Looking to do search term research? Below are articles covering the topic. But first, here are some tools you might want to consider:
Free Tools
Google AdWords Keyword Tool: Enter a search term or terms, and you’ll be shown other keywords related to that term. You can then sort keywords in terms of search volume popularity.
Google Trends: Got some terms in mind and wondering how they’ve been trending, such as becoming more or less popular? Google Trends provides a way to go back in time and chart keywords, based on the accumulated search data that Google sees. Also see Google Meme: Hot Trends Added To Google Trends, which explains more about the day-to-day reporting you can get from Google Trends.
adCenter Labs Keyword Forecast: Similar to Google Trends, this shows you the popularity over time of terms you enter. In addition, you can see how popular these terms are by age and gender of those searching. adCenter Labs also offers a variety of other keyword-related tools.
Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool: Enter a term and get a list of 100 terms related to (and including it), ranked by daily popularity. Data is based on Wordtracker’s search term data collected from the Dogpile and Metacrawler meta search engines. Wordtracker also offers a much more robust fee-based keyword research tool.
Trellian Free Search Term Suggestion Tool: As with Worktracker above, enter a term and get back a list of 100 terms related to and including it. They’ll be ranked by how often they’re searched for each year, rather than each day. Data comes from a variety of search engines. Trellian Keyword Discovery is fee-based tool hitting the same database and providing more features.
Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool: Long-standing tool offered by Yahoo (formerly Overture) that provide searches done on the Yahoo network in a given month. It no longer works as well as in the past, however — it often fails to provide information or when it does, the data is old. A new tool is offered to advertisers who are logged in, but it fails to provide as specific of figures as the old tool or sort terms by popularity.
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool: Taps into the Yahoo tool above and provides links and information to many of the other tools also listed above, so that you can get more information directly from them. A variety of other keyword tools are also offered.
Other Tools
dWoz Keywords & Search Phrases: A collection of places that provide keyword suggestion data, tools and search “voyuer” services.
Hitwise Search Intelligence: Provides the ability to tap into Hitwise’s database of how people search, based on ISP data it gathers. Offered on a custom pricing basis. Hitwise Keyword Intelligence offers fewer features but is also available for a lower, fixed cost.
comScore qSearch: Allows you to tap into comScore’s database of search activity, gathered from a large panel of web users that it monitors.
eBay Marketplace Research: Mine data on how people are searching at eBay, for a fee.
Good Keywords: Free software for Windows designed to help with keyword lists.
Google Suggest: Start entering a word, and you’ll be shown popular searches that are related (based on spelling) to that word.
Google Webmaster Central: Provides a way to see the top search terms that are sending you traffic, according to Google.
See also theStats: Search Behavior area of Search Engine Land for tools that let you discover what people are searching for in general at particular search engines, plus how people search overall.
How To Maximize The Impact Of Your Top Performing Keywords
Aug 3, 2009 at 3:28pm ET by Benny Blum
Behavior is unique for these high volume/value keywords and as a result, steps need to be taken to make these terms more visible for daily account management and analysis. The first step is to identify and isolate these top terms in order to help prioritize where to focus.
Filed in: How To: PPC, Search Marketing: Search Term Research
Google Sets & Squared: Powerful Keyword Research Tools
Jul 16, 2009 at 12:38pm ET by Tony Soric
One of the toughest challenges facing pay-per-click marketers is keyword expansion. Marketers need to be adept at selecting keywords that will not only drive traffic, but more importantly, will drive conversions in a cost-effective manner. As competition intensifies, identifying unique, high quality keywords becomes increasingly important-and difficult. While basic keyword research remains important, search marketers need to look to other tools to gain an edge.
Basic keyword research
Keyword research generally begins with one of the popular keyword-research tools. These include-but are [...]
Filed in: Google: Other, How To: PPC, Search Marketing: Search Term Research
Using Predictive Modeling In Seasonal Search Campaigns
Jun 17, 2009 at 5:14pm ET by Siddharth Shah
Optimal bidding for performance is a complex task for search marketers. When placing bids every day, you must be mindful of the volatility in the marketplace due to changing search traffic, competition, matching algorithms that vary across search engines and the changing needs of your business. For many of you, particularly if you work in the travel or retail sectors, seasonality—the cyclical patterns in the demand for various product offerings—adds an additional layer of difficulty that can make search marketing campaign management seem daunting.
It would be extremely time and [...]
Filed in: How To: PPC, Search Marketing: Search Term Research
Five Steps To Leveraging Great Content For Better Rankings
Jun 17, 2009 at 5:06pm ET by Scott Smigler
Recently, I was at an internet marketing convention where the question was posed to a panel: "As a search engine optimizer (SEO), what would you advise your clients to do if an extra million dollars fell into their lap?" The response from the SEOs on the panel was essentially "invest it all in creating great content."
When questioned, the panel agreed that links were important (since Google's algorithm prioritizes their analysis of links so highly), but the general implication was that if you create great content the links will come.
It would be fair to say that sometimes good content g [...]
Filed in: How To: SEO, Link Building: General, Search Marketing: Search Term Research
Fine Tuning Your Search Campaign To Today’s Economic Environment
Jun 1, 2009 at 3:18pm ET by Siddharth Shah
It is no surprise that the recession has affected online consumer spending habits. In lean times, people are more apt to curb spending and seek out the best bargains. From a search perspective, it is now more important than ever for marketers to adapt their campaigns to these changes in consumer behavior to better optimize performance.
As consumers modify their spending patterns, their search behavior—the keywords and terms they use to locate products and services—also change. We recently culled over half a million search terms containing a certain modifier. For instance, queri [...]
Filed in: How To: SEM, Search Ads: General, Search Marketing: Search Term Research
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