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Keyword Research is the backbone of internet marketing. Without it, you don’t know what kind of information, products, or solutions folks are looking on the internet. Without this knowledge, you can’t find a niche market or optimize your web site or blog for that market.

While I’m a big advocate of the online subscription keyword research tools (like Wordtracker), there are some free tools you can use to do some preliminary keyword research.

Even though Wordtracker is an keyword research tool with various subscription packages available, they do have a couple of free tools you can use too.

The first is Wordtracker’s Free Trial Research Tool. This tool was created to help acquaint you to Wordtracker’s paid version. It works very similar to the paid version, except it only provides keyword data for MSN (not Google or Yahoo).

Since MSN is the smallest of the top 3 search engines, your results are pretty limited. But it can still be used to do some preliminary research.

Another free keyword research tool provided by Wordtracker is called GTrends (short for Google Trends). This tool pretty much replaced Overture’s Free Keyword Research Tool (which no longer exists).

Enter a word in GTrends and you’ll see 100 related keywords along with their approximate search volume for Google (not MSN or Yahoo). Click on the little graph under the “G” column and you’ll get an approximation of competition for that keyword too.

Another free keyword research tool is in Google Adwords. If you have an Adwords account, you’re probably already familiar with this tool. Again, this tool only searches Google (not Yahoo or MSN), but it can help you find related keywords and give you an idea of how often they’re searched.

Google Sets is another keyword research tool. But this tool is different in that it tries to help you find more related keywords that folks might use when searching - as opposed to returning known searched keywords along with the approximate search volume.

Another tool you can use is called SEOBook. This tool lets you search GTrends, Google Sets, and more - all from the same interface. It will also help you find more related keywords using synonym’s.

Like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery offers both paid and free versions of their keyword research tool. The free version is limited, but it can still be used for preliminary research.

Although I personally prefer Wordtracker (it’s been around the longest, so it has a long proven track record), Keyword Discovery does have some unique features … like the ability to easily check misspelled words and keyword density.

Generally speaking, I do not recommend using the free keyword research tools if you’re trying to find a niche market or start a new internet business - but they can be helpful for preliminary research.

They can also be helpful if money is tight - but keep in mind that these tools will not offer the same reliability as the paid tools.

If you know of other free keyword search tools out there not listed here, please let me know.

Keyword research is the backbone of all good internet marketing sites and advertising campaigns.

In order to be successful online, you have to know what people are looking for, and how they’re looking for it. In other words, you need to know what kind of information people are searching for, and what words they are typing into the search engines (like Google) to find that information.

This is where keyword research comes in.

A “keyword” is a word or phrase that people type into a search engine to find information. For example, “baseball cards” might be a keyword used by somebody looking to buy baseball cards. Other keywords might be, “trade baseball cards”, “baseball card value” or “how much is my baseball card worth”.

Notice that there are different ways to search for information on the same topic. And there are different kinds of information (buy, trade, value) that people might be looking for under a general topic (baseball cards). This is the kind of information you want to discover while doing keyword research.

There are several software programs you can buy that will help you find your “keywords”. Most of these software programs will also give you some idea of how much competition each keyword has. Two of the more popular programs are Keyword Analyzer and Keyword Elite.
There are also fee-based online keyword research programs like Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.

At a first glance, the software programs seem attractive, because you only pay for them once, whereas you pay subscription fees to use the online services. Having used both, I now prefer the online services - and I especially prefer Wordtracker.

One thing to keep in mind that is that NONE of these keyword tools are 100% accurate. They are simply tools designed to help you find niche keywords and understand your market better. But do give you a pretty good idea of what your actual keywords are.

My biggest complaint with the software programs is that they all tended to bog down my computer while they were running (I don’t have a lot of patience for that) and I was constantly having to update the software. Even though both programs mentioned above offer free lifetime updates - I tired of having to download and install them after a while.

With the online services, you can just log in and start doing your research (even when you’re away from your own computer). This is a definite advantage for me.

When you’re first starting out, I highly recommend using Wordtracker’s free trial too. While it only shows you information for Alta Vista (and not Google or Yahoo), it will help you learn how to do keyword research and interpret the data. Wordtacker also has a nice learning center (called the Wordtracker Academy) to help you get started.