5 Killer Keyword Research Tools for SEO
Fast and efficient keyword research tools for SEO are extremely important. Many people try to optimize their website with an influx of links, but their efforts are futile if they fail to pick a good set of keywords to target. It is importnat to pick high volume keywords that have fairly low competition. Additionally long tail keywords can provide immense value and high conversion rates, something you rarely find with shorter, high volume keywords.
Some of the tools we will be discussing are:
- Google Adwords Keyword Tool
- Wordtracker
- Ubersuggest.org
- SEMRush
- Wordstream
Google’s Free Keyword Tool – Adwords
Google has a keyword suggestion tool built directly into the Google Adwords tool. The Google Keyword Tool is extremely effective in finding high volume keywords and group ideas. We usually start by importing a list of keywords directly into the search bar, 10 to 20 is usually sufficient enough to yield quality suggestions. After we see what suggestions come up, we will type another 10 to 20 keywords into the search bar. Once you do this, switch your tab to “ad group ideas”, you will be presented with a variety of groups and keywords that you might not have thought of when initially doing keyword research.
Wordtracker’s SEO Keyword Generator
Although it costs $69 per month, it is a decent strategy for serious marketers. Wordtracker’s tool is different from Google Adwords in a few major ways. First, there is much more emphasis on long tail keywords. Google’s tool is largely focused on keywords that are good for adwords, not necessarily search engine optimization. That being said, long tail keywords are usually highly targeted to your product or niche, which means they will convert at a much higher rate. Focusing on long tail keywords can be a substantial SEO undertaking, but it is usually worth it.
Secondly, wordtracker has methodology in place to “steal” keywords from your competitors. Basically, the tool will analyze what keywords your competitors are optimizing for and suggest them to you. The tool automatically crawls your competitors sites. The ideas are usually pretty good, assuming you have competitors that are also properly optimizing their website.
Lastly, Wordtracker gives you the ability to keep track and organize your work without needing to use outside resources (like Google docs or Excel). This isn’t always necessary for small campaigns, but it can come in handy if you are managing enterprise level work.
Ubersuggest.org – A Free Keyword Suggestion Tool
The free keyword suggestion tool from Ubersuggest is a much different from the other SEO keyword research tools. The tool will crawl sites ranking for the term you input and analyze the most common keyword titles. In addition, the tool can also determine popular keywords from news articles relating to your keyword. Other options include keywords from videos, shopping, recipes and images.
Ubersuggest is a very popular option when you are trying to think of great content ideas for your website. Although it can’t give you any insight regarding search volume or keyword competition, it is excellent in determining long tail keywords and content ideas.
SEMRush – Competitor Keyword Research
SEMrush takes a slightly different approach as a keyword research tool for SEO. They create a large index of keywords, nearly 100,000,000 as of the last update. They make a database of every site ranking for each of these keywords and attempt to log every keyword that each site ranks for. While they could never get every single keyword, much less long tail keywords, they are generally fairly successful.
SEMRush is one of the most effective methods for competitor research. In addition, it is a phenomenal tool to see how a websites organic search engine traffic may have changed over time. We use it to identify search engine penalties and spikes.
Wordstream Keyword Research Tools for SEO
Wordstream has a great and free negative keyword suggestion tool that you can use to find keywords that will waste your time and money. While they are largely focused around the PPC (Pay Per Click) aspect of keyword research, they’ve got quite an arsenal of tools at their disposal, many of which are free for everyone. Although paid subscriptions start at $225/month, their free AdWords Performance Grader and other free SEO keyword research tools can help you get started in the right direction.
