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Cheap/free alternates to Micro Niche Finder/WordTracker/Market Samurai?

by Matthew NY
22 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello fellow Warriors.

I'm a 20 year old full time electrical engineering student looking to get into article marketing/internet marketing in order to bring in some money while I'm on the computer at night. I'm looking forward to put my time into this, and I'm ready to make some extra cash for basic needs while dorming at school.

I've recently been using a Newbie step by step guide, and one of the steps in the guide ask for me to expand my keywords with Micro Niche Finder, Word Tracker, or Market Samurai. Now, I am trying to stay as close to no initial investment as possible; I'm again, a college student, and like most college students, very very broke. Even $40 is a lot for me to invest into something that I haven't even seen to work yet, let alone $100 or $50 a month for the above programs.

Are there any alternatives to this? I have no problem investing back into this on my next campaign with my profits from my first campaign. This being my first, I want to try to pull this off with spending the least amount possible. I'm not too worried about extra work, as long as I know it will be effective.

If anyone could give me some suggestions I would really appreciate it. I'm not even quite sure what these programs even do, so I couldn't even think of stuff to search up.
#alternates #cheap or free #micro #niche #samurai
  • Profile picture of the author Matthew NY
    Wow, thank you for the very quick response! I will look into this. I am also open to other suggestions as well. =]
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    • Profile picture of the author lakatos
      Try This .

      Originally Posted by xwgpx55 View Post

      Wow, thank you for the very quick response! I will look into this. I am also open to other suggestions as well. =]
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary King
    Google's search tool is a good place to start, but Razer Rage is right, make sure you choose Exact Search before you bet the farm on something.

    Bing offers a plug-in for Excel called Microsoft Ad Intelligence. It lets you get results and then drill down into them.

    It does require Excel, but you can get Office pretty cheaply using your academic discount through your school. I've had mixed results with it, but it is another thing to explore.

    If I remember correctly, you have to set up an account on Bing with a $5 deposit, but you can then use that 5 bucks to run ads on Bing later.

    All success,

    Gary
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  • Profile picture of the author hjalte81
    Originally Posted by xwgpx55 View Post

    Hello fellow Warriors.

    I'm a 20 year old full time electrical engineering student looking to get into article marketing/internet marketing in order to bring in some money while I'm on the computer at night. I'm looking forward to put my time into this, and I'm ready to make some extra cash for basic needs while dorming at school.

    I've recently been using a Newbie step by step guide, and one of the steps in the guide ask for me to expand my keywords with Micro Niche Finder, Word Tracker, or Market Samurai. Now, I am trying to stay as close to no initial investment as possible; I'm again, a college student, and like most college students, very very broke. Even $40 is a lot for me to invest into something that I haven't even seen to work yet, let alone $100 or $50 a month for the above programs.

    Are there any alternatives to this? I have no problem investing back into this on my next campaign with my profits from my first campaign. This being my first, I want to try to pull this off with spending the least amount possible. I'm not too worried about extra work, as long as I know it will be effective.

    If anyone could give me some suggestions I would really appreciate it. I'm not even quite sure what these programs even do, so I couldn't even think of stuff to search up.
    The keyword tool in Market samurai is free and superior to most of the other stuff out there

    IMHO
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew NY
    You mean I don't have to pay for the keyword tool in market samurai?
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    • Profile picture of the author SpeedofMoney
      Originally Posted by xwgpx55 View Post

      You mean I don't have to pay for the keyword tool in market samurai?
      Nope It's wicked.
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      • Profile picture of the author selfp
        Market Samurai is excellent, and the free version is good enough for newbies to get a lot of good data. The paid for version lets you drill down to some detailed info, but only info that backs up the main stuff.
        Market Samurai is worth the full price.

        Micro Niche Finder is better than Market Samurai in many respects, it's really well designed and gives you exactly what you need to know to do well in this game. It'll cost you much more than MS though, so perhaps learn the basics with MS, make some money, and then invest in Micro Niche Finder.

