By: Kirt Christensen
There is a research tool for keywords in Google. You can get to it by clicking on “Tools” at the top of the screen, in the green stripe. Option one is this, if you have your website already up and running and don’t desire to start from the beginning with your keywords, select “Site-Related Keywords” tab and then enter the web address for one or more of the pages from your site. Then Google will browse through your site and make up a keyword list for you.
Option two is for you, if you want to connect to people with keywords that aren’t obvious to your site. To use this tool, select “Keyword Variations” and enter one of your main keywords. You won’t just get variation to that keyword, if you check the little box on the right labeled, “Use Synonyms”, Google will also give you a list of suggestions that are related to your topic. The result that you get from Google will be just what you would expect form a world-class search engine. Good stuff!
Some of the results you’ll find immediately relevant; others you won’t have use for. But Google gives you plenty more still helping your Google AdWords management. They won’t give you the explicit numbers of searches for these terms on their system, but they will show you the relative amount of traffic they generate. To see this, click on the “Show columns” dropdown menu and select “Keyword popularity”.
Along with the amount of competitors vying for each keyword shown in the partly shaded rectangle, you will also get the relative amount of searches that each term gets.
Yet another clever feature is “Global search volume trends,” a month-by-month graphic of the average searches your term gets.
Very clever, and very helpful in Google AdWords management. You get variations that Overture couldn’t give you and information about your competition that you can’t get from any other free service. And it doesn’t cost you a penny extra.
ON WORDTRACKER
If you were to look for all the variations searched for “learn German” using Overture, then you would get a list where each of the terms would include those two words.
1,371 learn to speak german
916 learn german free
598 learn german online free
383 learn to speak german for free
108 learn to speak german online
100 german language learn online
73 learn swiss german
71 learn german software
69 learn german cd
But aren’t there people who want to learn German who don’t use that exact phrase?
Sure are. There’s also “study German” and even “study in Germany,” not to mention the occasional guy who on a lark types in “learn Deutsch” or even “sprechen sie Deutsch.”
How will we know what other keyword possibilities are out there? Wordtracker’s Wide Search is the answer.
Let’s say now that you’re bidding on keywords for cell phones. Go to Wordtracker, and you’ll get these suggested variations:
mobile phone
nokia
cellphone
cellular phone
ringtones
wireless
sony ericsson
samsung
sanyo
motorola
bluetooth
accessories
If you let loose of the reigns to your imagination, you will find that this list of keywords that you got from Wordtracker can open up new and previously unconsidered markets. After looking at the keyword list and considering the possibilities quite a few people have realized that the market is rich for accessories for Nokiea phones rather than the phones themselves. This is only one example of many. This is the reason you do the research. Don’t close yourself to the possibilities.
Wordtracker is not designed to give you click costs or profitability estimates. It’s made to alert you to all of the possible directions you can take with your keywords. It does this by reporting to you the variations that have been searched for in the last 60 days, and advising you of the number of searches each term has had by Dogpile and Metacrawler.
You’ll notice, of course, that other than including plurals along with singulars, this list doesn’t give you any other spelling variations, like “cell” or “cell phone” or “cellular.” You’ll have to do those separately.
About the Author
Kirt Christensen, a veteran of over 10 years of keyword research, will be your guide and show you precise results of all the keyword research techniques he tests and uses every single month. www.netbreakthroughs.com. Click here for other unique keyword research articles.