March 2004
How to find good keywords
Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not being targeted by many other websites (low competition). There are four tools out there that can help you find them.
Wordtracker - the best tool
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The best tool out there, Wordtracker is one of the most essential SEO tools. To use Wordtracker:
- Go to the Wordtracker website and pay £7 for 24 hours’ access
- Enter a keyword phrase you're thinking about targeting
- Wordtracker will suggest hundreds of related phrases - click on the ones you like
- Once you've clicked on all the phrases you like, run them through the program
- Wordtracker will compile a score for each phrase, based on the number of users searching for it and the number of websites targeting it
- The higher the score, the better the keyword phrase!
Wordtracker also offers a free service which works in the same way but only uses results generated from Altavista.
Other tools
Overture
Also useful, Overture's search term suggestion tool, is free and much quicker to use than Wordtracker. It works in much the same way as Wordtracker but doesn't tell you how many websites are targeting each keyword phrase.
Google AdWords Keyword Tool tell you which keyword phrases are being targeted by other websites.
Guidebeam
Guidebeam is an interesting resource. Type in a phrase and it will suggest a large number of related searches. The numbers provided for each phrase are Guidebeam's estimation of how relevant that phrase is.
This article was written by Trenton Moss. Trenton's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he founded Webcredible, an industry-leading user experience consultancy, helping to make the Internet a better place for everyone. He's very good at running CSS training and spends much of his time working on the world's most accessible CMS.
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- Read more search engine optimisation articles on this website
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