Free Keyword Research Tools

Good keyword research is your foundation for developing a successful website and internet marketing campaign.

What Is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search.

As Joshua Wexelbaum of Keywordresearching.com explains,

“If you are marketing on the internet, you need to know what words people are using in their searches. Without knowing the most popular words in your industry, you cannot effectively target the people who are searching for what you sell.

Once you find the keywords that are relevant to your industry or niche, you can use these keywords on your website to attract natural search engine traffic. You can also use these keywords in your pay per click advertising campaigns on Google, Yahoo, or MSN.”

There are many great tools that will allow you to do some basic keyword research for free.

First Book Mark this- the Google Keyword Toolbox:  www.googlekeywordtool.com
This page includes the Google keyword tool and the top 50 Google Tools

I would also suggest you download the Google Official SEO Starter Guide here

Here is a quick list of free tools I have used and found helpful.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
recommends keywords based on a keyword you enter or a URL

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook
Free tool based on wordtracker.com API

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
free keyword suggestions from Wordtracker

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
free keyword tool from Trellian

http://wordze.com
one of the better “classic” keyword research tools on the market.
They offer a free limited access membership.

http://www.wordstream.com/keywords
allows you to export a list of thousands of keywords for free

http://labs.google.com/sets
creates a set of keywords based on a keyword you enter

http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions
shows questions people searched for that contain the root keyword you type in

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com
Has a free trial

Trend related:

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends
shows keywords that are recently hot. Also archives older hot keywords

http://www.google.com/trends
shows seasonal search trends for most popular keywords.

http://www.google.com/insights/search

shows keyword trends, hot keywords by category, and top geographic regions for a keyword

SEOBook.com offers many more free seo tools including competitive research tools and link analysis tools.

Their SEO Basics Knol will help you get the basics of SEO down in about an hour, for free.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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Thanks for visiting and your comments are always welcome. -Rhonda Crosby

Book Review: What Would Google Do

I’m always reading something to keep up with this crazy fast paced industry and the latest book I’ve been devouring is “What Would Google Do” by Jeff Jarvis.

This is a fascinating read that while it talks about Google and the way Google as a company operates…their business practices and philosophies…why they work so well… the book really isn’t about Google. It’s about using Google’s successful business model and applying it in to own business as we move into the Web 2.0 ‘Google’ world….

It’s about being open and transparent. And as the book itself states- in the end it’s about You.

The rules have changed. Consider this your rule book to doing business now and into the future.

I challenge you to read this and NOT find something useful that you can apply to your own business or see new and exciting opportunities. You can pick up a copy at Amazon.com or major bookstores. I highly recommend it.

If you have read it, I would love to hear your feedback- what was your favorite chapter or specific quote from the book?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Video: Social Media Revolution or Fad? Now you know…

Think Social Media is just a fad?

Watch this amazing video by  Eric Qualman from Socialnomics

Then check out some very interesting stats below – for example did you realize…

• 80% of companies use LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees

• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services- they will find us via social media.

Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
13. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27. Only 14% trust advertisements
28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34. In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media
35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

Popularity: 2% [?]

Internet Marketer – Defining What It Really Means

Until very recently, there was no college degree for the Internet marketing industry. It’s an ‘in the trenches’ hands-on education. You have to learn as you go – on your own – soaking up information along the way.  The definition of an Internet marketer, it isn’t always clear to everyone.
Let’s start with what Internet marketing is not.
It’s not being a con artist.
It’s not being a spam king.
It doesn’t just mean selling on eBay or having your own website and products.

In reality, Internet marketers can pick and choose from a whole host of options available to help them make money.  Your opportunities are virtually endless, and include one or more of the following:

•    Selling digital downloads (information products like eBooks)
•    Promoting other people’s products for a commission (affiliate marketing)
•    Selling on eBay or other auction sites
•    Running a membership site
•    Selling and promoting your own online services as a freelancer (writing, graphics, programing, consulting etc.)
•    Owning a website that sells dropshipped or wholesale items

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Being a newcomer to Internet marketing, you might be worried that you don’t have anything to sell.  That’s okay – most people don’t start out with anything, and you never have to stock a tangible inventory if you don’t want to.

