Wordtracker

Wordtracker is the Coke of Keyword Research. It's the biggest brand, a huge looming presence with a database of 340 million search terms that most SEOs recommend wholeheartedly.

Without going into too many specifics, Wordtracker, essentially, can "predict" whether your keyword(s) will be worthwhile using. This "worth" is called the KEI, the Keyword Effectiveness Index which you "read" via a numerical value:

• 0 is bad
• 100 is pretty good &
• 400 is great 

...and you get a different KEI for each keyword on each major search engine. In theory, that should be great:

• Google presently gets about 65% of internet searches
• Yahoo gets about 25%
• MSN gets about 7% &
• numerous others haggle over the last 3%

However, Wordtracker's KEI figures are based upon approximations of the number of searches in each of the search engines, extrapolated from the real figures from  Dogpile, a small search engine in that final 3%.

The problem is, do you know anybody who uses Dogpile? I don't!  Minor search engines obviously attracts a skewed, perhaps elitist, selection of the general public and may provide poor data for a believable KEI.  That being said,  Wordtracker is still extremely valuable...as it's the only true search engine results that we do have. The biggies like Google won't kiss'n'tell, not ever!

Wordtracker also provides a magician's bagful of interesting tools such as lateral search and thesaurus search, which can take your keyword research into many interesting directions. In fact, the whole Wordtracker site is like a mini-university filled with resources that you could spend months in and still feel inadequate because you have so much more to learn.

Though Wordtracker's look and functionality has greatly improved over the last few years, I strongly advise not to get bogged down with too much keyword theory. Instead, create a site, make your mistakes and learn from them quickly, you can always rectify your faults.

If you're a newbie, you might be much better advised to check out my Site Build It review. Their training and forum will lead you gently towards Wordtracker and more complex keyword research...while their whole modus operandi is to help that first site of your's succeed, which is, I think, very important. Do consider that, as Site Build It's all-inclusive cost will probably, paradoxically, save you a lot of money. 

If you think you can go it alone, I certainly recommend that you give even the FREE version of Wordtracker a try, it's an education and a sound basis for all your subsequent keyword research.

Wordtracker