Advertisment
Before you write any good article or optimize website, you have to know how and why you have to select right keywords. SEO is very easy to overuse and do even worse, if you for example start to do keyword stuffing or repeating the same words over and over again without good thought. For regular content like blogs, people always like to argue about what you need to put in the first place – SEO or your readers. I am thinking you must do both – using simple but consistent and smart SEO and try to write as compelling article as possible to your readers.
If you haven’t already I strongly you suggest to read the first post -
How To Create Popular Blog With Keyword Research, Heatmaps And SEO? from series to get little starting overview.
In that case you’ll get good search rankings because of SEO and trackbacks,comments you’ll get if article will be really good. ( of course, don’t forget about PageRank – new blogs usually don’t rank very well in Google). I must also mention, how good is to establish community, who actively discuss article in comments – Google just love content, which updates regularly. In short – people who add comments to article actually update and continue your article, plus each comment is taken as article update – very important aspect!
Okay, I got a little bit away from main article discussion – this time as promised I am featuring free keyword research tools, which are the most popular now.
Note, at the end of article you’ll find also several non-SEO tools, but still which can be used seriously to optimize your site, help to choose right keywords and understand niche you are optimizing your site to! I suggest you at least visit all of these sites, so you pick your favorite tool because really all tools differentiate a little bit from each other.
Enjoy this article and remember there are several more series to come soon, where I will try to explain how I do my SEO as well as link you to several more useful resources and articles you really should read!
1.Google search based keyword tool
The Search-based Keyword Tool provides keyword ideas:
-
Based on actual Google search queries;
-
Matched to specific pages of your website with your ad and search share;
-
New to your Adwords account (typically excluding keywords matching those already in your account).
I thought it will be better to add official product introduction, than explaining what this tool does with my words to give you good overview.
2.Google AdWords: Keyword Tool
Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas. Select an option below to enter a few descriptive words or phrases, or type in your website’s URL. This tool gives you approximate keyword search volume statistics for Google search network and because of Google growing and dominating search network, you really can get pretty precise results.
3.Google Insights for Search
Google Insights is a powerful tool that offers features not available on most other free tools. For seasonal or fluctuating niches, you can view stats by year or a specific time period. For regional niches, you can view stats by country, state or even city. The graphical reports are great for seeing trends. One of the only downsides is that they don’t show absolute search volume but instead normalized data that is shown on a scale up to 100. Also since the data is normalized the detailed stats are limited.
4. Google Trends
Use commas to compare multiple search terms – one more great product from Google allowing you to research and compare trends.
5.Free Keyword Suggestion Tool from Wordtracker
Wordtracker helps website owners and search engine marketers identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to their or their client’s business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors.
Use the free keyword suggestion tool from Wordtracker to help your website rank higher in the search engines. This tool can generate up to 100 related keyword phrases and show daily searches.
If you use Internet Explorer 7, or Firefox 2 or 3, you can add the Wordtracker Keywords search to your browser.
6.SEO Book Keyword suggestion tool
This tool is powered by Wordtracker, get comprehensive overview about different search volume statistics for Google, Yahoo!, MSN daily estimonials – export whole list to Excel *.csv file for later research!
Top Paying AdSense Keyword Lists
Also good introduction to this tool – definitely suggest you to watch this video.
7.Good Keywords v3
Free and downloadable Windows software helping you to get out more of Google keyword research, worth checking out!
8.SEMRush
What you may do there:
- Discover competitors’ sites with common Google keywords;
- Get list of Google keywords for any site;
- Get list of AdWords keywords for any site;
- Check your competitors landing-pages for SE and AdWords traffic;
- Investigate long-tail keywords for any domain;
- Get estimated SE and AdWords traffic for any domain;
- See sites’ spending for AdWords;
- Get hidden related (and low-cost) keywords to optimize your AdWords campaign;
- Find potential advertisers for any site;
- Find potential traffic sellers for your site.
9. Free Search Term Suggestion Tool
Trellian KeywordDiscovery keyword data is compiled and collected from a number of search engines to provide a far more accurate cross section of searches performed world wide. This tool can generate maximum 100 keywords and collect search term data from over 200 search engines world wide.
10.KGen
KGen (Keyword Generator) is Firefox extension that allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web pages. This plugin retrieves every words of a page and lets you know how many time they appears on her and their weight in the page (a word in the title of a page has a stronger weight than a word in a paragraph).
11.Wordpot Free Keyword Tool
Try this free keyword research tool,which is quite usable, but creators limit your access trying to sell you paid version, generally you still can get pretty good overview.
12.NicheBot Classic
Type a keyword or keyword phrase and get the top 50 most popular keyword listings.
Non-SEO tools, but still extremely useful:
13.Synonyms Thesaurus with Antonyms & Definitions
Synonym.com is good web resource for English synonyms, antonyms, and definitions. Type in a word and the synonym finder will come up with a list of synonyms. Check out the most popular online synonym searches to find the right word for any occasion. Use the antonym tool to find find antonyms and check out the definitions feature to read the definition.
14.Thesaurus
Thesaurus.com is produced by Dictionary.com, LLC, a leading provider of language reference products and services on the Internet.
To use the thesaurus, simply type a word in the gold search box and click the ‘Search’ button. A list of synonyms and antonyms will be returned.
15.Delicious
Bookmarking service, but still very useful for searching keywords. I usually find similar popular articles or websites and check which tags are used to bookmark that page. Extremely useful!
