3 Invaluable Keyword Research Tools

Anyone who has worked to make from money from their website knows that a major part of Search Engine Optimization is finding effective, relevant keywords that relate to page content. These keywords must also be able to produce high enough search engines rankings to generate targeted traffic. Just like most web marketers I use a variety of tools for my keyword research.

To get free search engine traffic keyword research and analysis is a must. Traffic is one thing, but targeted traffic that helps you reach buying customers is another. Keyword research must come before any serious search engine optimization work. You can't take the first keyword that occurs to you and optimize the Web pages accordingly. Keyword research before you even buy the domain is the key to optimization. The right keyword research tool can help you do just that.

Keyword research is market research. It tells you what people are interested in, and how many people are interested in it. Keyword research and analysis aren't as simple as guessing. The goal is to come up with keywords that will get me top placement on Google, Yahoo and other major search engines.

I use several tools, although many of these tools perform similar tasks, they work best for different parts of the keyword generation process. Keyword generation is a process that takes thought and effort and it has a learning curve that can only be overcome through time, effort and through experience.

Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool is a free tool by Google that will give you keywords based on what searchers are entering in Google search. Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool will give you the amount of advertisers bidding on each term within the Google AdWords Program. This is important because it's data from the Google AdWords Program and not the entire internet. Google is the search engine for several ISP's, like AOL and Netscape.

You have the option to save your keyword generation results in various formats including .txt, .csv or Excel. The Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool is available to AdWords users and can be accessed externally if you do not have a Google AdWords Account.

WordTracker   has been an invaluable tool for me. Wordtracker is a research tool that will give you the keywords you need to rise above your competitors in search engine rankings. It will show you how keyword research can help you discover untapped market niches, get inspiration for new products and create content that distinguishes your site from the other websites.

Wordtracker has a free and a fee based service. Wordtracker provides you with a list of related keywords and the estimated search volume for each keyword. Wordtracker collects search volume data from two search engines, dogpile.com and metacrawler.com which makes several million searches per day.

The free version is limits you to 100 results per search. The paid version gives you research thousands of keywords. With the paid version, you can import lists of keywords and check their search volume. With the free version you have to enter your keywords one at a time. With the paid version, you can save your keyword projects for later research.

The Overture Keyword Analysis Tool is intended to help optimize pay per click campaigns on Yahoo!, but it’s also very useful to discover keyword for your search engine optimization. Overture Keyword Analysis Tool will give you the total number of times a search query has been entered into a search engines with-in the Overture network in the previous calendar month. The Overture network includes searches from Yahoo! Search, AltaVista and MSN as well as others search engines.

Overture's data is based on more searches than Wordtracker's so in most cases the results for each keyword will be higher. Overture's keyword suggestion tool is free. It works like Wordtracker but doesn't tell you how many websites are targeting each keyword phrase, which is an important thing to know.

You need to understand that there are keyword research tools to do everything you will need. Keep in mind that tools are just tools, your job is to learn to use them will skill and imagination. As a web marketers you must be able to go beyond these tools and look at the big picture.

 Frank Palani Madan