Keyword Research - Frequently Asked Questions

[Saranya2011]

In my suggestion is Google adwords is best keyword tool..

[Daave]

What about Google Ad-word..........?

[razorico]

I advise everyone use SEMRush, there is a great find on competitors - interesting words sometimes come up! For no limit research you would have to pay, but I think it's good investement in your business.

[alohascott1]

Has anyone complained about the need to click those links to get the extra data that market samurai does not pull automatically? I think its a pain in the ass to click a link and then wait for ms to pull the data then click another link and so on. I would much rather let the software run itself and do something else while i am waiting.
I have no problems with MS slowing down my computer as its new.
thanks

[carlgreak]

It should be like this. I use Market Samurai, as well. The price tag may 'appear' high, however, IMHO, it is the best and that price tag has paid for itself very easily. It is very necessary.

[dagaul101]

Market samurai as well as the Google Keyword External Tool are all pretty good

[Kelvin AIP]

I read this from another forum that someone referenced, and wondered if you agreed with the usefulness (or lack thereof) of Google's popular keyword too. I don't have historical searches, nor do I notice any difference, but supposedly, GAKWT is not as useful or comprehensive in data search as it once was.

The revolution of search has traditionally been centered on our ability to discover how humans search, the words they use, in what order, the frequency thereof and other subtle semantic permutations. Unless we want to subscribe (in resignation) to Google’s dumb-ass shortening of the known language universe, this tool borders on useless. No more will Google’s sampling of human queries be easily available just for the asking.

source: R.I.P. Google Keyword Tool. Long Live SEO! » aimClear® Search Marketing Blog

What are your thoughts and what are the alternative tools to do your keyword research? or do you completely rely on google's biased data?

[TopKat22]

Well, I listen to the top money makers and of all the tools they could be using, they are STILL using, and promoting others to use, the Google Keyword Tool.

Don't believe everything you read. ;-)

[AdrianCostan]

Google Keyword Tool isn't dead. At least it isn't dead yet. Although the results are kind of "frightening" sometimes it still up for good use. Also that post is from 2010. Thomas Hale.

[Tim Franklin]

The one thing that seems to at times elude the average marketer is the idea that Google is not a search engine, that is not what they are about.

The fact is that Google first and foremost is a business run for profit.

If you are not on the google radar, all you can hope to do is to glean some crumbs that the large advertisers may leave behind, that is something that you can do, but anyone that does not recognize this fact will find themselves always attempting to bring value to a table that is being setup and used by others.

When I say google radar, that means your a business customer and a big spender at that, what I mean by a big spender is that you spend more than 100,000.000.00 per month, and that might seem like an impossible task for most people, in fact it is, likely that even the top gurus out there in our world do not come close to that kind of advertising budget.

In order for the average Joe or Jane to make a real dent in this world is that you bring something to the table that no one else can, that to say the least in a market saturated with content could be very difficult but not impossible.

The real truth behind Google and its search engines, is that your dealing with a computer, then a human, if you do not recognize that fact again you will eventually find yourself in the place where no good marketer wants to be and that is in the place where they cannot compete with larger and more favored competitors.

What I find to be of great interest is so many products that are designed to deal with google in such a way that has in the past proven to be a failure yet these products are being sold yet today, (automatic backlinks, comment spamming software, blog comments, article marketing, and more every day) some of these are barely logical or even legal, but over all when you fail to see the forest for the trees you need to gain a better perspective else you risk being just another brick in the wall...

In a wall full of other bricks all screaming to somehow get recognized from all the other bricks in the wall.

When you put it all together you can see that there is a method that will work for you but only you can find out what that method is and only you can figure out what this means to you, when you do that you will find out what only few have yet to discover.

There is a pathway to success, but it is not well traveled and in some cases there be serpants...

[Dale21]

I use the Google keyword tool all the time, as well as several other tools for keyword research. I think most people's problem is not really understanding what the difference is with the different searches; broad match, exact match and phrase match. Once you understand what the numbers really do represent, then it is a great tool to use.

