Keyword Research & Suggestion Tools

Overview: These are free and paid tools which will help you find which keywords to target and how competitive they are. Here is a video offering an introduction to keyword research

At the bottom of this page are a link to a free keyword research PDF and a few more free background videos about understanding keyword research and using keyword research tools.

Variety is the Spice of Life

SEO Toolbar - Free toolbar that adds a dozen cool keyword research tools right in your browser. :) Pick your favorites amongst them and search all of them with 1 click whenever you want to do keyword research.

Traditional Keyword Suggestion Tools

• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool - tool shows top keyword phrases from Wordtracker.
• Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool - recommends keywords based on a keyword you enter or a URL you have the tool analyze
• Microsoft Ad Intelligence - brilliant extension for Microsoft Excel which puts a load of great keyword research data directly into Excel.
• Google Suggest Tool - shows frequently search for phrases starting with the words and letters in your query.
• WordStream Keyword Tool - allows you to export a list of thousands of keywords for free.
• Wordtracker Free Keywords - free keyword suggestions from Wordtracker. Wordtracker also has a more advanced paid version, and sells top keyword reports.
• Keyword Discovery - free keyword tool from Trellian. Trellian also has a more advanced paid version of Keyword Discovery.
• Uber Suggest - uses Google Instant to generate keyword suggestions
• Wordze - nice for generating decently large keyword lists quickly and inserting them into paid search campaigns.
• Yahoo! Clues - Yahoo! has an interesting keyword tool which offers demographic & search funnel data by keyword. They shut down their general purpose old keyword tool a few years ago.

Keyword Valuation Tools

• Google Traffic Estimator - shows the estimated bids prices and ad clicks for the top ranked AdWords ad. Allows you to check for [exact match], "phrase match", or broad match.

Keyword Extensions

• SEO Book Keyword & Competitive Research Gadget - use almost any and every useful keyword tool from our free gadget that you can put on your site or on iGoogle.

More Abstract Keyword Sources

• eBay Marketplace Research - this paid tool allows you to see what items are selling on eBay and for how much
• Dependency-based Word Similarity - shows words which are often found in the same documents in a corpus of news articles.
• Google Sets - creates a set of keywords based on a keyword you enter
• Google Related Keywords - highlights words that Google considers as being related to a keyword, as displayed when you search Google for ~keyword
• Keyword Density Analysis Tool - finds common words and phrases on your site.
• Page Comparison Tool - tool compares the page titles, meta information, and most common two and three word phrases between different pages.
• Quintura - visual search service which shows related modifiers clustered around your search
• Thesaurus.com - find related keywords using a traditional thesaurus
• Wordtracker Keyword Questions - shows questions people searched for that contain the root keyword you type in.
• Yahoo Term Extraction - delivers a list of most important keywords contained inside a piece of text.
• Google Global Market Finder - highlights estimated search volumes for related keywords in foreign languages in foreign markets
• Google Contextual Targeting - clusters similar keywords & shows what websites they feel are relevant to those clusters
• Wikipedia traffic stats

Trend Related Keywords

• Amazon.com - offers category based best sellers, new releases, & movers & shakers
• eBay Pulse - keywords that are currently hot on eBay, organized by category.
• Google Correlate - draw a shape or plug in a keyword & Google will show you other keywords with similar patterns.
• Google Hot Trends - shows keywords that are recently hot . Also archives older hot keywords, and Google Trends shows seasonal search trends for most popular keywords.
• Google Search Insights - shows keyword trends, hot keywords by cateogry, and top geographic regions for a keyword.
• Yahoo! Buzz Index - search trends and stories about what keywords are hot right now
• SEOMoz popular searches - combines and archives results from many of the tools in this section and a few others

Bulk Keyword Editing Tools

• Keyword List Generator - allows you to quickly create large lists of keyword phrases using keywords and modifiers
• Keyword List Cleaner - allows you to quickly create a functional keyword list from most any publicly available keyword source. try it now
• Keyword Misspelling Generator - allows you to generate various misspellings of a keyword or phrase to match common typing errors. Useful for creating keyword lists around your most important keywords to bid on.
• Microsoft Ad Intelligence Excel plug in - a suite of highly useful and easy to recommend keyword tools that interface with Microsoft Excel.

Keyword Modifiers

• Keyword Modifiers - Spreadsheet showing common keyword modifiers organized by categories such as price, location, and other common variables.
• keyword tools review post - a couple year old blog post offering a free comparison of different keyword research tools, also showing how keyword modifiers work in a real world example

Background Information on Keywords

50 minute Keyword research video by me...a bit long, but hopefully you find it useful :)

• Dan Thies video on keyword strategy
• Dan Thies video on using my keyword permutation generator tool
• emarketingperformance.com keyword research [PDF]

Retired Keywords Tools

• Google Search Based Keyword Tool - shows keyword search volume estimates and keyword values...by keyword, site, or category.
• Microsoft Keyword Forecast - shows predicted Microsoft search impression count and historical trends.
• adCenter Labs tools - Microsoft offers a wide array of keyword tools like demographic prediction and content categorization tools.
• Yahoo Mindset - let Yahoo show you how they can change results for commercial and informational queries

Related Categories

• Analytics Tools - track what keywords you are ranking for and how well they are performing
• Competitive Research Tools - compare your marketing strategies and progress to competitors
• PPC Tools - tools to build your pay per click marketing campaigns
• Rank Checkers - track your rankings

Know Any Other Tools Worth Suggesting?

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