The Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO
Let’s start at the very beginning, that’s a very good place to start, when you sing you begin with A B C – remember that from the Sound of Music ?? well I just added a line “when you web you begin with S E O“.
Anyhow, I really think that a website should start of with an SEO project. Doesn’t it seem such a waste of time and effort to write loads of content for a website before researching what terms your potential customers are really using when they search for your product or solution?
There are many free keyword tools out there to use for your SEO project and I, personally, don’t see any reason to pay for keyword tools. Basically they are only using the same data resources as the free tools.
If Google is still dominating the search engine traffic wouldn’t it seem most logical to start our keyword research directly from this source?
So let’s get started with the keyword research:
1. Go to the Google External Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
2. You decide if you would like to generate keyword ideas from a word or phrase of your choice or if you would like to enter a URL of a similar site to yours and see what keywords Google can find.
3. Now you should have a nice list if keywords, so take the ones most relevant to you and do a regular search on the Google Search Engine. See which sites are appearing on the first page and take these URL’s and now use them in the keyword tool.
If you have hours and hours to spend looking for keywords (as it really is a very time-consuming project) then there are some other really cool keyword research tools around. Be warned: this past-time becomes somewhat addictive 
1. http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/keyword-research-tool.shtml
Note: at the time of writing this article it seems that if you select the Google radio button no results appear, however seeing as you have already done your Google research I would use this tool for some additional ideas.
2. http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/tools/keyword_tool.php. I really like this tool. The purpose is to enter your competitor’s URL and then it pulls out the main keywords. You can then delve deeper by clicking on “Wordtracker” or “Keyword Discover”. I must admit that it is really cool to use it on your own site when it is up too. You can pick up some nice longtail keywords here.
3. http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/. This keyword research tool pulls data from Wordtracker and Overture. It is one of the only free keywords tools I have found where you can define a country.
Don’t forget the obvious!! The longer the phrase the easier it will be for you to get a higher ranking in the search engines. Don’t try and compete on one-word keywords. You are unlikely ever to win the battle.
So if you are planning on trying all of these I hope you aren’t planning on sleeping tonight.
Have fun,
Debbie
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