[JSProjects]

Yes, it's dead. Move along now. Kidding.

However, a lot of people rely too heavily on it, IMO. And it tends to be wildly inaccurate at times. I wouldn't use it for much more than a very broad estimation. Best thing to do is just get your site(s) up and running. Over time you'll discover that you're getting traffic for all sorts of terms you've never thought of.

The KWT is still a great research tool. But too many people obsess over finding the "perfect" keyword.

[Kelvin AIP]

Thanks for your input guys...

@TopKat22
did you read the article? i agree with you on the common advice of not believing everything we read. however, the points mentioned and results they've found made me wonder how effective KWT is for genuinely finding highest ranked volume of kw search related to the niche/website you're working with.

that said, what "JSProjects" pointed out about relying heavily on the results of KWT makes sense

@JSProjects
i wish i could just move along - haha.. i agree that many prolly do rely heavily on G's KWT more than they should (i myself included in the beginning). the challenge is that we may not have the luxury of running up a list of kw's used to find our site if we have no history/traction yet. when entering a new market as a service provider w/a new client, the KWT is one of the tools that kinda help us get started in the right direction. if margin of error is too wide, that could be deterimental to our initial SEO efforts.

@ThomasHale1986
ya, i know it was 2010 (late 2010), but could be more relevant now than ever nonetheless.

@Tim Franklin
yes, ultimately, we each discover our own way to the "right way."

[Kelvin AIP]

Originally Posted by Dale21

I use the Google keyword tool all the time, as well as several other tools for keyword research. I think most people's problem is not really understanding what the difference is with the different searches; broad match, exact match and phrase match. Once you understand what the numbers really do represent, then it is a great tool to use.

When i first started, I was guilty of really not having much strategy for using the KWT nor did i have much understanding of the different options (broad, phrase, exact) and how i would use them in my research.

CURRENTLY, this is how i'm using KWT:

I typically search first by broad with my obvious list of kw's for the topic. From that starter list, i add the relevant kw ideas to the starter list.

After i've gathered my broad kw list, I search by phrase & exact...

based on the local volume of phrase AND of exact, i determine what my top 10 kw's or phrases will be to focus on.

as a rule of thumb, if the kw phrase is 3+ words, I'll prolly rely go with the 1-2word rankings in exact list first before i go w/the 3+words ranking.

from that list, I determine my priority of what kw's to focus on.

How do you, Dale, or anyone else, use KWT?

[manchito]

As with ANY keyword tool, getting good results depends a lot in your seed keywords.

I use Google tool everyday, even if it is just to validate my findings with other tools.

[stephenwaldo]

Well I don't know...I think that people expect too much from Google KWT. I mean, it would be way too much data to return every single specific keyword, exactly how many times it's been searched, and exactly how many times it's been searched in the past year. Instead they give you broad search counts, phrase search counts, and exact search counts, and between those 3 you can identify how much traffic is long tail and how much matches the phrase.

But even if the keyword tool was totally useless, as was already hit on earlier Google never promised anyone a tool that details the exact search count of every single keyword ever searched in Google. The only thing Google ever promised was to do its very darndest to keep people from manipulating their rankings, and to return the most simultaneously relevant and dynamic results to every single search. I don't think anywhere in there was a clause saying they would do their best to help you make money from their search engine business.

How many other search engines even offer a keyword tool? None that I can think of...But I guess I could be wrong.

I mean, if you want to know how people search, then ask a friend, use your brain, or scrape google related results in combination with the Google keyword tool. No, it's not the most accurate historical data out there, but who cares? I wouldn't call it 'dead' just because it doesn't sync perfectly with what you'd ideally like it to do for your business.

Anyways, I guess that kind of turned into a ramble. Sorry y'all.

Kindly,
- Stephen

[FraserC]

I think the main problem with the GAKT is the related keywords you get are the ones that they'd really like you to advertise on. So, everyone's being funnelled towards specific keywords.

