Keyword Research: Reviews, Tips & Tactics
by Nicolette Beard
Keywords are the lifeblood of any Web site. Hopefully, you've completed
in-depth, keyword research before you've designed your site.
Anyone can rank #1 for a keyword, but if no one's searching for it, who
cares? If you're blushing because you forgot this critical first step, don't
worry. Keyword research never ends.
When Free Keyword Tools Aren't
Really Free
Webmasters have come to rely on Google's keyword research tool because
Google drives the majority of search volume. With the recent Yahoo!-Bing
partnership, and Yahoo! effectively out of the search game, time will tell
if Bing will make a dent. Bing still drives millions of search queries per
month, so it may be wise to familiarize yourself with Bing's Webmaster tools
as well.
Every competent search marketer begins with keyword research. They take the
time to learn and evaluate many tools, both free and paid. Over time, we
come to have our favorites. Before I tell you which keyword research tool I
prefer, here is a snapshot of the pros and cons, based on my experience, of the primary research
tools available today.
Google Keyword Tool - Tendency to favor the most popular keyword
suggestions (so called "head terms") while greatly overestimating keyword
search volume. You absolutely must perform competitive analysis to
determine how truly competitive a search phrase is before deciding whether
it's worth the time and effort to attempt to rank for a popular search term.
To do this use the allintitle: operator. Type into the Google search box
the words "allintitle:" (without the quotes) and the search term in
question. This returns results for the number of pages for which any given
Web page is minimally optimized.
Many inexperienced Web marketers will pay a
high price for their pay-per-click (PPC)
ad thinking that they must buy a key term thinking it's too competitive for their Web site to appear in
the "organic" or natural results. With this insight, you can write
unique page titles using primary keywords and start ranking for so-called
competitive terms in addition to "long tail" keywords.
While Google is technically "free," you may be paying for it in ways not
readily apparent.
Free vs. Paid Keyword Research Tools
"Free" is always great, especially when you're a small start-up
or just
learning Web marketing tactics. In fact, if you're in a niche market, you
may never need to pay for a keyword research tool ever! But if you are
paying for research tools, it helps to know the distinctions beyond price. Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and SEO Book are the three tools with which
I'm most familiar.
Wordtracker - They pull data from Dogpile and Metacrawler (smaller search
engines) over the past 90 days and extrapolate to determine what the search volume may
be on a larger search engine. It compiles a database
of over 330 million search terms and updates weekly. The free version offers
the top 100 results. If you want a deeper keyword list or trends analysis,
it will cost you $59/mo.
Keyword Discovery - This advanced keyword research tool draws on a database
of 36 billion search queries from many different search engines over the last 12 months. The free version provides top 10 results.
They also offer extensive analytics, up to the enterprise level, starting at
$69.95/mo.
SEO Book - Aggregates data from Google, Yahoo!, MSN (now Bing) Wordtracker
and Keyword Discovery, all from one, convenient Web application. It gives
you trends, analysis and Adwords suggestions from the same screen.For this
reason alone, this is my go-to
keyword research tool. Unless I'm researching for a
highly competitive industry or vertical, SEO Book provides me all the
information I need at a glance. SEO Book also has a paid-membership site
which is how Aaron Wall has been able to offer this fabulous tool for free
and for so long.
(And, yes, I am an affiliate of Aaron's. If you click the link, and become a
member of his SEO Forum, I'll earn a small commission.)
The Newest (Truly Free) Keyword Research Tool
Of course, nothing beats your own Web analytics to determine which keywords
your visitors are using. Again, Google provides a wealth of information in
its Google Analytics interface, but their estimates are not always accurate.
You really want to rely on your own Web log files, which brings me to the
newest addition to this free, keyword research tools roundup: Wordstream.
Wordstream - The depth and breadth of this truly "free" Web analytics
software may convince me to make the switch. This is the first tool I've
evaluated where you can download your log file data into their application
for no charge at all.
They pull data from not only major and minor search engines, but also from
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and browser tool bars. This means their
pool of data is conceivably even bigger than Google's since Google only
focuses on what you do when you're on their search engine.
I haven't tested the accuracy yet, and their quantity of keyword suggestions
may be overwhelming (up to 10,000 keywords per search), but for search
agencies managing large PPC campaigns or large e-commerce sites, this could
be a winner.
Stay tuned for more. I have an online demo scheduled Monday.
