SCORES

Usage – 3/5

Finding New Keywords – 4/5

Finding Search Traffic – 3/5

Total – 10/15

2. Keyword Discovery

CREDIT: PPC HERO

Keyword Discovery is yet another me-me service which tries to replicate the function of Wordtracker. But, Keyword Discovery scores a home run when it comes to usability as well as finding regional search data. If your out trying to figure out the search data for regional terms or optimizing for google.co.uk or .com.au, this is one awesome tool.

SCORES

Usage – 4/5

Finding New Keywords – 3/5

Finding Search Traffic – 2/5

Total – 9/15

3. Wordtracker I included Wordtracker in this list after much resistance, not because the tool is not perfectly a keyword research tool, but because its more of an antique tool. Wordtracker hasn’t evolved one bit over the years and still sticks to its basic function of suggesting keywords based on a thesaurus type model and displaying the search data based on meta-crawlers like Dogpile. The only thing I like with Wordtracker is its keyword basketing system ( almost like an ecommerce site checkout ) and its massive KEI functions.

SCORES

Usage – 2/5

Finding New Keywords – 3/5

Finding Search Traffic – 2/5

Total – 7/15

4. Google Suggest Google Suggest is NOT EXACTLY a typical keyword research tool, its more of an attempt by google to tweak their search quality. But, this tool is awesome for finding our longtail keywords! I had to include this in the list for the amazing arrays of longtails you can optimize for with the help of this tool. Afterall, longtails are gold!

SCORES

Usage – 4/5

Finding New Keywords – 5/5

Finding Search Traffic – 0/5

Total – 9/15

5. Yahoo Search Assist This is similar in function to Google Suggest, but I put this in the list because there are no tools which analyze search data according to the Yahoo perspective. Yahoo is after all the second largest search engine in the web and it would be a shame to discount it from proceedings.

SCORES

Usage – 4/5

Finding New Keywords – 3/5

Finding Search Traffic – 0/5

Total – 7/15

I may have missed a couple of tools here and there, but I’ve to a large extent discounted the tools which were released by MSN. I can guarentee you that these tools are some of the best you’ll find out there and these tools can help you create that foundation for a very successful search engine marketing strategy.

Keyword research is done on the basis of:

1. What people are searching for.
2. How many results are there for the phrase in the search engines

In other words, keywords are like targets or the foundation of a search engine optimization and marketing campaign.

Four Reasons why having good keywords is important

1. With crappy keywords, even if you end up at page #1 there is a high probability that you are not going to get traffic.
2. Traffic from irrelevant keywords doesn’t convert as well as traffic from relevant key-phrases.
3. Bad keywords can result in a bad search engine optimization campaign.
4. If you shoot at keywords which are too competitive or have too few searches, it could be a detrimental effect on the time and money you invest into search engine optimization.

IMAGE CREDIT: LAEVEN

I love thinking vertically, a lot. And, this little post made me thing vertically on the topic of long-tails and the relation it had with fresh content on a page. Now, lets do some introspection. How does a user land up into your page for a long tail? Is it because of the title, meta or in-bound links? I don’t think so! Its all about what’s on the page. Assume that your getting 1500 visitors to a page from 750 different long-tails, its not because your "trying" to rank for all 750 of these keywords i.e your not optimizing your titles, or building in-bound links with anchors of these 750 keywords to get ranked for them. It would also not be technically feasible, to do so – you can’t effectively "optimize" for long tails in the conventional way – you need to work around it and think. I ran a small research, with long tails and how pages were ACTUALLY ranking for them, and here’s something interesting that I found. I ran a Google search for the keyphrase "cadillac escalade wheels rim red and white". And, here’s what I found. Now, if you look at result #2 and analyze it, you will figure these thing out: I – Result #2 does not have all the long-tail keywords in the title. II – Result #2 does not have any in-bound links pointing to the URL with the anchor "cadillac escalade wheels rim red and white". So, what’s making it rank there? Pure Content! Look at the page in question and you will see that its a keyword rich content mine. So, for actually ranking for these long tail keywords, all that you need is relevant and keyword rich content. So, there are the analogies broken and here’s what no guru will tell you about ranking for long-tails. #1 – Build Keyword Rich Content. #2 – Build even more keyword rich content. #3 – Create specifics about whatever your selling in a page ( tables maybe? ) #4 – Get the page indexed and get it a few generic links.