The Giant List Of Keyword Tools

We’ve talked a lot about keywords in the last few weeks. We went over how to drill down and uncover your core list and then how to take those top terms and generate many variations of those terms using keyword modifiers. At this point, you should have a fairly well-developed keyword list, but there’s always […]

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We’ve talked a lot about keywords in the last few weeks. We went over how to drill down and uncover your core list and then how to take those top terms and generate many variations of those terms using keyword modifiers. At this point, you should have a fairly well-developed keyword list, but there’s always a chance to expand and find new terms, new iterations, new misspellings, new topics, etc.

One of the most common questions I am asked is about which tools I use for keyword generation. Well, here you are! Right from my own Firefox bookmarks folder. I’ve certainly shared some of these tools in previous posts but here’s a good straightforward list:

Keyword suggestion tools

Engine suggestions

Suggestions in the drop-down menus that appear when you start typing in a search box:

  • Google Suggest Keyword Suggestion Scraper Tool – This tool grabs the top queries from Google Suggest which normally appears in a drop down menu under the Google search bar as you type a query.
  • Soovle is a free tool that provides the search suggestions from various engines around the net including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Wikipedia, Amazon, etc.

Visualization tools & word clouds

Topical/categorical

  • GoRank Ontology Finder (Related Keywords Lookup Tool) – Checks the top 1000 Google results for your keywords by running a related word query. Not really for synonyms but rather other words in that topic.
  • Google Trends – See search terms and activity around certain topics.
  • With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.
  • Google Sets – Enter a few items from a set of things and Google will try to predict other items in the set. Can be handy to uncover terms related to your keywords.

Synonyms & word meanings

  • Thesaurus.com – You can’t beat the basic thesaurus for finding terms.
  • Princeton University’s WordNet lexicon tool goes beyond the thesaurus and really drives into the different meanings of specified words.
  • Lexical FreeNet – A powerful tool that shows the relationship between words.

Typos and misspellings

Keyword Manipulation

  • SEO Tools Bad Keyword & Number Stripper – Use this tool to remove bad keywords from your keyword lists.
  • AdWords Wrapper – Simply enter a list of keyword phrases and the Google AdWords Wrapper will turn it into 4 separate lists; a combination of broad, phrase and exact match, a combination of phrase and exact match, phrase match only, and exact match only.
  • Jumbo Keyword tool – A myriad of features such as auto-lowercase, auto-dedupe, delete blank lines, create phrase, exact, and broad match versions of keywords. Make sure to click the advanced tab for the most options.
  • iwebTools Quick Dedupe – Paste in a list of terms and it will quickly remove duplications

Keyword Density

These tools detect how often terms appear in content.

Geotargeting

  • For the low cost of a free blog mention, you can get ZipCodeGuy’s geo-database which has a list of all cities and counties in the U.S. along with some other good resources.
  • Generate local AdWords & keyword lists – Enter a zip code and chose the radius around it you want to geotarget. The tool will combine your keywords with the cities and states within the radius. Really great tool!

Keyword monitors

These tools let you input a list of keywords, and then tracks rankings and competitor activity over time.

Permutation tools

These tools let you combine lists together—see PPC Magic: 3 Steps To Turning Hundreds Of Keywords Into Millions for more info.

Keyword competitor tools

Find out who’s ranking on specified terms along with other useful data.

Engine upload tools

Negative terms

Modifier lists

Miscellaneous tools

  • Free Keyword Grouper – This tool from WordStream can transform your list (up to 10,000 keywords) into an organized keyword structure ready for high-performance PPC campaigns and an SEO-friendly information architecture.
  • The Free Keyword Niche Finder – An innovative new keyword tool from WordStream that returns structured keyword suggestions rather than a disorganized list. Just enter a keyword to find your most relevant and profitable keyword niches for pay-per-click advertising and SEO.
  • Apogee’s meta data research tool – Sure, it’s easy enough to view the source code of a site and see its meta keywords, but this makes it even easier.

This week’s question: “Do you have any other tools you use for PPC that aren’t on this list?”

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About the author

Josh Dreller
Contributor
Josh Dreller has been a search marketer since 2003 with a focus on SEM technology. As a media technologist fluent in the use of leading industry systems, Josh stays abreast of cutting edge digital marketing and measurement tools to maximize the effect of digital media on business goals. He has a deep passion to monitor the constantly evolving intersection between marketing and technology. Josh is currently the Director of Content Marketing at Kenshoo.

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