Keyword research is very important to anybody who controls a web site or does search engine advertising / search engine marketing and any type of optimization. You gotta be able to do the proper analysis each and every time and not spend a whole lot of time on this. You need reliable SEO tools with advanced research capabilities to help you get the job done. I only use a handful of tools these days and I have listed them below in no particular order. They are all great and worth bookmarking. Have fun with them...
Google Ad Planner is great! It uses data from both Google AdWords / AdSense and DoubleClick. Define audiences by demographics and interests search for websites relevant to your target audience, access unique users, page views, and other data for millions of websites from over 40 countries.
Google Trends For Websites is pretty cool. First there was Google Trends for just keywords but than they rolled out Google Trends for websites as well. It provides insights into broad search patterns, an approximate number of daily unique visitors and more useful information. It's good stuff.
Google Insights For Search is a very flexible research tool. It has a lot of features and many uses. It is one of Google's newer keyword research tools and personally it is one of my favorites. Not too many people know about it surprisingly! Play around it for a bit and see for yourself why it's so good.
Google Search-Based Keywords tool provides keyword ideas based on actual Google search queries. It can also provide ideas matched to specific pages of your website with your ad and search share. One of the newest Google keyword generation research tools rolled out for AdWords advertisers. It is very powerful because it allows you to browse around topic by topic. It's too bad they only provide 800 keywords at most per category.
SEMRush is my favorite keyword /website research and competitive analysis tools. It has so many features and so many uses too. SEMRush uses the 25 million most popular and expensive keywords to analyze Google search results. SEMRush can show you keywords for any domain that ranks high enough to be in the top 20 organic search or sponsored results. SEMRush uses the US version of Google.com. The data isn't in real time though. It gets updated periodically.
There are a few other keyword analysis / research tools out there such as word tracker, keyword discovery, etc... But the ones I listed above are using exclusive Google keyword search data. Not some second or third tier search engines queries. The data provided is pretty accurate and reliable. I know some people swear by it but you really shouldn't. It is just one piece of the puzzle. It doesn't always make sense but it does provide some clues and insights. You take it and work with it. Some other great keyword research and website analysis tools which I highly recommend are Aaron Wall's / SEO Tools and SEOmoz / Pro Tools it is all money well spent. If you are serious about doing business online then you must use them. It's as simple as that.
Another few websites worth mentioning are Microsoft adCenter Labs which provides some pretty useful and interesting research tools and as far as competitive keyword research analysis and tracking on Google there is also KeywordSpy.com and SpyFu.com. I know you are probably thinking.. What about compete.com or alexa.com and all the other sites but I really don't like them. The data on them isn't as accurate and it also doesn't make much sense most of the times. I don't use them at all. The only top five listed are worth dealing with. There is no shortage of keyword research and SEO tools out there on the web today but you shouldn't drive yourself crazy with all that stuff... It's a waste of time. Keep it simple and use the top five ones to get the job done.
Reviews at WannaDevelop.com
05/26/2010: Domain mass development 5 day blowout.. 50% off for new clients on all services.... WOOHOOO! 05/06/2010: 100 fully developed keyword domains available for sale exclusively at Latonas.com 04/16/2010: Domain Mass Development affiliate program paying 50% commissions on all orders $$$$ 01/07/2010: The most basic keyword research / analysis tools had profound impact on most successful domain investors, competitive webmasters, etc. 12/18/2009: Why spend thousands upfront??! Start small... Our affiliate based e-shops are only $249!!! :)