        Tony.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    Understand that tools like Micro Niche Finder are just shortcuts. They pull their data from Google's tool and just spiff it up and add other factors. You can pretty much do it all for free - except your time isn't free and you'll have to invest more of it to make up for the money savings by not buying one of these programs. Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. I use MNF to brainstorm for niche ideas and do quick elimination checks. Then I dig in and spend the time to dig out the real gold in them thar hills. Honestly, learning to do really good, in-depth keyword research will serve you very well if you plan to get into affiliate marketing or Adsense, etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Zeus66 View Post

      Understand that tools like Micro Niche Finder are just shortcuts. They pull their data from Google's tool and just spiff it up and add other factors. You can pretty much do it all for free - except your time isn't free and you'll have to invest more of it to make up for the money savings by not buying one of these programs. Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. I use MNF to brainstorm for niche ideas and do quick elimination checks. Then I dig in and spend the time to dig out the real gold in them thar hills. Honestly, learning to do really good, in-depth keyword research will serve you very well if you plan to get into affiliate marketing or Adsense, etc.
      Listen to this man, he is 100% right. Personally I use reverse IP lookup and Scrapebox for kw research, it's a whole different way of doing research and much more reliable to find out how tough it is too rank. It takes a little more time but after 3 weeks fulltime kw research I have enough keywords to keep me busy for a whole year.
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  • Profile picture of the author CalvinWarr
    I was looking at the Market Samurai and the amount of info is a lot... the problem is that without a good understand of what is going on, the data is just a whole lot of mumbo jumbo... I guess I need to spend time going thru the tutorial videos...
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    • Profile picture of the author walkmen
      Hi Mathew,

      I agree about Market Samurai. It's a very effective keyword research tool because it automates the gathering of data such as number of search results and commercial intent. Without it, you would be gathering the numbers manually. I do believe that the keyword research module is free.
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  • Profile picture of the author 3DBuildingDesigner
    Matthew

    As this is your first venture into IM and you have the time I recommend that you don't buy any software or tools or paid training at ALL.

    ALL of these resources are designed to "automate" processes to varying degrees and that's ALL they do, there is nothing they do that cant or wasn't originally done manually.

    You should be starting out in non competitive niches so you don't need a lot of anything - except maybe research time - but far far more importantly if you do it manually you will learn the "why" of what you are doing.

    Here is my best tip:

    If your planning to be in this for the long haul you will get a huge return from understanding how its done manually and then invest in automation when your making some money, if you just want to make a quick buck you wont anyway.
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    • Profile picture of the author wordofmouthmagic
      If you want to simply expand your keyword list then you can use Google's adwords keyword tool.

      Market Samurai gets its initial list by pulling from Google's keyword tool anyway.

      For a free version you can then use SEOQuake as a Firefox plugin to have a quick look at the top 10 and see if it is worth going after. Market Samurai does more, but at your stage you probably don't need the extras.
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    Hi,

    when you type in this in google:

    inanchor:"yourkeyword" intitle:"yourkeyword" inurl:"yourkeyword"

    then you have the vakue of soc for this keyword, it should be under 1000.

    best wishes
    marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Mayhew
    SEO Book's keyword tool is free and you can export your results to csv.
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  • Profile picture of the author janeiro82
    I'm using Ultimate Niche Finder. It's a One-Time-Fee and it's very good.
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    • Profile picture of the author computron
      I would highly recommend the Market Samurai keyword research tool that remains free. I will also say that the "SEO Competition" module of Market Samurai is unbeatable for further analyzing keyword and the top 10 spots in google. Market Samurai offer's a 40-day extended trail which should get you through your first website and hopefully you'll be ranked and earning some income by the time it's up!

      Here's the link to the trail extension marketsamurai com/trial-extension.php Market Samurai

      Best of luck to you!
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  • Profile picture of the author marco005
    Hi,

    sorry I mean "value" not vakue, problem is I have ubuntu, so MS, MNF not runs on it.

    best wishes
    marco005
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  • Profile picture of the author katerinamos
    My market samurai version is very slow (not because of my PC) , is there anyone here has the same issue?
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    • Profile picture of the author Laubster
      Originally Posted by katerinamos View Post

      My market samurai version is very slow (not because of my PC) , is there anyone here has the same issue?
      It's been slow for a while, since that last Google update when they had to pull their rank tracker. Nothing we can do really tho.
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  • Profile picture of the author guitarizma
    Banned
    As far as my understanding goes, most of them pull data from the Big G (market sam and MNF surely do) and if you have a fair bit of understanding about how and why certain keywords are important, you can save yourself the money and do all the research on Google keyword tool itself.
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