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Keyword Research Software and Tools Reviews
Keyword research is the most important part of both search engine optimization, and free web site marketing.
Keywords and keyword phrases are the seach terms that people are looking for. Not only do you use them to internally optimize your site, they should also be used in the links back to your site, in the title and description.
I went looking for the BEST software program or site for keyword research for SEO. There are many available, and it takes time to sift through what each provides. So save yourself some time, I’ve done the reviews for you.
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The CRITERIA I looked for :
1. It needs to gives you the keyword demand AND supply that is the crucial key to your site’s profitability.
2. It needs to get associated keywords from various sources, to build up a large, comprehensive list.
3. It needs to have minimal input from me, to save me time and effort.
4. It must use a formula, or KEI to give a comparison rating for each keyword
4. Results must be able to be exported into a spreadsheet
5. It must be easy to use, with simple, clear instructions
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UPDATE June 2008:
Many keyword tools get their data from Overture. Overture was purchased by Yahoo, and is no longer supported.
Therefore those tools will not work correctly, or not at all.
Worse, most of the sites selling these tools are not warning people about this, but are still selling their products as if all was well.
I am currently testing out different tools, both online and downloadable, and will post reviews on each ASAP.
If you wish to be notified when these are ready, please subscribe to the mailing list.
In the meantime, I have added notes to each review below as to whether or not it relies on Overture, if known.
Reviews
Serious Keyword Research Tools
Suggestion and Demand Tools
Rapid Keyword Review
I chose to review this first, as it is the best in my opinion. It fits most of my criteria, and gives both demand, suggestions and supply. It has a free 24 hour trial, with all features available in the trial. All the others that had a free trial were restricted, so it wasn’t easy to see how good or bad they were.
Rapid Keyword is a software application, that gets its list from various sources, including Google groups, Google suggestions, Yahoo and more. Once all the suggestions are in, you can then get demand and supply. An additional bonus is the number of Adwords ads on Google for each keyword. The more there are, the more competition there is, and the more expensive your pay-per-click campaign.
The lists themselves are exportable, as well as the final results. I am very pleased with this software, and it was easy to use with user-friendly instructions. I highly recommend it.
The only complaint I have with it, is that it does not use a formula to give a comparison rating, or KEI. Without this figure, it is diffficult to ‘see’ which keywords are the best. When I exported all the results into a spreadsheet, I added the KEI formula to it to get comparisons and ratios, and that worked really well. If you do get this program, you are welcome to email me for how to add this formula to your spreadsheet.
Cost $69.99 for a single computer licence, which is middle of the road. It is dearer than some software and cheaper than others, however, the results made this a bargain. It is a one time fee, so you can use it asmany times as you like and never pay anymore. Has a free, unrestricted trial.
RELIES on DATA from OVERTURE.
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What is KEI?
KEI stands for Keyword Effectiveness Indicator and is designed to measure the effectiveness, or the value of a given search term. This is done by correlating a number of factors such as the number of times a keyword is searched for, with the number of pages on which it occurs, etc.
KEI is a log scale with values from 0 to 10.
The higher the value, the less competitive.
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RAPID KEYWORD -
MY PICK for the best Keyword Research Tool,
with too many features to list here.
(It’s the one I use for my clients)
Visit their site to see all the features.
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Suggestions
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Yes
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Exportable
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Yes
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Cost
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$69.99
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Demand
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Yes
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Ratio/KEI
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Format
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Downloadable
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Supply
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Yes
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Free Trial
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Yes
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Link
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Rapid Keyword
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Rapid Keyword is my pick of the bunch. Easy to use, does everything I need for SEO, except for the Ratio/KEI, which I add to my spreadsheets manually. Contact me for this when you buy it, I’ll tell you step by step how to add it.
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SiteBuildIt Review
is more than just a keyword research program. It is a unique all-in-one system of tools that makes it quick and easy for anyone (from savvy pro to complete newbie) to build a professional, popular, and profitable Web site. It takes care of all the technology of building and marketing your Web site... domain name to hosting, graphic design, SEO, Search Engine submission, from traffic analysis to e-zine publishing. It also gives you the keyword demand AND supply that is the key to your site’s profitability.
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Suggestions
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Yes
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Exportable
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Yes
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Cost
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$299 yr, incl website + more
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Demand
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Yes
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Ratio/KEI
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Yes
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Format
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Online
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Supply
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Yes
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Free Trial
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Link
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More on SiteBuildIt
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Market Research Wizard Review
This is geared up more for products than SEO. Data in each category (competition, demand) must be exported separately. It will however, help you find profitable products to sell, find suppliers and dropshippers, tell you who your competitors are, how much they pay for advertising, what keywords your competitors are using, demand and supply, and an analysis. So it’s great for the job it is designed for.
RELIES on DATA from OVERTURE.