Internet marketing creates no gender or age boundaries for you.  There are teenagers who have launched multi-million dollar companies as budding Internet marketers whose ideas sprung to life and catapulted them to instant success.

You don’t have to do anything unethical or shady to succeed at Internet marketing, and in fact, launching a respectable business with a solid reputation is the secret ingredient that will allow you to hatch an empire on the ‘net to fulfill all of your dreams and those of your family.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Social Media Magic for Businesses and Executives- Free Webinar

The past several months I’ve been involved in the development and launch of a unique Social Media management service,  Social Media Magic. It’s been a lot of fun and a massive success.

I’m afraid I’ve neglected my blog in the process. It’s Friday and before I let another week go by I wanted to  let my readers and the blog community know about 2 exciting Social Media education opportunities available to you.

First, a little more about Social Media Magic and a free live webinar.

Social Media Magic is a marketing and PR firm specializing in managing social media campaigns for busy business entrepreneurs, CEO’s and executives.

Social Media Magic delivers strategic, comprehensive social media solutions so you can focus on your core competencies while we focus on ours—bringing you effective, affordable, and on-point social media campaigns to maximize your marketing ROI while saving you time and money.

For the past several months, we’ve been successfully helping our private clients:

• Set up totally customized social network accounts.
• Writing and posting their keyword-optimized profile.
• Discover revenue opportunities where they can add to the conversation and then post strategic, keyword-driven communications with customers and prospects.
• Helping them build their standing as a Subject Matter Expert in their field with engaging, ongoing content distribution.
• Helping them own, control and protect their online reputation from competitors and imposters.
• Establish, build, and maintain quality customer relationships.
• To use Social Media to attract top paying, high-end clients
• Find business partners, affiliates, and investors for their company

We just recently launched and made available our Social Media marketing solutions on a grander scale at SocialMediaMagic.com and are kicking this off with a series of Free Live webinars.

Social Media Magic presents…
“Capitalizing on the Conversation”

How To Increase and Optimize Your Social Media Marketing ROI … for Businesses and Executives

A no-nonsense discussion of how successful entrepreneurs and executives are using Social Media to generate revenue, increase site traffic, build new business partnerships, and bring in new, qualified leads.

I invite you to register to attend for free here.

You’ll get clear answers to these important questions:

• How much revenue is actually being generated for those successfully using Social Networks? (A lot more than you might think.)
• How do successful individuals and businesses get started—and how do they sustain it?
• How can entrepreneurs and executives manage the time-sink Social Networks require for success?

In this 90 minute webinar you’ll also learn:

• Real solutions to minimize your time investment and maximize your social media marketing ROI
• How to ramp up more quickly for more aggressive returns

Register for Free here >>> SocialMediaMagic.com/webinar

In the next day or two, I’ll be posting here another Social Media Marketing event coming up in July that you don’t want to miss!

~ Rhonda

Popularity: 50% [?]

Simple and Clean Popup Windows with Greybox

Popup windows are used for multiple purposes in web design – from displaying images in a portfolio to displaying your terms and policies pages in a popup to keep your visitors on your sales page.

If you’re looking for a simple but clean looking solution to create your popups then I recommend you check out GreyBox. It’s easy to use and install and it doesn’t conflict with popup blockers. It’s lightweight and you can easily modify the styles in css.

You may be familiar with the popular ‘lightbox’ script and Greybox is similar but it allows you to display more then just images.

I now use Greybox just about anytime I need to create a popup plus I’m always finding other uses for it. As it says on their website… Greybox is a popup window that doesn’t suck.

Click here to download Greybox for free.

Let me know how you like it.

Enjoy!

~Rhonda

Popularity: 58% [?]

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