What keyword research tools do you recommend to help with SEO?

[agolomb]

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.

[simonsw]

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

[GoldStarGames]

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.

[Dharam]

Thanks for talking about Semrush. I would definitely advice you to use that. It will also help you to track your SERP.

[GregorHendrych]

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.

[dittoeffect]

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!

[ezclickmedia]

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.

[davebrown1975]

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

[SeekEO]

Liked Samurai.  Do you combine the results with KW from any other tools?

[damionbrown]

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.

[jcolman]

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.