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"Discovering Keyword Discovery"
David Temple - Oct, 2005, TopRank
Keyword research is a vital first step in any search engine marketing
campaign. There are basically 2 types of keyword research software:
keyword suggestion tools and keyword analytical tools. Many search
engines have their own keyword suggestion tools which provide a list
of related keywords but usually don't indicate much more than the
number of times that particular keyword was entered.
Keyword analytical tools, on the other hand, not only give you alternate
suggestions to your keywords but also supply information on the number
of times any particular keyword was typed into the search engines
(based on their current data), how much competition you can expect for
those keywords, and other important information. Trellian's
KeywordDiscovery
Keyword Discovery gets results from 37 different search engines. The database contains more than 20 billion searches conducted over the previous 12 months. These include major international, pay-per-click, meta, and regional search engines. It also provides information from Overture broken down by 16 different regions. The interface is simple (simple is good). You begin by entering a keyword or keyword phrase into the search box, then choose the type of search you want. The results show occurrences, KEI analysis, and predicted daily numbers.
General Search
Allows you to input a keyword and get a variety of
keyword phrase combinations containing the keyword you enter.
They don't stop there. You've probably done a search for something local and found authority IYPs such as SuperPages, Switchboard and others come up toward the top of natural results. I've heard plenty of people and webmasters complain that IYP results rank higher than their own local site they've optimized. In this case, the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" phrase can be a good idea. This was even prevalent a year ago when the first article was written.
Related Search
Finds other relevant keyword phrases based on the
keyword you entered. Using advanced search syntax you can discover
common misspellings, like or similar keywords, and of course related
keywords. The crawl syntax compiles a list of common keywords found on
the first 100 pages. You can also exclude specified keywords from your
keyword phrases.
You can even divide your research into projects, which helps you keep track of the different keywords you've researched.
After you've discovered the keywords you want to use you can really start the analytical process by clicking the Analyze button. There is also a cross-reference tool that allows you to check your competitor's website to see which keywords they are using. Another feature is a display of the top 1,000 keywords from the previous week. This also shows whether a keyword has moved up or down. An interesting report is the Multiple Keyword Statistics, which shows the percentage of single and multiple keyword searches by language.
A keyword density tool checks a web page and returns a list of keywords from that page along with the density data. The newest feature is the keyword directory tool that lists the actual keywords that drive traffic to sites based on their DMOZ site category classification.
Compared to other keyword analytical tools, KeywordDiscovery has a larger database with 12 months of data spanning 37 search engines. In addition you can reorder your results based upon different criteria. The keyword phrases are also separated by singular and plural versions, which is very useful when deciding which form to use (although you should usually use both).
As with any keyword research tool, it is difficult to know how accurate the data is; however, this is a nice tool to add to any search marketer's toolbox. KeywordDiscovery provides a limited-features free trial that is a great way to discover its benefits. You can try it out here.
Article written by David Temple - SEO Manager, TopRank Online Marketing
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