What are the Best Keyword Analysis Tools

I use Market Samurai (the Keyword Research and SEO Competition modules), and sometimes the SEOQuake plugin for FireFox; these are the only two tools I've ever really needed for SEO research.

I would say don't be fooled into believing that more data is always more useful in relation to actual keyword research: beyond the search-volume and ability to predict (insofar as you actually can) the consistency of that number (if a consistent number of monthly searches is important to you ... which you can determine, to an extent, in many cases, by looking at Google Trends), a lot of the other data offered up is superfluous, and is often pure estimation, anyway.

Market Samurai does all this ... and in any case, most of the other keywords tools out there only dig their data from the same sources (Google, mainly).

Beyond this, the only thing that's going to give you a clue as to one's potential to rank for a keyword is an exhaustive look at the strength (not the volume) of competition. And again, this is where a lot of people get caught up in the notion that "more data is necessarily better". You should be looking at the data in as raw form as possible, and learning to get a feel for what constitutes strong vs. weak competition, because any proprietary, automated calculations performed by various different keyword tools are unlikely to be too accurate, and they do not take into consideration the amount of resources - time, knowledge/ability, money, existing "SEO assets" you can leverage, and personal determination - you as an individual have at your disposal.

Again, you should really just be looking at the data in as raw form as possible. Using the various features of Market Samurai for tallying up and consolidating bits of data such as the PR of backlinks and number of backlinks with a specific anchor-text, and so on, may be helpful in giving you a clearer overall picture, but when you get into "proprietary calculation/estimation territory" (which is at the core of some keyword-research tools), you run the risk of shooting yourself in the foot, I think.

I think the tools you have at your disposal right now are perfectly adequate - nay, perfectly optimal - for good keyword and SEO-competition research, and you probably needn't be on the lookout for anything further (nothing you need to pay for, at least!) since I don't believe they'll bring much else to the table.

Just get cracking. The most powerful tool you have in the long term is your ability to manually assess competition levels, and your own inner judgement, and you can only develop these skills/assets effectively if you shun the willingness to let other tools' proprietary estimations dictate to you what you should/shouldn't be doing.

Just my opinion, anyway.

Nope, you do not need any of these, Market Samurai does it all. In fact, I even think you do not need anything at all. Well, maybe SEO Power Suite to help you find additional keywords for those websites - but that`s not really necessary as MS can help you in that pretty well.

Market Samurai for me!

I'm still stuck with google keyword...just your old traditional way...although I'm thinking of getting micro niche...

For me google adword is the best tool to optimize the keyword ... so use it

Thanks for the advice everyone. I was in the same boat

I've been trying out Brad Callen's Niche Finder for a few weeks. Great tool for identifying the right keywords for the niche you're targeting and extremely easy to use. I like the traffic light system it uses to recommend if a niche keyword can be used effectively in terms of competition, domain availability and ppc cost.

I like marketing samurai. It works pretty well plus it gives you an idea about the competitiveness of each market.

There have been some problems with Market Sam lately. Iti has been returning odd or inaccurate data. I'm sure they will get it fixed. Some excellent SEO marketers in forums I am in -- Bring the Fresh and auto Blog Blueprint have been noting this. And in the black hat forums, I've seen this.

Those who like Micro niche finder say it is much less complicated than Mkt Sam. Those who like Mkt Sam like the SEo module. Serp Attacks does for free what these others charge much for. There is a paid version $50. --which will go up eventually , if TweetAttacks is any guide.

Look specifically in backlinks forums for this kind of info. A general blog like this has lots of newbies. If you got o black hat forums, make sure to have a strong anti virus such as kaspersky running and a good anti keylogger ( I hate keyloggers, is free and well recommended, by, for instance, the KimKomando.com nationally syndicated show.

If you need lots of bells and whistles to show clients-- SEoQuake is a free plugin for Firefox that shows just about everything you'd want to see about the competition-- incl keyword density, position, inbound links.
I am not the merchant or an affiliate of any of the above.

Do not download anything from a black hat forum. Just see what some of the most experienced SEo people are saying. For instance, it was very clear quickly how overrpiced SENuke is, and how buggy.

Otherwise, Digital Forum has an active SEO forum, or was it Sitepoint. Put in search serp attacks vs. microniche finder.
Good luck

Hi Joyce,

I also use Market Samurai. However, for variety I sometimes use the free SEObook keyword tracker tool. Just google SEObook and look for tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook

Angela

I use MS and so far so good. I build my business on MS.

MS is the best choice right now.

What do you guys think about SEO Spyglass? That's what I've been using because I found that before Market Samurai, but I've been hearing MS is the best.

What do you guys think? Is MS that much better that I should switch?

Yes, MS is good enough to entertain you and your site as well, in addition with this, it is quite friendly even too, just see for yourself if you get healthy bonding with it.

Market Samurai is the one I use the most.

I think it's better to specialize in one software in order to extract all of it potential