This product review of Wordtracker is by Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com and covers some useful keyword research techniques.
Basically, keyword research should begin with looking at your current web logs or analytics reports since basically these keywords should have some type of ranking. The logic is that you can probably rank for similar keywords.
The key to using a keyword research tool is to start with general themes like ‘chocolate’ and then find other keywords like ‘white chocolate’ and ‘chocolate truffles’. Once you identify some of these, you should visit competition to see how they have ranked.
According to SEOQuake, the more keywords in a search results the better lower quality sites did in the results. This long tail strategy can be good for sites that don’t have the authority to rank for competitive keywords.
Quintera shows keyword phrases that people might be using by relating keywords from the top Google SERP results. There are lots of keyword tools that can be used for ideas as part of the discovery process. Be sure to review keywords volumes as part of the input, but don’t rely on the data from any of the tools.
Google’s keyword tool not only provides keyword variations but you can also plug in a url and Google will use the content of the home page to pull relevant keywords. Compete also provides a traffic / ranking based keyword terms that allows you to ’spy’ on your competition.
Picking the right keywords can lead to traffic quickly if you the right modifers. Only half of the search queries on Google are unique, so be sure to use modifiers that might include product names, brands, and action items like ‘buy’, ‘price’,'order’, ‘cheap’, etc. For another example, clothes might have modifiers like ‘loose’ or ‘tight’. Aaron Wall gives a lot of good ideas regarding the type of keyword modifiers that might be used and these items could potentially be used for on-page body copy.
Rand at SEOMoz does a good walk-through of the Keyword Research Process and how site hierarchy should be more important than just Keyword Demand. This is a common question that we come across as we try to interpret keyword volume research and overlay it into a website.
Once keyword research is complete, it is time to overlay the identified keywords into the meta data and on page body copy (a writing task) and modify the site architecture and link structure (a development task). While not specifically mentioned, this is an excellent time to evaluate Page Rank sculpting and attempting to silo content.
Rand is putting this all under a Keyword Research and Implementation, while we tend divide this overall process into several smaller steps:
Keyword Research – Brainstorm, research, presentation and sign-off by client.
Meta Data – Mapping of target keywords to the website pages.
SEO Content Optimization – On page body copy improvements to support target keyword by page.
While we break this up into some small deliverable items, we do view the overall process as one complete exercise to improve the on-site factors that affect SEO.
Wordtracker is a valuable online keyword research tool which offers several benefits for web site and blog operators. Both free and paid options are available, along with a variety of useful SEO related content. Here are some more details on Wordtracker’s benefits and how it can be used:
When a keyword is entered, Wordtracker responds by indicating the approximate number of daily searches people make on that specific word. This benefits Wordtracker users by letting them know if it is constructive to create web content focused upon that keyword. It can also be utilized when starting a web site or even designing a new product, to see what people are interested in finding. The Wordtracker search query data comes from two relatively popular search engines, Metacrawler and Dogpile, allowing it to accurately indicate the popularity of a given word or phrase.
Another one of Wordtracker’s benefits is that it lists a number of related words and phrases below the keyword in question, along with the number of daily searches for each of them. This makes it easy to get ideas about different keywords to use, reduces the amount of keyword searches necessary, and lets users instantly compare the popularity of various words and phrases. It also has an optional adult content filter. Both of the above-mentioned benefits are available using the Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool, although it is limited to showing the top one-hundred related keywords. It is one of the more useful free keyword tools.
Other benefits include an affiliate program, an e-mail newsletter, and the free “Wordtracker Academy” section, which provides articles and case studies regarding SEO keyword research. The affiliate program pays a fifteen percent commission on the sale of Wordtracker subscriptions, with payment offered by PayPal or check. A paid subscription includes additional benefits such as being able to easily query results on a word from several major search engines, and the ability to save lists of keywords in the system. A seven day free trial of the paid Wordtracker subscription is offered to let potential customers assess the site’s full benefits; it also includes a free bonus guide and video.
Overall, Wordtracker provides a convenient way to determine which keywords and subjects to target when creating new web site and blog content, along with learning more about how to use keywords effectively. Other sites with some of the same benefits include Keyword Discovery and Nichebot.
Competitive research is an important part of any search engine optimization plan. Luckily, there are several tools that can help improve your results.
The first step in any competitive research plan should be keyword research. Otherwise you might as well be throwing your money away. Keywords can bring high search volume and cost a lot of money if they are highly competitive. Doing your research using a tool like Keyword Discovery or Word Tracker can help you determine which words will make enough of a profit for your business to offset the costs. These tools can also help you find low search volume words that also make you a profit.
Another tool you should have is some sort of analytics program. Google offers a pretty good one for free. This will help you track how people are finding your site and how they behave once they are there. All of this information is invaluable when deciding things like where to advertise, who to link to, even if you should redesign your web pages to make them easier to navigate.
Compete.com is a third great tool. This site will show you the traffic trends for your competitor sites. You can list up to 3 sites and see the results of how they stack up against your site and each other. This information is priceless and free.
While these 3 tools are just the tip of the iceberg they are a great place to start your competitive research. With the help of each your SERPs will increase and your site will be more successful in the long run.
Market Vertical Partners has released a new suite of Search Engine Optimization tools designed to help web site owners and search engine optimization specialists review a web site SEO status quickly.
The new SEO tools include:
Keyword Density Cloud -Visual depiction of keyword density and count. Search Engine Ranking - See if your web site is in the top 100 on major search engines. Link Popularity Check – Shows inbound web site link count for Google, Yahoo, & MSN. Indexed Pages - Shows website pages indexed by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Google PR Check your web site Google Page Rank.
Keywords, Tools | seowhitehats | October 18, 2008 | 
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