The trick is to get another source of keywords, like Ubersuggest, or your own referrer logs, and then feed those keywords back into the GAKT to get monthly search volume.

That'll tell you what you want to target.

[Fraggler]

Or just good ol' brainstorming!

SEMRush helps a lot too.

[Cosmit]

Ask yourself this: What is Google's biggest moneymaker?

AdWords

And what tool are we talking about here?

AdWords Keyword Tool

It was designed for advertisers to provide them with data so they can estimate how much traffic they will receive.

Why on earth would Google wanna make the tool less useful? Because some "internet marketers" decided to use it as keyword research?

i think it's fairly accurate. always use exact searches though. broad is.. well, broad.

no its not dead bloggers just have nothing else to write these days

[Dale21]

Originally Posted by Kelvin AIP

How do you, Dale, or anyone else, use KWT?

Me personally, I only use the exact match. I do not buy adsense campaigns so the broad match is really misleading and totally useless for me. My research is all for my sites where I want to drive traffic to, so the exact match is the only one that I look at. I know others who rate some importance on the phrase match, but to keep it simple I concentrate on exact match only. That will give you a true honest picture as to how many visitors you have the potential to get to your website, which is all I care about. Again, unless you are running adsense campaigns the broad match is just useless.

As I said earlier I have several keyword tools to find keywords and get a feel for how difficult it will be to rank for. A big plus for me with GKW is the average cost per click. If you have adsense ads on your site, this is critical. Of course you still have to check to be sure google has good ads running for that keyword as well. Again, you have to understand what the average cost per click figure stands for. That is what advertisers are willing to pay google, you will actually get about one third of that. Hope this helps.

[alefa]

i need a key word research tool i am looking for one i read about before but can not find it again it was called traffic sheonobi (i think it is misspelled because i tried to search it and came up with no results)

any recommendation would be helpful but if someone knows what of the one i am looking for can you please post the link for me

thank you

[Dexter Williams]

Hi..

Could it be Keyword Shinobi ?

Other keyword tools that come to mind are Market Samurai, Micro Niche Finder and Traffic Travis... oh yeh, don't forget the Google Keyword Tool

[SlfMastery]

Originally Posted by alefa

i need a key word research tool i am looking for one i read about before but can not find it again it was called traffic sheonobi (i think it is misspelled because i tried to search it and came up with no results)

any recommendation would be helpful but if someone knows what of the one i am looking for can you please post the link for me

thank you

Alefa:

I think this is what you're looking for:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-software.html

[profitableblog]

this looks like a link to the advertising you were looking for: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...Rx2dh5Kz0Xa8OA

[jivens]

I looooooooove market samurai. The only bad thing is that it tends to be a little slow sometimes and you have to click the seotc for EVERY keyword, but besides that it's wonderful. They also give a free trial (forgot how long it is)

[scraig]

This is the tool you are looking for: http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-software.html Good Luck!

[JSProjects]

Originally Posted by jivens

I looooooooove market samurai. The only bad thing is that it tends to be a little slow sometimes and you have to click the seotc for EVERY keyword, but besides that it's wonderful. They also give a free trial (forgot how long it is)

The keyword research module in MS is free-for-life, if I recall.

[outwest]

I think the google Top 10 Analysis for Market
Samurai is unbeatable, and its very fast

Sadly the anchor text and PR analyzer for backlinks no longer works
I guess it was using Yahoo site explorer for that

[xxxJamesxxx]

The keyword research module in MS is free-for-life, if I recall.

Yeah it is but if you're after a good, easy to use keyword research tool then the one I'm currently lovin' is Brad Callen's Niche Finder.

It's a very simple tool designed with the sole perpose of finding you easy to rank for keywords that get traffic every month.

Although I will say if you get excited by spreadsheets of keyword data then I'd go more Market Samurai as it shows you tons more variables etc.

James Scholes

[JRuss]

Hi Alefa,
I have used a couple keyword research tools for a little while now and I recommend using Keyword Evolution if you have trouble with confusing interfaces and procedures but if you are savvy enough you can get off on the right foot with Market Samurai.

