The most important question on everyones mind is, how can we determine what a positive search term is? That is where the numerous keyword tools on the market come into play. The purpose of this short article is not to publicize the various keyword tools available, but to describe their operation and capabilities and to provide you with ideas and resources to enable you to figure out the best keyword research tool for your requirements.

So what can Keyword Research Tools do?

Sounds like a rather silly question – they perform market and keyword research! But lets look more specifically in to what info the tools gather:

- They build 100s of keyword suggestions around one source keyword
- They will generate “long tail keywords and phrases” which are much easier to get positioned for
- They show the competition levels of each and every keyword phrase
- They will show you month-to-month search volumes for each and every keyword phrase
- Some even let you know in pure English whether its a good choice or perhaps not

To put it briefly, they produce more keyword suggestions than you or i could ever think of, and present some form of signal to how simple itll be to get ranked high in the various search engines for the keywords and keyword phrases.

Note – all of the keyword tools I have personally tried need you to have a Google AdWords account (totally free), and utilizes that account to connect into the Google network to pull keyword information. The difference among the tools is exactly what information is pulled and the way it is shown to you.

Criteria for selecting the Best Keyword Research Tool

Identifying the most effective keyword research tool can differ individual to individual. For instance, some people like things simple, some favor more advanced functions and granularity at the cost of a more challenging learning curve. Here are a couple of factors I thought about when selecting a keyword tool:

- Cost – this is dependent on the individual. You can find hundreds of keyword tools to choose from and can cost from $0 to thousands each year! Normally, the more mainstream keyword research tools are somewhere between $75 and 149.
- Usability – Youtube is your close friend here! There are some excellent video tutorials on all the major tools. Nearly all vendors also provide a no cost trial run to check the tool out on your own ahead of committing to a purchase.
- Effectiveness – both factors previously mentioned are irrelevant if the tool doesnt work. Utilize Google to look for reviews on the different keyword tools you like the look of, find some comprehensive real world examples of the keyword tool being used.

Conclusion

When starting out in the Search engine optimization universe, I made use of the free Google keyword suggestion tool. Without a doubt this tool is often better than a number of the premium tools available, and the information is pulled straight from Google (no middle man so to speak), so we can presume the information is as trustworthy as possible.

I saw relative success with the Google Keyword Tool,though the one downside to the Google tool is it still leaves a lot of uncertainty. It wasnt until I began using a premium keyword research tool that I started getting my articles on the first page of Google.

Stephanie Tully is a published article author and search engine marketing professional. Stephanie has helped many clientele with regards to outlining keyword research tools. Stephanie is also the co-webmaster of www.howtobeginawebsite.com – a website that has helped numerous people create successful websites.

This article will outline the 5 most favored cost-free blogging sites and give insight into whats good and bad pertaining to them, to subsequently empower individuals with info to help select a cost-free blogging site.

My Top 5 Best Blogging Sites

Blogger

Googles cost-free blogging site, Blogger is the pick of many who are getting started in the blogosphere. The clean interface helps it be a major hit with people who are thinking about creating content. This attribute is what makes Blogger certainly one of the best blogging sites.

Blogger provides the user a wide range of eye-catching templates throughout the sign-up procedure and offers a drag-and-drop tool to relocate elements around the sidebar. Widgets to add followers and maintain a record of statistics are convenient and helpful for people who dont want to touch program code. Options are very clear and simple to find, plus the writing space is large and free of distractions. A customized domain name can be added with no additional charge.

The major downside to Googles Blogger is a lack of a direct link to social media. Each posting must be manually tweeted and added to Facebook, which will be tedious for people who post a whole lot.

WordPress

WordPress is accessible as a managed platform like Blogger or as a self-hosted option utilizing a hosting service provider of the users preference. For example, my website uses the WordPress platform that is cost-free, but I pay a hosting company a monthly service charge to ensure I have more versatility and flexibility with my sites design and features. The managed option is most beneficial for people who are new to blogging.

WordPress is definitely one of the preferred blogging platforms because of its fast, no-fuss sign-up procedure. Similar to Blogger, a brand new user can be writing a blog within a matter of minutes, with a lot of beautiful styles to choose from. Where the systems vary is in the total amount of tinkering which can be done in the backend. WordPress limits the editing of theme templates and CSS to those who spend an extra $30 per year. Customized domains add between $13 to $18 each year towards the expense of the site. Some users find out migrating to self-hosted WP to generally be a cheaper solution.

Although WP is not the least expensive of blogging platforms around, it really is a great starting place for business owners or others who wish to make a name for themselves. The platform gives excellent Search Engine Optimization features and fresh sites are generally indexed within a few days due to WordPress remarkably high Pagerank (PR9), which is why it is among the top blogging sites.

Tumblr

Tumblr climbed from a trendy upstart to a brand name within a little over 5 years. It now consists of more active sites than WordPress and it has attracted the likes of actors, Entrepreneurs and photographers. It is considered to be one of the best blogging platforms for art and online digital multimedia.

Tumblr provides a relatively zippy sign-up process which only needs an e-mail address and has many beautiful zero cost themes. This platforms key attraction is the posting formats, that provide ease of posting backlinks, pictures, video clips, chats and quotations. Tumblr is natively integrated with Twitter and Facebook, and it will automatically send out updates with each new post. Users can have several weblogs.

