Just five years ago the SEO software market looked quite different. Webposition Gold reigned supreme and Website CEO, a young upstart, was nipping at it's heals. Then something happened. Firstly, Website CEO because Web CEO, and secondly the Ukraine based team decided to offer their product for free.

Fast forward to the present day and Web CEO is the SEO software to beat. The strategy of offering a fully functioning version of their product for free paid off and now, with a team of over 50 dedicated developers and ultra-responsive support staff, the suite is used by over 700,000 businesses worldwide.

But let's leave the glamour(?) of the software business behind for a moment and look at the reasons why Web CEO is regarded in such high esteem.

How does Web CEO stack up against our SEO software buyers guide criteria?

Keyword research
Web CEO contains a comprehensive keyword module. Find keyword suggestions by searching their own search query database or spider your competitor websites for ideas. Keywords are presented with key metrics that allow you to spot competitive phrases and those that will help you drive niche traffic.

Optimization advice
Web CEO contains an optimization tools that will spider your site and generate a customized reports detailing problem areas. Reports can be generated for various search engines, although you are most likely to be targeting Google. The advice is straight forward, well explained and adheres to all modern SEO principles. Related to this module is a web page editor, but I suspect most users will want to complete changes in their favourite web design package.

Link building
Two modules help you with your link strategy. Link Popularity Analyser will generate useful reports on your inbound link profile, how it changes over time and how it compares to the competition. The Link Partner Finder will automatically generate link partner suggestions and help to manage the process of acquiring links by sending emails and checking if the links have been placed.

Search and directory submission
Web CEO contains around 200 search engines and directories that it will submit your website to. These are hand picked to ensure they are not blacklisted link farms and will add maximum impact to your SEO efforts. Submission is pretty automated although you will need to manually confirm many via email. The software also contains a full list of press release and article websites that you can submit to.

Pay-Per-Click management
Instead of trying to provide a PPC management tool within the software itself, Web CEO will simply load up Google Adwords, AdCenter and other web-based PPC consoles in a window within the software. Web CEO will log you in, but you will still interact with the services as you would in a browser.

Rank reporting
The Ranking Checker is essential in tracking the performance of your efforts over time. Scans can be scheduled and reports are clear. I personally know many SEO consultants that use Web CEO Ranking Checker to generate monthly client reports.

Help and support
Here Web CEO excels. The team are highly responsive to the SEO community. They will often pop up to reply to queries made on forums and on Twitter, as well as by the standard email, telephone and support ticket. There are also lots of third party forums where Web CEO is discussed and help can be found.

Web CEO also offer training and certification for SEO professionals.

So are there any negatives? Two spring to mind. Firstly, the software does feel like it is tailored to the professional who already knows the basics of SEO. If you are looking for hand-holding (i.e. a list of tasks that you simply complete) then you may be better with a lower end product.

The second is that the Web CEO website and, perhaps, the software's user interface is looking a little dated and clunky. The website is full of useful information and is well worth a read in it's own right, but the design could do with a spruce up. Similarly, while the software contains some very powerful tools, the chunky grey design make the interface feel a little tired.

Let's end on a positive. Web CEO remains the SEO software of choice for the professional, and for many, many small businesses owners around the world. And with a starting price of $zero you can't really go wrong!