In our last preview, we showed a teaser image (the design wasn’t fully flushed out then). Now that we are done with the entire application’s new visual design (it’s being put through the paces on our test servers), here’s a look at the new home page:

(click the image to see it full size)

Our existing design is pretty stale and doesn’t fit for some upcoming features that require a more polished look. Here’s a preview of the new design:

Date Picker

In the past, we required you to enter a date range in a text field to change the date range of a graph. In general, this works fine, but there are times that typos introduce issues. Plus the format of the date has to be very specific. So we just introduced a date picker for every date field. When you focus on a date field, a date picker will automatically appear below the date field. Sure, you can still type the date in if you want. But you can also now find the date on an easy-to-understand calendar. This is a metaphor we think many of you will find valuable.

Here’s a snippet of a page showing the date picker in action on our search engine ranking graph:

Graph Labels

We’ve also added labels to our graphs. While we think the data displayed on our graphs is straightforward, as we move to visualize ever more complex data, having a textual clue to the information being presented is a good thing. Plus, not everyone who uses Essio Studio is an SEO expert.

Here’s a close up of our search ranking graph showing a new label. The label gives context to what is being shown in the graph.

Except then they start looking at Google Analytics statistics and they find the number of actual visitors using the keyword they just spent tons of time (and their clients’ money) optimizing for is producing very few, or worse, zero visitors.

Why no visitors?

Many people are so focused on ranking well for a search phrase they forget the most basic factor of SEO: search volume. If no one is searching for the keyword you are optimizing for you can put in all the effort in the world, rank #1, but your efforts will be fruitless.

No Visitors = Bad SEO

You need to optimize for keywords that people are searching for. Even if you are going after long tail keywords, you should prioritize long tail keywords based on the number of people searching for those phrases.

Why do I bring up the importance of search volume to SEO success?

In the next release of new features for Essio Studio, our set of web-based integrated SEO tools, we will be releasing a new feature to track the search volume of the keywords you are optimizing for over time. This means you’ll be able to see if the volume of searches is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same. Armed with this information you can determine which keywords to focus on the most and get the most visitors for you client’s buck.

We’re now ready to give out one free account per blogger and we will give you a separate free account to give away to your blog readers. You choose how you want to promote the free account give away.

There are no strings attached. We do not ask that you write about Essio Studio unless you feel the tool is relevant to your blog’s topic and it is worthy fodder to your blog’s readers.

Here are the requirements for a blogger to get a free account for themselves and one for their readers:

1. Your blog must have been active for 60 days. This means your oldest post must be at least 60 days old.
2. Your blog must have been updated recently. This means your most recent post must have been made within the last 30 days.

Does your blog qualify? If so, then do the following to find out how you can get your free Essio Studio account for you and one to give away to your readers.

Send an email to support@essiostudio.com with the following information:

1. Your full name.
2. Your email address.
3. URL of your blog(s).
4. General subjects your blog covers.

We will do our best to field each request in a timely manner. As soon as we verify that your blog meets our requirements stated above we will email you with information how to redeem your free account for you and your blog readers.

If you are a blogger we will give you a free subscription plus one free subscription (in the form of a promotion code) to give away to a reader of your choice.

Interested? Sign up for our mailing list or subscribe to our Twitter feed to be notified as soon as this program launches.

So what did we improve about this feature? In our beta release we checked only the first 100 results (roughly first 10 pages of results) from each search engine*. We’ve increased that number to 200 results (roughly first 20 pages of results).

This graph represents a single search rank result for one website for one search phrase on a single day (today). Notice that there is a ranking of position 128 in Microsoft’s Bing search engine. In the past we would have represented this ranking as “does not rank”.

*Note: Since we go through each search engine’s programming APIs we are limited to what they provide us with as results. Google, at this point in time, limits us to 64 results. This means for Google we can only check to see if your site ranks in the top 64 results (roughly 6.5 pages of results).

Essio Studio

We’re taking the Getting Real approach and launching with a fraction of the features we’d love to build. Because if we went the route of waiting to ship Essio Studio until we considered it “feature complete,” you’d never get to use it. There are just too many good features to roll out. (Thanks for publicizing that lesson 37signals gang!)

Instead, we’re starting with the basic features that allow you to successfully track SEO success – specifically search engine postion tracking and search volume metrics. Our release methodology is to improve features in small batches and continually release improvements into the wild. That is the only way we’ll get your feedback on what works (and what doesn’t work).

Expect a lot more to come! And don’t hesitate to drop us a line (or leave a comment here) if you have any questions at any of the following spots:

Essio Studio on Twitter

Essio Studio Support Email