporarily) by this factor.

A video below shows a quick overview of the plugin. Give it a minute to load.

The main SEO Score page of the Review window assesses your title, description, and body and provides you with extremely detailed criticism. Scribe will not only suggest corrections related to keyword use and placement, but will even monitor ideal character count in relevant areas; this is an often-overlooked area of SEO that plays a vital role in how your listing is displayed and perceived on the results page. For instance, if your description exceeds standard character length, the searcher may not get the complete message you intended, and your actual clickthrough rate could suffer. Remember that landing near the top of the heap is only the first step. Well crafted title and description text that covers both strong keyword usage and compelling copy are needed to get the most possible visits.

In this and other regards Scribe will actually teach you better SEO as you go along. It’s like having a search marketing coach at your desk for each and every post or page! Automation and semi-automation are wonderful, but equally important is internalizing the fundamentals and genuinely understanding the efforts you’re making.

The Scribe Review also includes Keyword Analysis, an evaluation screen for your WP Tags, a tutorial index labeled SEO Best Practices, and three other tabs of information. These additional tool sets deliver a remarkably robust, comprehensive page content analysis system that’s sure to accelerate your search marketing progress.

The SEO Best Practices screen offers a wide range of tips, reminders, and mini-tutorials that will thoroughly “school you” in the basics of content optimization. Again, you’ll get specific input on character count recommendations, keyword placement within title and description, and more.

The Keyword Analysis tab will, among other things, provide you with the ideal list of primary keywords for the domain where Scribe is being applied. You will further be given a comprehensive set of secondary search terms and keywords for consideration. All this data is taken from a direct review of your page content and then cross-referenced with the most active keywords in your topic range.

Beneath the main keyword recommendations you’ll find a table charting keyword performance by density, annual volume, and frequency. You’ll combine this data with the suggestions on the Change Keywords tab, that will recommend highly succinct measures for refining your content structure.

Within the brief space of this review I’ve hit only the high spots of what Scribe can do for your blogging career. Even at this overview level it’s easy to gauge just how powerful this software can be. If your aim is to make money with your blogs, I definitely urge you to at least take this service for a spin.