Keyword Research and Tool reviews

When you begin an online business you hear a lot about keywords.  Well the reason is because search engines utilize keywords to see if your page is applicable to what people are searching for and rank your site accordingly. I will show you how to do keyword research on just about anything and what tools have worked best for me.

Where to get started

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So in order to do keyword research you can start with Google’s keyword research tool or even the Bing keyword tool.  These are great places to start, but they give you limited information.  Many people start by picking a few keywords they want to state with and add a letter at the beginning or end of the keyword.  This gives you Google’s suggestion on long tail keywords.  Here, let me show you what I mean:

You can see how when you add just one letter it gives you additional long-tail keywords. But it is hard to tell how competitive those keywords actually are.   The point of doing this is to find words that you can get your website ranked for in your posts.  That is where keyword research tools come into play.

Keyword Research Tools

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I know, you want to know how to do keyword research with tools.  Actually it is quite easy.  Now that you have a list of long tail keywords, all you need to do is to input those words into a tool and many of them will show you additional keywords as well as how competitive the keywords are; after all the point of doing this is to get rankings so people can find you in their searches.

Try to pick keywords that have less than 300 competing site and that have potential clicks of 20 or more a month.  “Wow”, you say,”20 is not a lot”, but if an article has several of those scattered throughout, it adds up very quickly.  These two things will increase your chances of getting the most traffic you can from your article through search engines using keywords.  The important thing to remember is to make sure your article/post flows naturally.  If you make every other word a keyword, the search engines will see that as “stuffing” and penalize your site.  But if you write for your audience and carefully insert them then the engines will love you, and so will your reader.

Free Keyword Tools

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I have already mentioned two free keyword tools, Google keyword research and Bing research tools.  I also like Ubersuggest.org as a good starter place.  I like using it to come up with my basic research, but then we all must still use more powerful tools, or we will have no idea how competitive our keywords are and they might actually be very difficult to rank within the search engines.  Actually every word and combination of words that you use are digested by the search engines. You may even rank for keywords that you did not target but are relevant to your site.

The Competitive Keyword Search

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Low competition keywords are the meat and potatoes of the keyword research meal.  They will boost your incoming traffic and that traffic will be targeted.  What more can you ask for?  Well free would be nice.  Some give free trials and as I said in my Scams to Avoid Section, I like free trials.  It gives you the chance to peak under the hood and see what is really there.

The Tools- My Choices from 3 to 1.

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Keyword Elite

My third choice overall is Brad Callen’s Keyword Elite.  This one does cost $97.00 for the software.  It was made for all levels of users and it shows the competitiveness of the words as well as what the competition is using to drive traffic to their sites.  Finally it will tell you the “commercial intent” of the person searching that term.  I know you want to know what “commercial intent” means.  Well what it means is the likely hood that someone who searched that term is actually looking to buy.  This can be a very powerful thing within a campaign that you may be setting up.  If you know someone is actually in the market and not just kicking tires, you can really go after them.

The biggest drawback is that there is not a free trial so you cannot check it out before you purchase it.  They layout and format is very easy to you and you can become an expert on the software in a very short period of time.  While it is not my favorite keyword tool out there, it is a good one.  If you are interested you can buy keyword elite here.

KeywordSpy

My second choice of very comprehensive keyword research tool is KeywordSpy.  Here is my quick and short KeywordSpy review.  It is a great tool to utilize, especially if you are doing PPC campaigns. This is not really for beginners though; it is made more for moderately skilled and advanced users.  They have several videos within their platform on how to use the product better.  They do have a free trail available so you can see a little bit under the proverbial hood before you buy it.  Plans start at $89.99/month and go up to $139.95/mo.

While that can become very expensive, what it offers can be worth it; depending on exactly how you use the program. The features include keyword search, pay per click intelligence data, organic intelligence data, affiliate intelligence, major affiliate networks, export options, update and frequency alerts, top 1000 sites and keywords, monitoring of global domains and, global tracking of domains.  It can be a difficult platform to learn but it is a very useful tool in keyword research and they do provide video training in the members’ area.  Try the free trial or sign up here.

Jaaxy

My number one choice and hands down the best keyword search tool I have found, is Jaaxy.  It’s easy to use format and styling is perfect for the everyday and power users. It gives you everything you need to know as an online marketer doing research.  The number one thing you want when doing keyword research is how often the keyword is searched a month. The second thing is how many websites are competing for the keyword, QSR ranking. Everything else is axillary.

There are two great features that I have not seen on any other keyword tool.  The first one, I have already mentioned, is the QSR rating.  This is the amount of competing websites with that exact search term.  As I stated earlier if you can use those keywords with less than 300 competing websites, you have a better chance at getting ranked on the first page.  Getting ranked on the first page means more traffic, which means more money.

The second great feature, for paid members, is the domain available search. Admittedly this feature will not be used as much as others on the system it is nice if you are looking into new niches, you can search a keyword and it will tell you what domains are available with that exact keyword phrase; ie .com, .net, .org.  This is useful if you are building your website.  If you are building your website you can visit my Build a Website section or if you need help, go to my Getting Started section.

If you’re anything like me, you have run across a time when you hit the wall of ideas.  Meaning you can’t think of what to write about or maybe you are trying to find a new niche. I hate it when I get stuck for ideas.  Well, Jaaxy can help you out there.  There is a feature that can help you come up with hundreds of ideas very quickly, and you don’t need to bounce back and forth between different sites to weed the week ones from the winners.

There is a free trial that you can use with no credit card needed.  Just sign up and you get 30 free actions.  An action is a search or a site ranking.  After the free trail membership there are two other price levels.  The costs start at $19/month for the Pro and $49/month for the Enterprise level.  The Pro level is very useful for the everyday user and the Enterprise is perfect for the power user.  Some of the features you get are; keyword searches and their competition, QSR, alphabet soup search, domain availability, site ranking analysis, website analysis, affiliate program finder, keyword list manager, and much more.  I highly recommend Jaaxy for just about anyone, it is the best keyword tool that I have seen.  Why not try it today for free to see how truly powerful it is and how it can save you time?

If you have any questions or comments please leave them below, I appreciate the feedback.