Keyword research tools

[ozchris]

Hi.
Just wondering what people's opinions were on the best keyword research tool.

We've had a subscription to keyworddiscovery.com for over a year now, their selling point at the time being that they covered more search engines than wordtracker. At first they had the global database, and monthly overture stats.

Since then they've introduced premium versions, both global and national. I'm very interested in Australian stats, so it sounded good.
The premium version means that it is "cleansed" of inflated stats from automatic tools. I guess this means their own searches as well.

But for a recent project, this is what I got:
keyword phrase = "tax planning".

Global premium said 652 searches
Australian premium said 1 search - for a four word related phrase.
Global historical (uncleansed) said 118,177 searches.
Monthly Overture Australia stats said 288 searches.

Beats me how Overture Australia gets 288 searches per month, but Australian Premium only gets 1.

We like to give clients reports on keyword statistics, so they can customise their page content, and at the beginning of a project, to decide on pages.

What is everyone else using for keyword statistics, especially if you are Australian?

cheers

[imvain2]

If inventory.overture.com is any indication of overture's reporting tool then its no longer valid since the last date they report is jan 2007.

I have used many tools that use overture and they all report the same old data.

[qh4dotcom]

I have used wordtracker.com in the past...many people regard it as the best keyword tool.

[Webnauts]

Check Aarons tool: SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

[imvain2]

aarons tool is based on overture's results from jan 2007

under google they take overture results times 2

and for msn they take overture and divide by 2

[deepsand]

To the best of my knowledge, Yahoo ceased updating the data at inventory.overture.com when they migrated all users from the old Overture platform to Panama in February.

[mjtaylor]

Yes, Overture no longer updates its tool; it's forever stuck in January 2007.

I like Keyword Discovery's tool and Wordtracker is also very popular. Both have free tools.

Cheers, MJ

[erikko]

i use wordtracker myself, overture isn't that good

[4arizona]

You really can use these tools for a rough estimate. There are many terms that I have search engine optimized to the number 1 position in the natural search in the 3 majors. (Although lately it's not as easy as it used to be)


Where these search tools pull their data is beyond me. I think its a conspiracy to sell more ads. I can tell you I have never received more visitors than what was estimated. Usually it is about 30% less than estimated.

keyworddiscovery is the one that I like the best.

Usually cross check the KW with word tracker.

[Webnauts]

Here I will reveal one of my secrets. I only use these two tools:

Boss: Quintura

Assistant: Good Keywords Product Updates

Just my last cents...

[ozchris]

Thanks for the comments.

webnauts, it looks like Goodkeywords takes its results from yahoo/overture.

WordTracker takes it's stats from the metacrawler and dogpile.

So nobody has any tips for finding Australian-specific statistics?

Given the variances in language and volume, US stats are not all that useful in many areas.

Keyword discovery sounds like they are doing it right, but the figures I quoted in the first post have me very concerned. There's no way I could tell a client that only 1 person searched for "tax planning" in Australia last year.

[Webnauts]

What about this one? SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Here I will reveal one of my secrets. I only use these two tools:

Boss: Quintura

Assistant: Good Keywords Product Updates

Just my last cents...

I like Quintera; very cool; I had seen that before and bookmarked it and it had gotten lost in Favorites as so many great ideas do ... it reminds me of TouchGraph visual of relationships between related web sites.

I downloaded the other one, but can't see it's value, as it seems to be based on outdated Yahoo/Overture database, but perhaps you use it for something like misspelled words ... and maybe for different terms than I was searching.

Thanks for the inside scoop!

Cheers, MJ

[Webnauts]

OK. Lets make a little list of the best tools for our member here:

• Free Keyword Suggestion Tool from Wordtracker
• Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com
• Quintura
• Google
• Google Trends

I think these are enough to start with.

[ozchris]

you guys are cool. I haven't hung around here as much as I used to, so I was wondering if I was getting out of date.

But instead of the actual keyword suggestions, I was more interested in the numbers. Actual statistics on searches.

I also had keywordelite on my old laptop, but I wasn't using it because it didn't produce the kind of reports that I could give to clients.
I like the reports from keyworddiscovery - I just have concerns about the accuracy of the statistics, and was wondering about other statistics that may be available.
Keywordelite has an interface to both wordtracker and keyworddiscovery, as data sources.

Does anyone know if hitwise sells access to its database of statistics?

cheers

[coolguy27]

overture is still the best keyword tool to use... but unfortunately they stop updating since january how sad...

This overture at least give major datas around the world.. Searches of visitors around the world on the internet... I'm still using this tool...

Originally Posted by imvain2

If inventory.overture.com is any indication of overture's reporting tool then its no longer valid since the last date they report is jan 2007.

I have used many tools that use overture and they all report the same old data.

[inertia]

What do UK SEOs use?
I spoke to Wordtracker at SES London and they gave me the hard sell about how they now cover UK keywords but they wouldn't tell me where they get their data from. When I've tried to use Wordtracker in recent months the results just don't seam accurate, with some keywords not even appearing when i know they're getting typed in.
Ive been using Overture religiously but UK Overture is now stuck on May 2007.

[Webnauts]

Doesn't anybody look at their top search queries and top search query clicks in Google's webmaster tools? That can tell more than you can imagine.

[inertia]

Looking at webmaster tools tells you which keywords your being found for now but what about the keywords which im not being found for?

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Doesn't anybody look at their top search queries and top search query clicks in Google's webmaster tools? That can tell more than you can imagine.

Sure, but that tells me terms I have successfully optimized and terms I need to work on ... but it doesn't tell me the terms I haven't thought of yet, or how often terms are used ...

But yes, Webmaster Tools are a goldmine ... and it's well worth it to install Google Analytics, as well, though I digress ...

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Sure, but that tells me terms I have successfully optimized and terms I need to work on ... but it doesn't tell me the terms I haven't thought of yet, or how often terms are used ...

But yes, Webmaster Tools are a goldmine ... and it's well worth it to install Google Analytics, as well, though I digress ...

My Google webmaster tools tell me much more than I could think of. And for sure I use analytics, and other tools to analyze my raw long files.

[kgun]

Ok.

Marketing

Look on the toolbar, a long the right edge, and if that is not enough. In the upper right corner "Links".

Two of the tools on the toolbar:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

List of Internet slang phrases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And what about

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

TV ACRES: Advertising Slogans

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

My Google webmaster tools tell me much more than I could think of. And for sure I use analytics, and other tools to analyze my raw long files.

Google webmaster tools suggests terms you have not optimized for?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Google webmaster tools suggests terms you have not optimized for?

I see keyphrases queries with words I don't have on my site.

[mjtaylor]

Ah, that makes sense ... I don't see any of those, but I will look more closely; could be I am missing something! Thanks!