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Option2: Harvest quality keywords in a matter of minutes

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As I promised, here's the simple and short way to get as many great keywords as you wish.

Rank Tracker SEO Software
Rank Tracker

There's a tool called Rank Tracker that's great for working with keywords. The module I particularly like is keyword suggestion. Rank Tracker also checks website positions by keywords with a lot of details, to see how they change over time — and does much more. But we'll need that a little bit later. And right now, we'll need the keyword suggestion feature the most.

So here's where you find Rank Tracker:
http://www.seoinpractice.com/seo-software-bundle.html

You can trust the software I recommend here 100%, for I not only used it thousands of times. I truly took part in its development, consulting the Link-Assistant.Com team all way through. So these tools are also products of my SEO experience. Hundreds of SEO companies and thousands of individuals all over the globe use this software. Many of my clients do part of the job themselves, with the tools I recommend. And believe me, these development guys know how to keep all their users happy!

So here's how it works. First, download Rank Tracker and install it on your computer. What you'll do now is:

Get a long list of keywords at a couple of mouseclicks

Run the tool and click the New button to create a new project. Rank Tracker will ask you to enter a URL, so enter your site's URL.

Enter URL
Enter your website's URL

Then choose Search Engines to apply (in fact, you can click any, say Yahoo! — it doesn't really matter for keyword research).

Choose search engines
Select search engines

Now you need to enter a keyword to start with. Type in any keyword related to your business, like I typed in wedding ideas, and Rank Tracker will take a couple of seconds to check your site's ranking for that word (but I'll save talk about rankings for later).

Enter keywords
Enter your major keywords

What you need to do right now is: select your keyword and click the Suggest button in the Keywords tab.

Suggest Keywords button

You can enter a number of generic keywords related to your niche or business. Rank Tracker will use these terms to give you keyword suggestions.

Initial keywords
List of "big" initial keywords

The tool will ask you to choose a keyword research method. Choose Google Suggest, and after Rank Tracker stops searching (it can take a while, depending on the number of keywords you've entered and the speed of your Internet connection), you can choose any of the keyword suggestions it offers. (I'd recommend you to select all suggested words now. And later Rank Tracker will let you easily single out the best-quality keywords.)

Suggested keywords
List of suggested keywords

As soon as you make your decision and click Finish, you will see the keywords you chose in the Keywords tab.


Now, repeat the same procedure choosing Wordtracker, Yahoo! Search Assist and Ask TypeAhead Search Suggestions.

Your keyword list is getting longer, yeah?

Now let's

Spy a bit on your competitors

A great thing is to find out what keywords your competition is using (really useful, you know, as you can copy their strategy and improve on it!)

Use the Competition Research option for that.

Keyword research methods
Various keyword research methods

Localize the search

Now let's add some regionally-marked keywords to your list. You've probably read above, it's sometimes very useful to localize your keywords, as people often search for products or services exactly in their own area. So here's what you need to do now: select some keywords from the list you already have (hold Shift or Ctrl buttons for multiple choice), then click the Suggest button of Rank Tracker and choose the Word Combination option. After that on the left you will see the list of keywords you've just selected.

Now your task is to add regional names to your list. Say, if you sell footwear in Michigan and Illinois, type in the names of these two states in the right-hand field. Then click to proceed and after a few seconds you'll have a list of fairly good regionally marked keywords.

Broaden your keyword list

Now I guess, you've gone through the Rank Tracker options and made a massive keyword list. But Rank Tracker still has to do some work for you.

Believe me, you still can add to the great keyword list you already have. Look at the keywords and choose the ones that are thematically most relevant to what you offer. Select these terms (hold the Shift or Ctrl buttons for multiple choice), and hit the Suggest button once again.

Now, if you repeat the procedures for finding keyword suggestions, you'll add more straight-to-the-point keyphrases to you list. Thus you'll have enough reasonably precise search terms to choose from.


DO IT NOW! Make a massive list of keywords and keyphrases for your website in Rank Tracker, and copy them all into a column in a spreadsheet (ex. Excel).




So what do we have at the moment? A huge list of keywords, all you could find. Well, you must be proud, thinking how big it is. Now here's the confusing but funny thing: you won't need most of this list! The time's come to think of keyword' quality. As a next step, we'll shortlist your keyword suggestions.

8 comments

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2008-07-31 16:27:34: Gerben Bouwhuis

The competitor keyword research is nice (i do think we're getting the meta data from competitors, but hey, who am i) but you don't fetch them per language, why not? It's even more usefull to do so.
2008-08-04 12:23:54: Dan Richmond

Gerben,
sorry, I'm not sure that I understand exactly what you mean, therefore I won't comment on your suggestion.

But here's a hint for you and for anyone else having software suggestions: white to Link-Assistant.Com's support if you have any software-related questions. Here's Link-Assistant.Com's support system

There's qualified support staff working at all requests, no matter if you're a registered software user or not, and they'll be happy to hear your suggestions. (Just give a more detailed explanation probably).

So please write to support guys, they'll be thankful to you for sure, Gerben.
2008-08-06 16:06:09: Gerben Bouwhuis

@Dan,

i'll contact the support guys. But i'm talking about the option to get data per language too, like searches, metadata from other languages, it's all english based now.
2008-08-10 04:23:30: Darren Tong

Hi Dan,

On the whole this looks like a great resource for would-be SEO-ers such as myself... the one piece of feedback I would offer is that perhaps you should make it clearer the parts of this guide that are "content" and the parts that are "promotion"...

It would help readers like myself to draw a line between great tips and sales patter (which I have no objection to), and as a result we may even find ourselves compelled to buy!

thanks again for the tips & techniques you're sharing here.

D.
2008-09-23 18:04:39: satish kumar

Do we have any extra advantage if we use a keyword in whole caps. For example can we write both "dog food" and "DOG FOOD" keywords?
2008-09-24 03:51:44: Dan Richmond

Do we have any extra advantage if we use a keyword in whole caps.
According to Google official data, no. They claim to not differenciate between upper and lower case.
2008-10-30 05:49:12: jamie green

Are you able to perform the keyword research in regional databases with the full software, or only us as with the free version?
2008-10-31 06:01:45: Dan Richmond

@jamie green

You asked:
Are you able to perform the keyword research in regional databases with the full software, or only us as with the free version?

Yes, the paid versions of software have lists with nearly 400 search engines, from dozens of countries. Here's a list for Rank Tracker for example:
http://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/search-engines-list.html
or here's SEO SpyGlass
http://www.link-assistant.com/seo-spyglass/search-engines-list.html