The process for beginning keyword research and which tools one uses will differ between SEO and PPC research.
PPC keyword research is a “everything under the sun” approach in which I use a couple of tools, Digital Point’s free keyword suggestion tool to get some ideas of variations, then the Google AdWords keyword tool to build an expansive list based on the initial Digital Point list. Some Digital Point keyword phrases must be taken with a grain of salt though since they pull one column from Wordtracker and the other from Overture. Sometimes when the Wordtracker column doesn’t show up for whatever reason then the Overture column has to be used. Wordtracker has their free version of the keyword tool, but their paid version is worth testing out for a very comprehensive keyword building platform.
The problem with Overture is that sometimes with low volume phrases they’ll begin to alphabetize the phrases so “sushi restaurants in
There are some further strategies I use to expand even more upon the keyword list from there to take into account keywords that don’t have enough search volume to appear in Google’s tool. I’m covering this in a PPC best practices presentation I’m working on. One other tool that is still only available by MSN beta invite is the AdSage tool. This was introduced to me a few months ago by a very wise person, Jori Waterman. She showed me a demo and this tool is amazing at how it shows past keyword search data, estimates for future data, organizes your keywords by category…and all within Excel (requires 2007) which can then be easily copied and pasted wherever you need it.
For SEO keyword research it’s crucial to see the search volume as well as competitive information for the keywords you’re selecting to target since you can’t target the 5,000 or so keywords that might be in the PPC campaign. This is where a tool that has general keyword counts will work best. I personally like the Digital Point tool for a very quick assessment of how much search volume is available. Any time forecasting comes into play then it’s best just to plug everything in the Google estimator for a ballpark figure.
