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Spotlight On Keyword Research Tools
By Kirt Christensen
There is a tool in Google for keyword research. The "Tools" link is found at the top of the screen in the colored bar. There are options now. If you have a website finished, up and functioning and you don't want to have to begin at the beginning collecting keywords, go to "Site-Related Keywords" and put in the address for one or more pages from that site. Google will then crawl your site searching out relevant keywords for your site.

However, if you want to reach people with keywords that you know aren't obviously found on your web site, click the "Keyword Variations" tab and enter one of your core keywords. Google doesn't just give you variations of that keyword. Check the tiny box to the right marked "Use synonyms," and it also gives you a host of related suggested themes. This is no hack job, either. Google's results here are just the results you'd expect from a world-class search engine.

Some of the results you will just want to get rid of. The best portion will be helpful to you in your management of your Adwords. Google won't give you the number of searches for your related keyword terms, but they do offer to display for you the amount of traffic they may generate. You can choose this option by selecting the dropdown on "Show Columns" and choosing "Keyword Popularity".

The partly shaded bars tell you how much competition there is on each keyword, along with the comparative amount of searches each word receives.

"Another really cool innovation that Google offers is "Global Search Volume Trends", a graphic showing a month by month account of average searches your keyword 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.

AS FOR WORDTRACKER

Using Overture's feature to get all of the searched alternatives of the term "learn German", you would get a list of terms where each one included 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

Won't there be people interested in learning German use other phrases?

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 are you going to find those other keyword variations? Look at Wordtracker's Wide Search.

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

The terms you get from Wordtracker can open up new market that might never have considered, all you have to do is let loose your imagination. You might be like others looking at the keyword list and decide that selling the accessories for Nokia phones is more profitable than selling the phones themselves. This kind of unexpected revelation is only one of many. Doing the research helps bring these to light. Keep your eyes open!

Wordtracker is not meant to provide cost per click projections or estimates of profit possibilities. It is only meant to draw your attention to the possible avenues you can take your keywords down. It can do this by

showing you all the variations people have typed in over the last 60 days, and

telling you the number of searches each one has had through Dogpile and Metacrawler.

Other than plurals and singulars, other variations in spelling are not included. Phrases like "cell", cell phone" and "cellular" will have to be done in separate tasks.

Kirt Christensen, a veteran of over 10 years of keyword research , will take you by the hand and show you exact results of all the keyword research tricks he tests and uses each month. www.netbreakthroughs.com">www.netbreakthroughs.com
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