Market Samurai is not as user friendly as Keyword Evolution but if you know how to use it correctly it is one of the most effective keyword research tools out there.

Good Luck in finding what you need!

[KevinA]

I used to be a massive fan of Market Samurai as well.. but lately ive noticed its wayyyyy too slow and tends to jam up my whole computer, and there are a few glitches with the data coming through (with the SEO module).

However, the free version is still worth a shot if its only the keyword research section you are after.

[spyroskoun]

I use scrapebox to search for keywords

[jenny007uk]

hi mate i personally use keyword research pro and also recommend to you

i need a key word research tool i am looking for one i read about before but can not find it again it was called traffic sheonobi (i think it is misspelled because i tried to search it and came up with no results)

any recommendation would be helpful but if someone knows what of the one i am looking for can you please post the link for me

thank you

[vjslav]

I almost never spend money on 'marketing tools', but recently shelled out $$$ on Market Samurai, and I am happy I did, it's not slow, if you compare it to SEO Powersuite, it's lightning fast.

If you want free, Google Keyword Tool, been using it for 3 years, it's pretty powerful.

[alefa]

hope every one had a happy thanksgiving...

Thank you all so much for your replies i really appreciate all the help and advice

[alefa]

Originally Posted by JRuss

Hi Alefa,
I have used a couple keyword research tools for a little while now and I recommend using Keyword Evolution if you have trouble with confusing interfaces and procedures but if you are savvy enough you can get off on the right foot with Market Samurai.

Market Samurai is not as user friendly as Keyword Evolution but if you know how to use it correctly it is one of the most effective keyword research tools out there.

Good Luck in finding what you need!

would it be possible to send me the link for keyword evolution?
and is there any training to come with it?

thank you

[alefa]

Originally Posted by jenny007uk

hi mate i personally use keyword research pro and also recommend to you

hello jenny,
would you mind posting the link for me please

thanks,alefa

[JoshuaG]

I use Micro Niche Finder and I Love it.

[alefa]

Originally Posted by JoshuaG

I use Micro Niche Finder and I Love it.

hi JosuaG can you post the link for me please

thankyou,alefa

[VASEO]

Originally Posted by alefa

i need a key word research tool i am looking for one i read about before but can not find it again it was called traffic sheonobi (i think it is misspelled because i tried to search it and came up with no results)

any recommendation would be helpful but if someone knows what of the one i am looking for can you please post the link for me

thank you

Hi Alefa

I think, it is very Great.
you can visit site

adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000&ideaRequest Type=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none, check keywork.

[LarryG6]

What have you found to be the best keyword research tool? Is it Wordtracker, Market Samurai or something else?

[kukev1988]

I use Market Samurai as my main tool

[Brian Boyd]

Can't beat the good old Google Keyword Tool in my opinion.....

[KevinA]

Market Samurai (very slow for me sometimes) and the original Google Keyword tool..

Tip: Remember to use 'Exact Match' when you are looking at search volume. Not doing this may lead you to chasing keywords that dont have sufficient search volume.

[mrjosco]

I use market samurai, but they just pull information from the google adwords keyword tool.

Be careful with lower exact match search numbers. I have had success with the keywords tools, but recently targeted a KW that market samurai and google said gets 880 exact match local searches per month. I am ranked #2 for that keyword and get exactly zero visits per month. Just a fair warning.

Overall though, the tools are pretty accurate.

(I know the search volume was low for a keyword, but the exact match had an cost per click of over $70, so I thought I could adsense it!)

[DailyHealthBlitz]

I use Market Samurai, Google Keyword Tool, and Niche Finder.

[Flowithit]

Start with Google Keyword Tool

Then maybe your network can provide you with there own tool that can help more

[seoglobalexperts004]

Google Keyword tool...... its an awesome tool for keyword research.........

[alok24smart]

Wordtracker is the best. Google keyword tool is free and very useful. No idea about Market Samurai...!

[Rukshan]

I use niche finder and getting good results.