The only real downside to Tumblr is its reliability. It has struggled with lengthy downtimes and are typically overcapacity, which can take it off the listing of best blogging sites for a lot of people.

Posterous

Posterous is really a hybrid between a traditional weblog and Tumblr. Users can sign up using an email address and are provided with a simple blog layout which can be easily modified from the backend. Its considered one of the best blogging sites as a result of the ability to modify from everywhere. Like Tumblr, its well-integrated with social media marketing.

One major disadvantage of Posterous is the lack of clarity regarding the generation of new blogs and it is often challenging to remove them later. The platform was recently bought by Twitter and is in the process of transition.

LiveJournal

LiveJournal is considered the oldest blogging system across the web and has seen a strong decline in its user base ever since WP turned mainstream. Its still considered to be one of the top starter blogging platforms.

Although LiveJournal is still significantly in use and is considerably more community-based than other platforms, its absence of designs and social networking attributes as well as general clunkiness ensure it is one of the less-desirable blogging sites. Its one solid advantage is the commenting function is limited to community members, which decreases spam and trolling. The majority of new bloggers will most likely prefer to start out with something nicer, like Blogger or WP.

Best Blogging Sites Conclusion

The blogging sites outlined above are a great starting point for anyone planning to create their first blog. One thing to consider, these blog sites are all free, so if you still cannot decide which blogging platform to start with based upon the above details, register an account at each and give each of them a test run!

As a side note, quite a few knowledgeable web marketing experts maintain numerous blogging websites and “inter-link” them to enhance their online presence in the search engine listings with what is well known as a “Link Wheel” – but this is a whole different topic we will leave for another day!

Stephanie Tully is a written and published author and online marketing pro. Stephanie has helped many clientele in findinding the best blog sites most suitable to their preferences. Stephanie is also the co-webmaster of www.howtobeginawebsite.com – a web site that has helped numerous people in creating successful web sites.

The Google Keyword Tool is a free tool published by Google to help you to perform Market And Keyword Research – arguably the most crucial factor of any search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.

The Google keyword tool helps you find different keyphrases based on a seed keyword, or keyword phrases, but more importantly, displays competition according to those keywords.

You dont have to have a Google account to use this tool, as Google offers an external website. Simply search for “External Google Keyword Tool” and you can begin to use it immediately.

Note, there are other keyword research tools out there, which do offer more advanced functions and make it somewhat easier to find good keyword phrases (after undergoing a gentle learning curve). For those getting started, Id strongly suggest utilizing the Google Keyword Tool to get used to keyword phrase research and exactly how it plays its part in SEO before spending on premium tools.

What Constitutes a Good Keyword?

There are 2 main factors you should look at when selecting keywords and key phrases, and the Google Keyword Tool helps in each of these:

Traffic – how much traffic does your chosen keyword phrase get every month? If youre targeting keyword phrases that get not a lot of searches, you will likely get very limited traffic. On the other hand, a very high search rate is usually suggestive of very high competition, which makes it challenging to get ranked for.

The Google Keyword tool reports how many searches each month are conducted for each keyword phrase. I generally aim for keywords which are over 500 per month, 2,000 being better.

Competition – too much competition and youll find it difficult it or unattainable to position high enough in the search engine rankings to produce traffic from those keyword phrases.

The Google Keyword Tool also reports competition for each keyword or keyword phrase. I always target low-medium competition keywords phrases.

Using the Google Keyword Tool to “Spy” on the Competition!

The Google Keyword Tool comes with an updated function where you can actually see what keywords the competition is utilizing! To do this, rather than inputting keywords, there is a space for “website”. You can enter the website address here and see what keywords your competition is getting ranked for!

This doesnt imply you could copy the competing website and expect to obtain the same ranking, sorry, if only it were that easy! But you can usually get a general idea for what content is used. If you did copy the content directly, Google would not award you with any credit for it – Google stores one copy of original content and gives credit to the first website page it found it on – a good reason to write completely unique content!

Additional Features of the Google Keyword Tool

Here are some neat additional little features

- You can download keywords into an excel spreadsheet and manipulate them
- You can search for keyword phrases based upon location and language
- You can search for keyword phrases determined by categories
- The keyword tool produces both local and global search volume
- Can now exclude certain terms from the keyword results

Google Keyword Tool Summary

Firstly, this is a free tool. Free is good! Additionally the data is straight from Google, so while not always 100% accurate, its safe to say its the most accurate data we will get.

The Google Keyword Tool provides a relatively friendly user interface with a short learning curve. Despite demonstrating various premium keyword research tools, I always double check with the Google keyword Tool before committing to any keyword phrases.

I would suggest the Google Keyword Tool to anyone who runs a web site and has even a slight interest in keyword research and SEO!

Thanks for reading, see you on the web!

Stephanie is the co-webmaster of howtobeginawebsite.com – a site dedicated to helping you build a successful website!
For further information on the Google Keyword Tool, including a step-by-step, real world example, please see How to Begin a Websites page on Keyword Research using the Google Keyword Tool