by Bill Hartzer, 11/1/2005
Keyword Research Tools
There many online keyword research tools, and many of them work differently and provide you with different data. Oftentimes there will be differences in the data, and that's primarily due to the actual source of the data. For example, according to Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com), one of the most popular keyword research tools, "All search terms are collected from the major metacrawlers - Dogpile and Metacrawler." Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly Overture, still has the free Overture Keyword Selector Tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/), whose data comes directly from their database--the keyword data is usually one month old. Searches performed there in October will show data compiled from September.
Other keyword research tools exist, and you'll need to check each of the tools' websites to determine where they get their data. Remember that using a combination of several online keyword research tools will help, as getting a second or third opinion is always a good practice. The following is a list of the keyword research tools:
There is a good list of more keyword research tools on the SEO Company website at http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html.
Keyword research is an important part of the overall search engine marketing process. You must have a list of keywords to target whether your goal is organic search engine rankings or a advertising with a pay per click campaign. Target the right words and your online business will be a success--focusing on keywords that describe exactly what you're selling will provide the best overall return on investment. Target the wrong keywords and you'll end up with the wrong type of visitors to your website or no visitors at all.
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About the author
Bill Hartzer manages the Search Engine Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas.