Top SEO Keyword Research Tools (Part 1: Finding Relevant Keywords)
SEO Keyword Research
In any search marketing campaign, one of the first questions to answer is: what keywords do I want to go after? To create an initial target keyword list, you want to start by finding a relevant set of keywords to go after.
So where do we start?
Creating the Initial List of Keywords
We need to start by creating an initial list of target keywords. There are several tools that help for doing this.
- Your Web Analytics Tool
- Keyword Density Analyzer
One of the best ways to start creating a list is by taking a look at the keywords that have generated traffic for your website in the past. You can find this by going to your web analytics tool (e.g. Awstats, Google Analytics, Omniture, etc.)
Another great tool to use for getting an initial set of keywords is to take use a keyword density analyzer to look at your site, and those of your competitors. SEO Chat provides a good tool for keyword density analysis.
Finding Relevant and Related Keywords
Next, we need to find additional related keywords. At this stage, we want to get as many keywords as possible and then go through the filtering process later. In the filtering process, you will want to filter your keyword list based on how competitive they are, and also how many people are searching for those keywords.
Some great, free tools for getting related keywords include:
- Google’s AdWords Keyword Selection Tool - Ironically, one of the best SEO keyword research tool is actually Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool. It can analyze pages on your site, as well as those of your competitors to identify related keywords. You can also type in keywords, and it will return the same statistics.
- MSN Live’s Keyword Group Detection - Microsoft’s Keyword Group Tool provides you a list of related keywords for any given keyword you enter.
The next step in the process is to filter down your keyword list to find your target keywords. We will cover this in Part 2: Top Keyword Volume Tools of this Series.
