Selection of the appropriate keywords and phrases is essential for the promotion of any site. Though there are an abundance of keyword research tools out there, the ultimate selection of the keywords is more of an art than an exact science. The tools discussed in this article will enable you to get the science of keyword research down pat but ultimately the selection will be up to you.

When promoting a site knowing the industry in which it operates is essential. The Search Engine Marketing tools are undeniably important but common sense and the level of knowledge you have concerning the industry will help you format a keyword strategy that will elevate both your rankings as well as your end user’s experience.

With its statistics coming from meta-search engines only, Wordtracker compiles a massive database of keywords and phrases which online users search for. This program shows how often specific keywords/phrases are searched for as well as the number of sites for which these keywords and phrases compete. A useful addition to Wordtracker’s suite of offerings is the related keyword facility. Often as search engine marketers we are not familiar with every industry we work with and facilities like this help us uncover many related keywords and phrases that we may never even have considered to be valuable. There will of course be many suggestions that are inapplicable, but it is an extremely useful and enlightening addition.

Wordtracker details, in an extremely user-friendly format, the number of searchers conducted per keyword per day, the keywords which compete with it and the KEI (keyword effectivity index).

One of Wordtracker’s greatest features is its ability to differentiate between search terms that include capitalization, word ordering and plurality. As search engines do deliver results based on these factors it is easier to get unique as well as accurate data from Wordtracker as multiple search phrases are not combined.

Although Wordtracker results are underreported it is still amongst the most often used tools for keyword selection. SEO’s usually consider the figures as guidelines rather than absolutes when selecting keywords.

Overture or Yahoo! Search Marketing as it being referred to of late offers a database which has been collected from the keyword/phrase searches performed on Yahoo! AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN Search and HotBot.

Overture has a greater database of search terms than Wordtracker but the results are often over inflated because unlike Wordtracker, there is no distinction between singular and plural terms, upper and lower case or between human queries and automated queries.

Queries from bid optimizers, position and ranking monitors and link popularity analyzers are registered as hits. These factors all influence the over-inflated results produced by Overture. Another of Overtures downfalls is that it registers a user conducting a single search on two of its influencing engines (Yahoo! and MSN for example) as two hits. While excellent at generating hundreds of keywords and illustrating their popularity on the web it is easier to achieve visible results with Wordtracker as the data is based on lower figures.

Digital Point’s Keyword Suggestion Tool

This free keyword suggestion tool displays results from both Wordtracker and Overture to help you determine which keywords and phrases are searched for most often.

The tool allows you to enter a keyword/phrase as well as the market you wish to search that term in (i.e. USA/Japan), but the market-related search data is only relevant for Overtures results. Digital Point also offers a free keyword positioning tracking tool to monitor your placement progress once you have decided upon the keywords/phrases you wish to use in your copy.

Web CEO

Web CEO’s powerful suite of software is fast becoming one of the most popular keyword research tools online. Web CEO is a suite of SEM software which combines a host of tools to take you from start to finish of the SEO processes.

The 10 different tools in the Web CEO suite will help you promote your site amongst the search engines, analyze your visitors as well as maintain your website. The 10 tools are: Keyword Popularity Research, Live Traffic Analysis, SEO, Search Engine Submission, Website Ranking Checker, Link Popularity Analyzer, Project Auditor, Web Page Editor, FTP Upload Manager and Website Monitoring.

It is easy to see why Web CEO is fast becoming one of the most preferred tools in the industry.

Hitwise Keyword Intelligence

Hitwise has begun using its web visitor data in its keyword search data making for more comprehensive and targeted results. Keyword Intelligence provides country-specific results which is extremely useful when it comes to promoting sites which are aimed at web users in a specific country.

Hitwise results show keywords that resulted in web users actually visiting a website rather than just viewing the websites listing on their search engine of choice. Though is quite costly to purchase, because Keyword Intelligence offers country-specific data it could be one of the most essential SEO tools for site promotion.

Trellion’s Keyword Discovery Tool

This is a great tool which captures data from an impressive 170 international search engines. Compared to Wordtracker, which uses meta-search engines, Trellion’s data is far more comprehensive. With the standard edition up to 1000 results are returned and up to 10 000 results with the enterprise edition. The two main advantages of using Trellion’s Keyword Discovery tool are that suggestions for misspelled words/terms related to your search are returned and that it offers 12 months of data which allows you to track seasonal trends.

The only disadvantage is that because of the high number of search engines that data is captured from you are unable to establish which sites have been sampled in the results.

SEO Chat’s Keyword Suggestions for Google

This free Keyword Suggestion tool for Google aids you in choosing relevant and popular terms that are related to the keyword/phrase that you enter. Like most keyword suggestion tools all you need to do is enter a keyword or phrase and this tool will return results from several Google searches, which it will use to determine popular and re-occurring terms used by websites in the same industry.

The keyword/phrase’s relevancy is determined by the number of times a given term occurs in the displayed results. You will notice that sometimes related keywords/phrases return higher results, this is because they are searched for in Google more often that the keyword/phrase you entered.

When it comes to the science of keyword research, the tools out there are invaluable. Wordtracker and Overture are undoubtedly the market leaders but the emergence of several other keyword research competitors has positively affected the SEM industry. Not only do SEO’s now have access to a wider range of tools at their disposal, the industry leaders are having to up their game to remain in the lead.

Make sure you have your finger on the pulse of keyword research tools and trends as they are being constantly refined and improved upon.