Keyword research is such a vital aspect to your overall success online that it simply can’t be ignored. You need to be able to find good keywords to target, quickly and easily. There are many paid options out there for your keyword research, but I must say that the only keyword research tool that I use currently is a completely free tool from the most powerful search engine online, Google. That is right, I use the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is arguably the best keyword research tool available. With their latest update, I can now make this claim. This tool now gives you actual numbers from Google itself that tells you the volume of searches that are done on a given keyword. Before this tool would give you a bar with a volume indicator on it, but now they give you actual numbers. These numbers can really help you identify good keywords that you should be focusing on for your website.
How To Use This Tool More Effectively?
One simple method for utilizing this tool more effectively is to type in the main keyword of your niche that you are trying to target, and make sure that “Use Synonyms” is checked. That will bring up potentially hundreds of other keyword combinations that either use that phrase or a similar phrase.
Once you get your results you can find good niche phrase to easily rank for by sorting by the Advertister Competition. Look for the keywords that get some search volume, but have little advertiser competition or no advertiser competition. Once you find these keywords you can go to Google and search for that phrase in there. The logic behind this method is that if people aren’t paying for these keywords in Adwords, than chances are people aren’t trying to optimize for this phrase on their website. Since there is less competition trying to rank for a phrase there is a better chance you have of getting targeted traffic from that keyword phrase.
Now, I am not saying that you just focus on these niche phrases when you optimize. You should optimize for the more broad phrases on the main parts of your website, but these longtail phrases are great for writing posts or for getting good search engine rankings for niche phrases. Don’t get discouraged if a keyword only has 1,000 visitors per month. That is not a bad thing because if you can get 5% of those visitors each month, that is an additional 50 targeted prospects that will see what you offer, and you do the work once to get ranked.
Why Does This Tool Blow The Competition Out of the Water?
Many of you are familiar with WordTracker as a keyword research tool. I feel that this tool totally blows Wordtracker out of the water because I feel the data is more accurate than WordTracker, and also the amount of keywords that this tool picks up way exceeds WordTracker and their limited resources. The other reason I like this tool better is the price. It is FREE! You can’t lose with it.
Other Important Notes
Also, when using this tool and considering the volume they show there, remember that these numbers do not represent data from other search engines like Yahoo or MSN. So keep in mind that across the board the volume is higher.
Paul Counts is an SEO consultant and Internet entrepreneur. If you would like access to exclusive free SEO tips and traffic generation ideas visit www.SEOCounts.com. To learn how to make money online visit his blog.
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