Reading about keyword research tools.

You use keyword tools to help you discover …

  • What people are looking for.
  • Roughly how many people are looking.
  • How they talk about it.

The keyword research tool that I find myself using most is the related searches at the bottom of Google’s search results. That’s because you can quickly see the intention of the searchers ( as a group ) who have typed the search phrase and get an idea of how they describe or refer to the thing they’re looking for.

Then the next thing you want to find is phrases that are typed by a good volume of people.

Usually the people who are researching keywords are interested in increasing exposure for a particular service offered by their business. So if the search intention for a phrase is do-it-yourself or interest in a freebie, then it’s not worth the effort promoting with that one.

And if hardly anyone uses a particular phrase when searching, then that’s a waste of effort too.

That means you need to check a lot of variations if you want to accurately promote in …

  1. Search results ( which would be an SEO activity ).
  2. Paid ads in search networks – Adwords and similar.
  3. Paid ads in display networks of other people’s websites.

How they talk about it. Something that marketers & copywriters have known for a long time, is that if you can find out how people describe the thing they want, then you can use the same words when talking back to them and get better interest and sales. Often you can simply parrot back the exact same sentences that the prospects use.

The keyword research tools I use …

There are good paid keyword tools, but I find that after a couple of subscriptions worth $100 a month I’m not willing to pay more.

So I’ve got a shortlist of good keyword tools that provide limited data. Using them all and cross-checking can work quite well.

Here’s the list …

( Some require you to create an account. )