Improve Your Internet Marketing

Ok, I admit it: I’m a keyword junkie! You’ll probably get that way too if you stay in this business for long. Symptoms include thinking of keyword variations as you’re talking, picturing keyword permutations while you’re reading, imagining whether road signs would be more effective as phrase or exact match…

But let’s face it: keyword research - rather EFFECTIVE keyword research - is perhaps the single most important factor in affiliate marketing. After all, if you can’t come up with the words & phrases a potential customer is using, you can’t target them (unless your doing site targeting, but that’s for another email some day).

There are a number of really good keyword tools you can pay for, and most are worth the money if you take the time to learn them. Still, many of my best keyword lists however are created or grown using free keyword tools. Besides, if everyone uses the same tool, everyone will end up with the same keyword lists!

And so this issue of Melanies Tip’s is devoted to listing  my 10 favorite free keyword research tools.

(Not to mention I’m a few days behind on my new “Make Lots Of Money Online For Beginners & Pros” website. But I promise to launch it this week, and I promise that won’t be the URL!)

Yahoo’s Keyword Selector Tool

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Gives you up to 100 related terms plus search volume. Some of you may know that Yahoo has stopped supporting it, and it’s database was updated for the last time in January. But it’s still very effective, and except for seasonal terms and fads, search volume is probably still pretty accurate.

Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Probably what I use most after Wordtracker. Uses LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) to provide relevant related terms, will also provide CPC data, and site-related keywords. Do a Google search on your primary keyword, and use those top listed sites to generate site-related keywords.

Wordtracker Free Keyword Tool

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

100 related keywords plus search volume. You can also go to the Wordtracker main site at http://www.wordtracker.com, provide your email address, and get temporary access to additional Wordtracker tools.

SEO Book

http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
Very extensive cross-referencing to the major search engines and keyword tools.

Good Keywords

http://www.goodkeywords.com

A surprisingly effective Windows download that does keyword research and a whole lot more!

Thesaurus.com
http://thesaurus.reference.com/

An excellent tool that also links to dictionary.com and reference.com. This is where I go to get synonyms  to use as seed keywords with the keyword-generating tools.

Keyword Discovery

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/

Trellians Keyword Discovery is one of the premium paid keyword tools, but they offer a free trial if you fill out a form.

SpyFu

http://spyfu.com/

A relative newcomer, but offers a huge wealth of info including cross-referencing and CPC data. It looks so good, I may try their paid version (anyone who’s tried it feel free to email me a review; I’ll include it in the next email).

The Dowser

http://www.thedowser.com/freeversion

Another relative newcomer, but pretty impressive. Free download version.

Google Suggest

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

From those happy folks at Google Labs, this is a good brainstorming tool. Suggests keywords as you type. There’s also a plugin that provides the same functionality to your browser search box.

Ok, I lied - 11…

Adwords Wrapper

http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/adwords-wrapper.html#tool

A really handy page that will “wrap” your keywords to give you back broad, phrase, exact match, and negative match. A real time saver. For some *serious* fun, browse through the main site http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/ for more really good internet marketing related stuff in one place than any other site I know of.

If you have a favorite keyword tool, let me know and we’ll share the wealth - plenty to go around!

As always, please feel free to email me with any questions or comments.

Melanie