Apr 4, 2009

Free Keyword Research

You've probably heard about Wordtracker by now. It is one of the industry's oldest keyword research and analysis tools. I've used them for years and have always been satisfied with the findings. They used to charge $8 per day, which was a perfect option for small business owners who only have one website to look after, and one day was more than sufficient for a simple keyword research. A couple of years ago, however, Wordtracker changed their pricing policy and the $8 option got discontinued. It now costs around $50 for one month to use their tool, which, in times when people cancel their gym memberhsip and discontinue newspaper subscriptions, is a substantial amount. But don't despair, there is a FREE alternative - available for now!

Use Wordtracker's free tool which they call a "keyword suggestion tool" http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/.

I compared the results between their paid and free keyword tools and decided that in a lot of cases I can get by without using the paid tool (even though I have a subsription to use it). Here is a few tips on how to do a basic keyword research sufficient for most small businesses:

  1. Type in the most generic word in the Wordtracker free keyword suggestion tool. For example, if you are searching for "searching engine optimization techniques" or "seo techniques", key in "search engine optmization" or "seo". You will receive a list of words related to this query with a correspomding number of searches. The number as such does not mean much, but you can use it in relative terms. Type "health" or "weather" (or some other keyword that is bound to be highly popular) and note the number attached to the first 2-3 keywords returned by the tool. Then type a couple of keywords related to your topic again and note the difference in numbers. This will tell you how popular your topic is on the Internet and how much interest you can potentially expect. This will be your benchmark, so to speak.
  2. Then key in a few generic keywords in relation to your subbject matter and scroll through the results, paying attention to singular versus plural, adjective before or after, and similar occurences. Note the smallest number in each case.
  3. Then go on Google and key in the same keywords, recording the number of returned search results pages (SERP) in each case. This will tell you how bad your competition is for each keyword.
  4. Go back to Wordtracker's free keyword tool, perform 5-7 very generic keyword searches, covering as many important aspects of your business as you can. For each generic query, from the list of keywords that Wordtracker would generate, record those that would relate to your topic as closely as possible and record the corresponding number.
  5. Then go back to Google and key in the same keywords, recording the number of SERP pages. Copy all this info, including all keywords returned by Wordtracker, in an Excel file.
  6. Look at the Wordtracker numbers (they represent the degree of popularity of your topic among users) and look at the Google numbers (they represent the amount of competition you have). To create a comparison benchmark, type some generic keywords that are bound to be highly popular with users, then type those you expect to be somewhat popular, and then those not popular at all. Note the numbers in all cases, note them on both Google and Wordtracker. This will give you a good approximation of how to interpret all other numbers (note that are over 23,000,000,000 web pages indexed by Google in total, that is 23 billion!).
  7. Depending on how competitive your area of business is (travel, for example, is much more competitive, than nursing), scroll through the list of keywords returned by Wordtracker and note the corresponding level of competition (Google's SERPs). If your area is highly competitive, select the keywords that are not as popular with users, i.e. not among the first ones on the Wordtracker list, but which would have as fewer competitive SERP pages returned by Googe. You should get 5-15 keyword phrases in total. This will be your sweet spot for both SEO and SEM!
  8. Start Google AdWords campaign and pay for those of your keywords that are most competitive, while trying to optimize your site organically for those keywords that are least competitive. Or, if you have no SEO budget or time, focus on AdWords exclusively.
  9. Run your 'sweet spot" keywords on AdWords for a 2-4 weeks.
  10. Once you had a chance to test and tweak and optimize your AdWords PPC campaign to correct and exclude your own mistakes, pause those keywords that have been consistently performing poorly (i.e. got no impressions and no clicks) and onvest all your budget in the best performing keywords. Make sure to track all results via Google Analytics (set goals and funnels).

If you need help with SEO, AdWords PPC campaigns, or related issues, contact me via my official website at http://www.annatulchinsky.com

Additional Keyword Research Tools:

Keyword Discovery (free trial with limited capabilities)
WordTracker (free trial with limited capabilities)
Keyword Spy (free trial with limited capabilities)
Spyfu (free trial available)
Yahoo Site Explorer (free)
Yahoo Keyword Suggest Tool (free)
Google Keyword Tool (free)
Google Suggest (free)
Google Sponsored Links (free)
Google Trends (free)
Alexa (free)
Website Grader (free)
Yahoo Site Explorer (free)
Search.Yahoo.Com (free, similar to Google Suggest)
Google Site Analyzer (free)
Who Links 2 Me (free)
ExactFactor (free)
SEO Tools (free)