SEO: Some Neato Keyword Tools
Keyword discovery is the most important activity you can do for your business, and you really should start before you set up your site. A lot of new business owners overlook this, but it’s vital! I mean, you can go back and change things later on, but why not start right?
You really only need 3 to 5 really solid long-tail (very specific) keyword phrases to concentrate on and to make your mark in search. Save the 500-word lists for AdWords. We’re talking about your website now. Less is better.
When you have them chosen, you need to use them in various anchor text phrases pointing back to your site — in articles, press releases, etc. And hopefully, you’ll have some people pointing back to you with the same keyword phrases naturally. Google likes that a LOT.
Anchor text is nothing more than a keyword phrase that’s hyperlinked, but it’s important that you vary the usage and that you don’t use the same phrase everytime. So, add a word, like I’ll use “SEO News blogging” or “WordPress information,” like that. The reason is because anchor text passes “reputation” to your site and you don’t want the search bots to think that every link pointing back to your site is a self-serving link, even if it is. Remember the “natural” thang? Well… it matters.
Anyway, today I was noodling around at some of my favorite keyword places, not discovery engines per se, but places where it just adds a little help to see if you made the right choices. You want to know that your keywords are solid. So, let’s talk a little about them…
- Tweet Volume: Want to see if people are talking about your terms on Twitter? Plug them in here and you’ll see how much interest there is. That also means they’re searching for those keywords. Good!
- Alexa: Get all kinds of information on the sites you’ll be competing with for certain terms. See what demographic segment they cater to, what the site’s reach is, and its traffic rank. Big traffic usually indicates big competition. Bad. Find words with sites that get traffic but not so much that you can’t rank. “Golf,” for example, though a term connected to a really profitable niche would have some enormous competition that you’d never compete with… like ever. So, find terms that aren’t so awfully hard. “Used golf balls” for example (if that’s something you’re selling) would have a much lower competition rate.
- RankQuest: Analyze the density of the keywords you’re working with on your page, once you get it online. Be sure they’re used enough but not too much. Optimal density is around 2%. They say it doesn’t matter, but having too many can hurt you. Stuffing is bad. Just write your page naturally with your keyword phrase in mind and you should do just fine.
- And this is a tool I use just because I bought it a long time ago and it still works. It’s called Web CEO and it’s pretty cool. You can get a free version Here. It never expires. I bought the Pro version a long time ago, and must admit that I rarely use it now, but when I was first learning SEO it was very useful. It helped me by pointing out stuff I missed.
But here’s the coolest part. They give you a pretty good SEO educationat Web CEO University. Pre-StomperNet, I learned a lot of the basics from them. You might want to check that out, if you’re new to SEO. I ended up going through the entire course and learned a whole lot. When I got to Stomper, I was prepared, baby. 