16.Dictionary
Dictionary.com is a multi-source dictionary search service produced by Dictionary.com, LLC, a leading provider of language reference products and services on the Internet. Dictionary.com is hiring, please find information about career opportunities.
To use the dictionary, simply type a word in the blue search box that appears at the top of every page and then click the ‘Search’ button.
17.Wikipedia
Everybody knows wikipedia, but did you ever think about using it to research your niche – related categories, language people in your niche are using? Useful to visit from time to time in research purpose!
18.Keyword questions
People often type questions into search engines. Now you can find these questions, answer them and get some great search traffic. You’ll be targeting long tail keywords and providing content that readers want to read and link to. Also try the keyword tool the professional SEO uses. Enter a single or a short keyword to find the questions people are asking in your market.
19.Twitter Search
Keeping up with interesting news and people you care about is one dimension of Twitter, but what if you need to find out what’s happening in the world beyond your personal timeline?
There is an undeniable need to search, filter, and otherwise interact with the volumes of news and information being transmitted to Twitter every second. Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service.
20.MetaGlossary
MetaGlossary is able to precisely extract the meanings of terms and phrases from the often frustratingly unmanageable mass of information on the web. It provides you with concise, direct explanations for terms and phrases, not just endless links to sift through in search of a comprehensive definition.
Series coming up:
Introduction – How To Create Popular Blog With Keyword Research, Heatmaps And SEO?
-
Free Keyword Research Tools – Comprehensive Insight (done)
-
How I do keyword research – Behind the Scenes Overview
-
Why And How Heatmaps Improve Your Blog?
-
How To Optimize Images For Search Engines?
-
Above The Fold – What Every Web-Designer Should know?
-
Readers Participating: Keyword Research Experience And More SEO Tips
Excellent stuff for any newbies Dainis.
I would echo what one or two others have emphasised on here. Don’t ever lose site that your keyword seo use should never be at the expense of the visitor experience.
By all means get use various tools to get the keyword phrases, use keyword density, anchor text, LSI etc etc, but always remeber to write in a natural way which is relevant to the topic concerned.
You can have the best keyword phrases there are but if no one reads your post/article then you’re waisting your time in the long run.
There are loads of other tools you haven’t mentioned as well. Some free, others that cost. Some of them are absolutely brilliant at keyword research and also seo generally.
Check out http://www.keyword-selectortool.com
Andy
Great post I found it very useful especially when you pointed out the Non SEO tools!!
I’m like a broken record here, every post I check out is awesome! This is such a handy set of resources mate – more thanks!
Synonyms.net is another good resource for synonyms.
thanks frower web pages
Simply a very good and useful tool,good to came across.
Wow, great list of keyword research tools at one place. Its very helpful.
[...] your keywords and find good ones to use in your posts. Here is a great post for you to read 20-Free Keyword Research Tools by Dainis [...]
[...] There are some more great ideas (some already mentioned) here. [...]
[...] 20 Free Keyword Research Tools – Comprehensive Insight [...]
[...] 20 Free Keyword Research Tools – Comprehensive Insight [...]
[...] bei 1st Webdesigner werden 20 Tools zur Keyword-Recherche [...]
[...] want to stay competitive, you can't afford to do that. here's a list of keyword research tools – 20 Free Keyword Research Tools – Comprehensive Insight | Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources An… __________________ hot poker girls dominating at the online [...]
wow thanks so much.
Excellent post. Thanks
Hi Dainis
You are spot on where you point out the following
“For regular content like blogs, people always like to argue about what you need to put in the first place – SEO or your readers. I am thinking you must do both”
If you write a brilliant article that no one can find then you aren’t helping anyone! Great content that can benefit your readers, should always be a priority. By SEO optimizing your blog posts you are also providing the readers a great service. As you are making your great content easy to find!!!
They go hand in hand IMHO.
Cheers Adam
.-= Adam Bean´s last blog ..Making Money it isn’t Dirty =-.
Wow these research tools are awesome. Thank’s Dainis
.-= Mass PPV Traffic Review´s last blog ..Mass PPV Traffic Review – How to Make Money from Internet Marketing =-.
thanks for post. I only listed 18 and then made a separate listing for search queries.
Useful. Great. Informative, Right stuff.
I like your list. I made one a while back that has a few different ones and does not include some of the ones that you have referred to. You might want to check it out at Raief.com. I only listed 18 and then made a separate listing for search queries.
I’m like a broken record here, every post I check out is awesome! This is such a handy set of resources mate – more thanks!
Very Comprehensive. Interesting that you list Semrush, which is less-known and one of my favorites.
Janiye
.-= Janiye´s last blog ..Free Keyword Research Tool: SEO Book =-.
Great list of keyword research tools. Delicious, dictionary, twitter are new way of keyword researching. Thanks.
Some really nice tools to find good keywords!
Keyword research is the first and most important step in SEO, I think with these tools there should be no problem to be successful with SEO, thanks!
.-= Ben Huebner´s last blog ..Massive PPV Traffic, is it a good deal? =-.
Great list you got there. I use many of them. thanks for sharing!
.-= web design in orange county´s last blog ..Blog commenting for strong one way link building =-.
Thanks for the nice list of research tools. I am familiar with most of them, but there are a couple I need to re-visit again too.
Thanks!
.-= Search Engine Optimization Cape Town´s last blog ..Customer comments =-.