I came upon an excellent article today written by Rosalind Gardner at NetProfitsToday.com. In it she discusses the differences between the Google keyword tool and WordTracker. It’s an excellent read and I highly recommend you click right over there to check it out.

Here are some quick facts you should know:

• Google uses broad match by default and WordTracker uses exact match
• Google has a vested interest in the search numbers being larger than they possibly are
• WordTracker uses DogPile.com and MetaCrawler.com to compile their data and nobody knows what Google uses
• WordTracker allows you to get results for the searches that Google returns “not enough data” for
• Google is best for quick and broad keyword searching while WordTracker is best for fine-tuning

Read Ros’ Google vs WordTracker Post

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

People who are starting a blog, looking to increase the traffic or subscribers to their blogs or looking for affiliate marketing opportunities hear a lot about SEO, keywords and backlinks. We are told that Google likes pages that are unique, relevant and optimized for keyword phrases that people are searching for.

Sounds pretty simple, huh?

I just read a post by Jonathan Leger entitled “Google Link Analysis 101” where he shows a quick method to see how many searches are being done for a keyword phrase using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and then do a quick competition analysis with the Yahoo Site Explorer.

Read the rest of this entry

There is no debating that keyword research is very important to online success. Knowing what people are searching for and offering them information and products relating to that need can be the difference between building websites and growing a business.

The same is true for starting a blog. If all you want to do is blab on about the state of the world to whomever may be reading than keyword research probably isn’t that important to you.

However, if you intend to construct a portal that allows you to speak directly to people who are interested in your topic and can’t wait for your next post, some work needs to be done.

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