keyword research tools

[crocwatcher]

This has probably been covered but I couldn't find it in the forum. Just curious what the favorite keyword research tool is out there right now? I've been using keyword elite but it is driving me nuts. Doesn't seem to work right at least half the time. I have used word tracker before but it seemed a tad unrelevant, perhaps due to the way it extrapolates so much of its data. so whats the running favorite right now? Thanks!

[abbottsys]

Believe it or not, after trying all the other stuff, I use the AdWords keyword tool. Of course, I also keep in touch with my customers, to see how *they* describe my products. That can often be a source of surprising new keywords.

[crocwatcher]

ya, I've used that too... guess I am not thrilled with it's fuzzyness, ie - in some places it just shows bars and not numbers. But relative is fine as long as you understand thats what your getting!

[AussieWebmaster]

spyfu is not bad adgooroo another seobook tools are also pretty good

[Chrisl1234]

All keyword research tools that interrogate AdWords / Yahoo / MSN do require constant updating to stay current - and that includes Keyword Elite, simply because Google especially makes a habit of changing their programming very frequently.

[crocwatcher]

ke elite is not working at all right now! LOL

[chris1]

A quick summary of how I feel about each keyword tool that I have tried...

Google Keyword Tool - this I use in conjunction with Google Trends to get the most accurate estimate of keyword search volume (I use term(s) whose volume I know as measutring stick), does not display any trademarked terms which is a huge problem because in many cases we have clearance to use these trademarks

WordTracker - accuracy is decent but can be way off in some cases, somewhat outdated, remove all adult filters when using (they filter out way too much)

WordZe - most up to date of the non-Google tools, accuracy can range from good to very poor

Keyword Discovery - best display of results for the non-Google tools (easiest to work with IMO), accuracy is for the most part good, data is very outdated as they seem to still be relying on old data from the Overture kw tool

Keyword Elite and KeyCompete - don't even bother, these are not accurate at all


I did a pretty in-depth analysis to determine the age of the data and was amazed at how old and out-of-date all the third party tools were.

[Discovery]

What drives your campaigns?

Do you let KW tools drive your account strategy?

Do the keywords define your account's structure?, or does a theme, a product category, model, or is it consumers intent?

KW's should be the means to that end.

If everyone uses the KW tools and makes logically similar conclusions will there not be hyper-inflated competition on these KW's for each vertical?

Its my belief that KW estimate tools based on shaky data tied to a simple thesaurus are of little value. (Keyword evaluation tools based on campaign data is a different story).

You need to have a theme and fill out that theme with keywords you come up with then use a tool like The Permutator to generated huge variations of theses core keywords and phrases that are related to each theme. After all this, you can prod around in a keyword tool to see if there are some missing ones that can fit into your now properly defined adgroups.

Discovery

[Chris Boggs]

Originally Posted by chris1

A quick summary of how I feel about each keyword tool that I have tried...

Google Keyword Tool - this I use in conjunction with Google Trends to get the most accurate estimate of keyword search volume (I use term(s) whose volume I know as measutring stick), does not display any trademarked terms which is a huge problem because in many cases we have clearance to use these trademarks

Chris thanks for the summary I agree with most of your analysis except this one. Google kw tool is in my experience something that should be used as a "gut check," but not to drive keyword research. We have found the volume predictions in there to be pretty inaccurate, with the exception of the high-volume terms.

One has to remember that Google puts the tool out there so that people will consider more keywords to buy in AdWords. I am of the opinion that it is common that the keywords that show up in there with admittedly lower volume in fact have very little to no volume.

[crocwatcher]

Thanks for the feedback folks! And the reminder of doing the comparison with google trends, I had forgot about that (at least temporarily, LOL) seems the consensus is there is no one best tool, just have to keep muddleing through...

[chris1]

Originally Posted by Chris Boggs

Chris thanks for the summary I agree with most of your analysis except this one. Google kw tool is in my experience something that should be used as a "gut check," but not to drive keyword research. We have found the volume predictions in there to be pretty inaccurate, with the exception of the high-volume terms.

One has to remember that Google puts the tool out there so that people will consider more keywords to buy in AdWords. I am of the opinion that it is common that the keywords that show up in there with admittedly lower volume in fact have very little to no volume.

I agree, Chris. I also use multiple tools for keyword research.

I think what you are talking about is the search volume represented by the small bar graphs within the Google tool. There is definitely no proper scale being used for these estimates as a high volume term (say 2000 searches per day) could show a bar that looks to be 80% full while right below it a low volume term (<50 searchs per day) could display a bar that looks to be about 70% full.

I use the Google tool to get ideas for terms then I get an estimate by typing in the terms (a few terms at a time) into Google Trends, along with a term that I know the volume of. I've found this to be the most accurate way of estimating search volume. Of course, its not practical to do this for every term in a campaign, but for the the top 20-50, it is worth it.

[Chris Boggs]

chris that is exactly what I was trying to say and you much more eloquently put. The bars are what confuse most people, and as you describe, are based on scale for the particular keyword "universe" that you are dealing with. Thanks for clarifying that.

[brisbaneseo]

In the old days I used to use Yahoo Overture's keyword research but that is long outdated.

Now I use wordtracker for most keywords and I like that it is naturally conservative and filters for noise.

On smaller keywords for clients or when I want some additional information I will use Google Adwords keyword research tools.

There has been talk of us getting access to hitwise through one of our clients. I also try and read hitwises industry reports when they come out as they provide soem nuggets of gold and reassurance of my current keyword strategy.

I'm also having a look at miscrosofts tools at the moment at http://adlab.msn.com

[AussieWebmaster]

Way to work it Brisie - nice to know the Queenslanders are not just bending bananas

[Marcia]

Nathan Buggia did a beautiful write-up on the MS tool, screenshots and all:

Learn More About Your Customers

[allstar784]

It's clear everyone is using a group of seo keyword tools to get the job, I've found that starting with keyword discovery, cleaning the list, running it through word tracker and then selecting my top 50 out of that list usually does the job.

For accuracy I check it against google keyword tool and spyfu.

Spyfu aids me in analyzing how loaded the google keyword tool is when perceiving the overall volume as it defines much of what is ad performance based.

But my overall strategy is to test my keywords after I've chosen them, using adwords and yahoo ads. What's the point in selecting high volume keywords or even low volume niche keywords if they don't convert well?

I think that's the whole point, right?

[brisbaneseo]

The thing that seems to be most overlooked about keyword research is the competitive and commercial aspects of the keywords. You have to be able to look at the adword and SERP markets for those keywords and find where realistically your business best fits to achieve a high ranking. A list of 50 keywords or in some cases 500 keywords does nothing for you if you are not focusing on the keywords you compete for. I find this kind of research helps give you an overview of the market place.

We are using small target adword groups and very small and specific content pages by identify keywords that are searched 4-50 times a day that bigger companies haven't directly optimized for. If someone has advice on how to approach this differently or another strategy that works better for them then I would be more than happy to listen, this seems to work well for us.

The Banana Bending Brisbanite

[AussieWebmaster]

I would use a competitor analytics tool to see what major keywords my competitors are using in PPC - then see where I am in the organic SERPs for those terms - if possible optimize to get good position for them... if too competitive I would look for the top 10 longer tail terms that incorporate the terms and push up for those.... as you gain better positioning for them you eventually get lift on the main term as well - and while you wait you get the low lying traffic