Researching
keywords for search engine marketing campaigns
or search engine optimization is an important
step to the entire search marketing process. It
is important not to rely solely on one tool, or
to become too reliant on using one tool over
another. Mixing multiple tools into your keyword
research process can help give you a
comprehensive and complete look at what the
particular search landscape looks like for your
particular website or niche. Most of the keyword
research tools listed below are absolutely free,
so start your research...
Yahoo's Search Term
Suggestion Tool
This tool
provided by Yahoo (formerly Overture) returns
keyword expansion data of up to 100 results for
each query, also including the number of
searches for each keyword for the most recent
month of data. The data is based on actual
search data from the Yahoo search engine. This
Yahoo tool provides a list of keywords that are
based off your original search. For example, the
keyword “real estate” might return keywords such
as “real estate mortgage”, “real estate search”,
"real estate company", "real estate broker",
etc..
Google Adwords Keyword
Tool
The Google
Adwords keyword tool will return keywords based
off the original keyword entered, as well as
include synonyms and other related keywords. You
can also get “site-related” keywords, which
allows you to build a keyword list based off the
context of a website. For example, entering the
URL WineEnthusiast.com returns keywords such as
“wine cellars", “wine rack”, "wine coolers", and
other keywords relevant to the website entered.
An advantage to this tool is it allows you
literally build a keyword list as you do
research, by saving keywords you select. After
building a list of keywords and site-related
keywords, you can export the list to a .csv file
for use in a program such as Excel.
Alternatively, if you are already a Google
Adwords user the keywords can be imported right
into your Adwords account. There are two
versions of this Google keyword tool, one is for
Adwords customers who are logged in, and the
other is accessible by anyone.
External tool Internal
tool (must be logged in)
Wordtracker
Keyword Research Tool
Wordtracker
has long been one of leaders in keyword
research. Their tool requires a subscription for
use (free trial available), but allows some
advanced features not found in other tools. For
example, the Wordtracker API allows you add
Wordtracker functionality to your own
applications and software. Wordtracker has a
keyword database containing hundreds of millions
of keywords collected by various “metacrawlers”.
This tool is excellent for more advanced stages
of keyword research and analysis, but it may be
unnecessary for an early stage search engine
marketing campaign.
Free Wordtracker
Keyword Research Tool
Wordtracker also offers a
free keyword research tool that will provide
estimated daily traffic numbers for up to 100
keywords. If you're looking for the formula of
how Wordtracker estimates daily search volume:
see
this explanation
Online Thesaurus
It may seem
simple, but a thesaurus is probably the best
(and oldest) method of finding synonyms. Don't
underestimate the power of synonyms to search
marketing, as the results can sometimes surprise
you! For example, entering the keyword "alcohol"
returns words such as "inebriant", "booze"", and
"rotgut". Would you have remembered all those
synonyms on your own?
Digital Point
Keyword Suggestion Tool
This tool
combines query results from both Yahoo and
Wordtracker to return a side-by-list of keyword
expansion data. If you are a user of either the
Yahoo or Wordtracker tool, you'll appreciate
using a tool that provides results from both in
the same place. While you are at Digital Point,
you might also check out a few of the other
tools they offer, as well as their very
informative forums.
SEO Book Keyword
Suggestion Tool
The SEO
Book keyword tool uses data provided by the
Yahoo (Overture) keyword suggestion tool. It
provides estimated monthly search volumes by
market for the three largest search engines:
Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This tool conveniently
links out to other tools such as Google Trends,
Google Suggest, Google Synonyms, Yahoo Suggest,
Nichebot, and Wordtracker results. The SEO Book
keyword tool is a great starting point for
keyword research, since you can quickly and
easily jump between tools and do comprehensive
research.
Google Suggest Scraper
By itself,
Google Suggest
is not particularly useful for keyword research.
However, this tool scrapes results from
Google Suggest for
any given keyword query. This is useful because
Google Suggest does not allow you to easily view
all of the results for a given query. However,
with this tool you can easily copy and paste the
results, or just view them in your browser.
Note: be warned that this can take a few seconds
to generate results, so be patient when using
this tool.
KeyCompete
KeyCompete is a tool for
researching and monitoring what keywords
competitors and other advertisers are bidding
on. You can't rely on KeyCompete to give you
totally accurate reports, but it can give you a
general idea of the types of keywords specific
advertisers are bidding on - plus give you lists
of advertisers for specific keyword phrases.
Here is more information and a sample report
from
KeyCompete.
KeywordDiscovery.com
Keyword Discovery is
a service of Trellian. This tool compiles data
from search engines around the world for what is
arguably one of the most robust keyword tools
available. With Keyword Discovery, you can
research keywords by industry, season, spelling
mistakes, and several other options. On this
website you can also access some free
information related to the most popular keyword
searches and their corresponding search volume.
Keyword Discovery is a paid service, but a free
trial is available.
KeywordSpy
KeywordSpy
claims to track over a billion keywords - and is primarily
useful to find and research what keywords your competitors
are bidding on. Similar to KeyCompete,
KeywordSpy allows you enter a domain name or
keyword - and compare lists of keywords by
advertiser. KeywordSpy offers a free trial of
their service, but the full version costs
$89.95/month.
RapidKeyword
RapidKeyword boasts the ability to find
profitable related keywords to your niche or
topic in only minutes by running several keyword
searches within the tool. RapidKeyword is a
keyword tool that features a built-in Overture
keyword suggestion tool, meta tag parser, a tool
that finds potential keywords on web pages,
Yahoo related keywords spider, Google keyword
extractor, typo generator, and a metacrawler
related keywords spider. RapidKeyword offers a
free trial download that runs in full-feature
mode, so you can test the program to see if it
suits your keyword research and keyword building
needs.
