What keyword research tools do you recommend to help with SEO?
-
We are looking for a keyword research tool to help with our SEO efforts for our ecommerce site. We sell food gifts and are looking for a tool to help us identify which keywords we should go after. Beyond Google's free tool - what tools would you recommend? We are willing to pay for a tool.
-
Hi Adam
Here are a list of keyword tools/techniques I use for our keyword research
Google trends - monitor seasonal trends for certain search terms throughout the year
Competition sites - check out your competitors within your sector/subject areas - It's amazing how many large sites still incorporate defined keywords that appear in the meta keywords section of the site!
Hitwise - If you have enough luck/big enough budget to access this tool - this can unearth a goldmine of keywords to target as well as their clickstream report of what keywords/search terms were used before and after leaving your site
Google insights - provides alternative keywords to consider based on the keywords you add
Open Site Explorer - enter your competitor site and run an anchor text report - what key terms are included
Competitor blog sites - analyse your competitor blog sites - usually packed full of keywords they are trying to rank for that is used to point back to their main site
Analytics - Your existing analytics tool should provide you with a vast range of search terms to commence new campaigns and unearth long tail keywords, also check out your google webmaster tools
Simon
-
I'm surprised nobody mentioned WordTracker.com? I just started using WordTracker and I love it. I was a Google Keyword tool guy for a couple years, but found most of their results were on the high side. Wordtracker has provided a much more accurate estimate to a keyword's popularity.
-
Thanks for talking about Semrush. I would definitely advice you to use that. It will also help you to track your SERP.
-
with http://ubersuggest.org/ you can research google suggest data for generic keywords.
Its a good starting point if you only have a few generic keywords. Just try it, it is for free.
-
1. SemRush - SemRush is by far the best tool I have used for keyword research. You can see almost everything you can imagine about all your competitors keywords. You can also get an almost endless list of keywords almost instantly with any search. For example I searched money and instantly got a 10001 long list of keywords including the term money with incredibly useful data which you can save and keep even when you are not a member. This one offers a free trial though you need to give a credit card and cancel before its done.
2. Keyword Country - Keyword country is great. you can search and sort by almost any data types and with all sorts of ranges. You can search by CPC for keywords which is just ridiculous. This one also offers a free trial. Well worth checking out.
3. Market Samurai - From my experience market samurai was my first and favorite keyword tool for a long time and it even comes with a free trial.
4. Adwords Keyword tool - I wasn't much of a fan of this one at first but then I noticed if you log in you can see up to 800 results and use it pretty well to find some good keywords.
Generally I use several tools together to do my research as I find each has its strengths and weaknesses.
This is with over a year of experience. Enjoy!
-
I also like to use Keyword Spy (www.keywordspy.com). It helps me see keywords my competitors are using. That's always a great place to start.
-
I tend to start with good ole Adwords, its free and can give you a very quick glimpse at whats being searched for and whats not. However the competition bar is less than verbose..
Which is where I, like Damion, use Market Samurai to go that step further and look further into the competition
-
Liked Samurai. Do you combine the results with KW from any other tools?
-
Have a look at Market Samurai -- http://www.marketsamurai.com/ -- it's a paid tool with (I believe) free access to the keyword analysis module.
Don't be put off by the spamminess of their webpage - the product is sound.
Market Samurai lets you do a lot of heavy lifting with Google Keyword Tool via the Adwords API. It also pulls down global and country-specific competition. Export all this into Excel and you can crunk and ply the data until a niche presents itself.
I like to think of Market Samurai not so much as a keyword tool in its own right, but as a way to use Google's keyword tool in a smart way.
-
Beyond the basic Google AdWords tool, I spend a lot of time going through Google Insights, which is especially good as a predictor of future searches instead of being purely backward-looking.
Open Site Explorer helps you see what keywords are being used in links. This is particularly helpful when researching what links your competitors are getting that you're not.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Keywords and content query
Hi we are in the process of redesigning a web site and I’m looking to ensure each of the pages are correctly optimized. I’m concerned that some of the pages do not allow for text or content . From an optimization perspective is there a general rule around the amount of text a page should have and the amount/ration of keywords they should contain? Any advice would be much appreciated.
Keyword Research | | aplnzjune180 -
National keyword results v local keyword results
If the keyword contains the location term like "SEO company London" is it better to use the wider results over local? Additionally, some best practice examples of national v local result tracking would be great 🙂 Darren
Keyword Research | | SEODarren0 -
Decide which keyword to check
Hi. I made 3 different keywordlists. based on the following rules: list 1: top 50 of best ranking keywords of this campaign list 2: Top 50 keywords with highest volume in adwords and related to the website list 3: Top 50 last month used keywords by our clients from GWT Now i want to make one top 50 list keywords i want to track and optimize the landingpages for it. What is the best way to choose from these three lists. There are a lot of overlaps (especialy in list 1 and 3.) so those keywords have preference. But how about keywords with high volume and high difficulty, related to the website, and low ranking? i leave the conversion out of it for now, first goal is to get much traffic as possible.
Keyword Research | | Leonie-Kramer0 -
Learning SEO and Coding
Hi I have read a number of ppl suggest that the best way to learn SEO is to build a low stakes site and experiment and measure how the effects of those experiments. Agree? Disagree? Anybody have success doing this? Anybody find it a waste of time? Finally, I know Code Academy, what are some other good resources? Thanks
Keyword Research | | IOSC0 -
What are the checkmarks for on the keyword tool?
I'm looking at the keyword research tool and notice that some of the boxes are checked. I dont really see a reason why? does anyone have this answer? i did attempt look in the Q&A section with no luck.
Keyword Research | | praxiscredit1 -
Newbie has various questions about keywords
Hi All - Im just learning, would appreciate some clarification on how keywords work. Specifically: For a phrase keyword, does order matter? E.g. is 'Bridging loans UK' the same keyword as 'UK bridging loans'? Again in a phrase, do the keywords need to be adjacent? So if I had a an H1 tag on my page which was 'We provide Briding loans for the entire UK', would this be considered a match for the keyword phrase 'Bridging loans uk' ? As I understand it, optimising your site for a certain keyword involves 2 things at a basic level:a) Including that keyword on your site, and b) Getting relevant inbound links from other sites with that keyword as the anchor text. Is this correct? Are there other large scale factors? What is the balance between those 2 (or more) main factors? Which is most important?
Keyword Research | | nebbisch0 -
Is using "-" in the title of a page to seperate targeted keywords bad for seo purposes?
For example "Dog-Leashes" Is that bad if I'm targeting dog leashes as my keywords.
Keyword Research | | ibex0 -
Run a batch of keywords 1 by 1 through Adwords Keyword tool
Hi, I'm looking for a tool that will be able to run a list of keywords 1 by 1 through the Google Adwords keyword tool and place them together in a list, in order to get as much long tail keywords as possible. Thanks for any suggestion!
Keyword Research | | DeptAgency0