Keyword Research Tools

Need some help figuring out what keywords you should target on your website?

Here are some tools you can use to find keywords that are most likely to draw qualified traffic to your site.

Keyword Research Only

• Wordtracker – a powerful keyword research tool that can help you evaluate keywords and discover related keywords and phrases with little or no competition.
• Google Adwords Keyword Tools – based on Google Adwords PPC database
• Overture Keyword Selector – based on Overture’s pay-per-click keyword database
• GoogleDuel – compares two keywords to see which occurs more on the web. It doesn’t show how often keywords are searched for, or how much competition there is.

SEO Software with Keyword Research

• WebCEO
• WebPosition

The Wrap

I use a combination of tools when researching keywords, but Wordtracker and WebCEO are my favorites. Both provide a Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI), which is a ratio of how often a keyword is searched for, compared to the amount of competition there is for the keyword. This can be very helpful when deciding which keywords are worth targeting.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should give you a few things to play around with.

I’m interested in your experiences using these, or other, keyword research tools. Let me know if you have a favorite and how it’s helped you.