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Suggestions
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Yes
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Exportable
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Yes
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Cost
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$97
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Demand
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Yes
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Ratio/KEI
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Yes
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Format
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Downloadable
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Supply
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Yes
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Free Trial
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Yes
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Link
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Market Research Wizard
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Keyword Supply/Demand Ratio Calculator Review
Well, from my criteria, it looked like my answer, although results cannot be exported. And it’s free, as well, always an added bonus. It is an online tool that is a bit of fun and very quick, however it gives a very brief indication only. It is not for serious SEO. It is useful to help you to sort out what keywords you should be using before spending any time or energy on any particular one. It does allow you to enter several keywords/phrases at a time, so it’s even quicker.
RELIES on DATA from OVERTURE.
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Suggestions
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Exportable
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Cost
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Free
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Demand
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Yes
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Ratio/KEI
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Yes
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Format
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Online
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Supply
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Yes
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Free Trial
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N/A
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Link
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Go to website
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Keyword Discovery
Review
Has many more features than the other tools I have reviewed. It gives supply, demand and KEI, it expands lists, gives you misspellings, uses a thesaurus to find related words, imports keywords from a url's keyword meta tag, can translate keywords into different languages, and automatically checks if popular search phrases are available to be registered as .com or .net domains.
The database it uses has 12 months worth of data from 180 different search engines, allowing analysis by seasonal trend, instead of the usual past month only.
New features include an eBay Search Term suggestion tool, and Market Analysis, which helps you identify the market share held by each major engine for each search phrase.
Very handy, and much more comprehensive than the other tools.
Their pricing is also different to the others, as you pay by the month or year. You could pay for 1 month, and research as many projects as possible in that time, to get very good value.
Free trial (restricted).
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Suggestions
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Yes
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Exportable
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Yes
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Cost
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Cost $49.95 monthly, $479 year.
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Demand
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Yes
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Ratio/KEI
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Yes
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Format
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Online
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Supply
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Yes
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Free Trial
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Yes
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Link
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More on Keyword Discovery
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WordTracker Review
is an online tool, very popular with many webmasters. It gives demand, supply and KEI. It expands lists, and you can export the results. I found it slow to use, needing a lot of input. However, it was thorough, and I know some people rave about it, so.. The good thing is you can pay for as you need it, so it can work out to be very cost effective.
DOES NOT GET its DATA from OVERTURE.
They have a great Keyword Research Guide, which you can download for free.
Free trial (restricted).
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Suggestions
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Yes
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Exportable
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Yes
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Cost
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$8 day/ $26.67 wk/ $53.33 mth
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Demand
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Yes
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Ratio/KEI
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Yes
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Format
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Online
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Supply
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Yes
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Free Trial
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Yes
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Link
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More on WordTracker
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Suggestion and Demand Tools (no supply/competition data)
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
Gives some suggestions, plus demand. No supply, and you cannot export data. It is driven off the Overture keyword suggestion tool. Very useful because it offers links to various vertical databases like Topix.net, Google Blogsearch, and Del.icio.us to let you know if people are talking about your topic and what types of resources they are referencing.
Try it here :
Overture Suggestion Tool
The most widely used keyword tool is online at Overture (now Yahoo). Many keyword research tools and software use this to get suggestions. It is great for suggestions, and gives demand for each based on the last month’s searches, only in Yahoo. No supply, so only gives part of the story for a keyword. It has other limitations too - it switches the order of some phrases. ‘SEO Company’ may appear as ‘company SEO’ in the Overture output, and it also blends singular and plural data together.
RELIES on DATA from OVERTURE.
Digital Point’s Keyword Suggestion Tool
Gives demand and suggestions from both Overture and WordTracker, side by side and separated, so you can compare the two. No supply, and although you cannot export the results, you can cut and paste them into a document or spreadsheet.
Try it here :
Google Keyword Tool
Gives suggestions to expand your list, and demand is displayed graphically, not numerically. It is designed to be the start of an Adwords pay per click campaign.
Free. Go To Google Keyword Tool
DOES NOT GET its DATA from OVERTURE.
Google Suggest Lab
Gives suggestions, with supply but no demand. Results cannot be cut and pasted.
Free. Go to Google Suggest Lab
DOES NOT GET its DATA from OVERTURE.
Top Keywords Reports
Offers the top 500 searched internet keywords compiled from a database of over 300 million search terms extracted from popular metacrawlers. Gives the term plus the demand. Handy, however, when I last visited this site, the last update was 3 weeks ago.
Free. Go To Top Keywords Reports
Meta Keywords Finder
Type one keyword in, and this handy little software program will come up with up to 100 suggestions that contain your original search term, with demand, and ranked by popularity. No supply. Formats output as a list of keywords, or as a metatag.
Free to download. Go to Meta Keywords Finder
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Keyword Research Software and Tools Reviews
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