Keyword research is the key to any effective search engine optimization campaign. Uncovering and optimizing for the right keywords – those keywords and phrases your prospects and clients are likely to search for – will dramatically increase your search engine traffic. Here is a list of free keyword research tools you can use. (Note: many of these services offer a free and a more comprehensive paid version.)
Brainstorming Keywords
- Google AdWords Keyword Tool – Google’s keyword tool offers a wealth of free information. Their Keyword Variations tool allows you to enter numerous keywords and they’ll offer suggestions for others you might like to use. They also offer an overview of how many competitors are bidding on that keyword and approximately how many people search for that keyword. While they don’t give exact numbers, they provide a helpful green bar that allows you to gauge results. Their Site-Related Keywords tool lets you enter any webpage URL and they’ll tell you what keywords are used most frequently, as well as providing gauges for advertiser competition and search volume.
- KeywordDiscovery – If you’re looking for a more in-depth keyword research tool, KeywordDiscovery.com offers a plethora of features including popular keyword searches, misspellings, phonetic matching, keyword cross referencing, and others.
- WordTracker – Similar to Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker offers all sorts of tools to research keywords including various types of searches and misspellings. They offer a free trial and prices.
- Wordze – Similar to Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker offers all sorts of tools to research keywords including various types of searches and misspellings. They offer a free trial and prices.
Uncovering Your Competitors’ Keywords
- Compete – If you compete with larger websites, compete.com is an essential online competitive research tool that allows you to analyze your competitors’ traffic and keywords.
- SpyFu – SpyFu.com is a free competitive search research tool that allows you to uncover what keywords your competitors are bidding on and rank for. Simply type in the url and you’ll learn stats like their daily ad budget, average clicks/day, average cost per click, their Alexa rank, number of incoming links and how long it takes to load the page. It will also reveal what keywords the site ranks for in organic search, their top 100 organic competitors, and any categories in the Open Directory that the site is listed under.
- SEM Rush – Similar to Spyfu and Compete, SEMRush allows you to uncover the keywords your competitors are actively bidding on in Adwords as well as what they are trying to rank for in the organic listings.
- Myriad Search Authority Finder – What sites are considered the authorities for a specific keyword in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves? Type in a keyword and choose between each of the search engines or a compilation of all of them. You’ll receive a list of the top 10 in each search engine. If you don’t like one search engine, you can assign it a bias or exclude it from the compilation.
- Keyword Cloud – Do you want to know what keywords your competitors are using on their site? SEOChat.com’s Keyword Cloud shows which words are used the most frequently – both in “cloud” format and in a numerical table. A keyword cloud is a visual representation of the keywords on a page. Keywords used more frequently are displayed in larger fonts so you can easily see which words they consider to be important.
- Keyword Difficulty Check – Do you want to know how difficult it would be to rank for a specific keyword? SEOChat.com’s Difficulty Checker will tell you. Say you want to rank for “Philadelphia law firm.” Simply type in that phrase, and it returns a difficulty of 51.26%. Contrast that with “Britney Spears,” which ranks at 65.32 %. The mighty “carrot weevil” ranks at 33.11%, while a gibberish word like “kjgkuytiuy” gets a 0%!
Keywords From Analytics
- Google Analytics – Google Analytics offers a wealth of free information about the people visiting your website, including which keywords they searched for to find your website. By learning what keywords people are using to find your site and by tweaking the content on your pages, you can dramatically increase traffic.
- Hittail – Hittail is a great tool that analyzes the keywords people are using to find your page and then offers you suggestions for other keywords to optimize for.
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