Category Archives: Advanced Search

The Best Keyword Research Tools

14 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in Advanced Search, Best Practices, Google Analytics, Google SEO

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Whether you like it or not, keyword research is at the core of pay-per-click marketing and SEO practices. If you aren’t bidding or using the right keywords, short- or long-tail, then you could be selling yourself short on your potential success.

And wouldn’t you rather reel in a big whale shark instead of a few sardines? (You can obviously tell I don’t know my fish very well.)

See, doing good keyword research is like being a seasoned fisherman, casting his net at the right place, at the right time. So whether you’re looking to patch up the holes in your current keyword selection net, or expand the size of it, consider this article a potential algal bloom of profits.

By now you should know that the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is no longer available – Google has folded the tool into Keyword Planner, a combination of the old keyword tool and the Traffic Estimator. Now, you need an AdWords account to get keyword suggestions from Google. But Google is far from the only keyword game in town.

In this article, we’ll look at my eight favorite keyword research tools, plus some fancy tricks you can use to get a wooden peg leg up on your competition. Some are free, and some are not (but well worth the money).

Keyword Research Tools

So without further ado, let’s take you from being like this guy…

Keyword Tools

To this guy.

1. FreshKey ($20 Software)

FreshKey is my #1 go-to keyword research tool that allows me to see beyond the regular Google Instant suggestions and predictions that appear when I start typing things in on Google.

Not only does it give you new keyword ideas, variations, and synonyms, it also sorts the keywords depending on popularity.

FreshKey

Instead of just getting four new keywords from the Google suggestions drop-down, you can now potentially get an unlimited amount of keywords if you keep adding small letter variations like a, b, c, d, etc. to the end of your keyword root.

Keyword Tools

Best Keyword Tool

FreshKey will even give you ideas of which negative keywords to add before you actually have to pay for them the old-fashioned way by going through your search query report.

You can also use it to get Amazon search box suggestion terms.

You can also export the keyword results as a spreadsheet or copy them directly to your clipboard.

BOOM! You can stop reading the rest of this article now. (JK)

2) Soovle (Free)

If you have multiple channels you wish to do keyword research for and want to sound like an idiot explaining the pronunciation of this tool to your watercooler buddies, then Soovle is a perfect fit.

Soovle allows you to explore the most typed in keywords on multiple search engines based on the keyword root you give it. It even includes Amazon and eBay.

Not only is it a great keyword research tool to use, but it’s also a great brainstormer as you can slowly start typing in your ideas and allow it to auto-generate its own ideas.

I would’ve never thought to call a bounce house an inflatable castle, but now I do 🙂

Soovle

3)  Ubersuggest (Free)

Meet the keyword research tool on steroids, Ubersuggest.

Ubersuggest takes any keyword you give it and immediately gives you an almost unlimited list of alphabetized and numerical keyword variations of your original keyword.

You can even take it further by adding “bounce house ab, ac, ad” to uncover more keywords that you could potentially bid on or use for SEO purposes.

Ubersuggest

4) Search Term/Query Reports (Free-Ish)

Now even though you won’t be expanding your keyword net by using search query report mining, you’ll at least be improving your AdWords or Bing Ads account by patching up holes.

One common thing I notice in PPC accounts is the lack of attention and detail in which the account owner or previous agency allows one or a couple of keywords to be the “catch all” for everything. A common example would be to have the keyword +bounce +house or “bounce house” and leave it at that.

The only problem is that you can’t possibly laser-target every ad to the search query, and your landing page will definitely not be as targeted as it could be either. Not even dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) would help, because who wants to click on an ad with the headline of just “Bounce House”? Let’s just say it gets tricky, and you’re a little lazy if that’s all you do.

The search term/query report is a PPC report that shows you what search terms have actually triggered your ads based on the current keywords you’re bidding on. So it won’t expand your reach since your ads are already showing for those terms, but it will help you improve your quality scores and granularity within your account.

Here’s how to access the search term report in Google AdWords:

AdWords Search Queries

Here’s how to access the search query report in Bing Ads:

Bing Keywords

5)  Google Keyword Planner (Free)

Duuuhhh…! Of course this is on the list.

The Google Keyword Planner is sometimes regarded as the alpha and omega of keyword research tools. You must have an AdWords account to access it, and that doesn’t mean you have to pay anything to use it, it’s still free.

The Google Keyword Planner will show you some pretty neat stats like average monthly searches, competition level (high, medium, or low), the average cost per click, and more.

It doesn’t give you exact keyword suggestions like FreshKey or Ubersuggest, but it actually takes it a step further and suggests more synonyms and variations than many other tools available.

Is it accurate? Sort of. I always tell people to take the suggested keyword stats with a grain of salt.

Here’s how to find it. Log in in to your AdWords account and go to the Tools and Analysis tab:

AdWords Keywords

Here are some of the keyword results:

Keyword Planner

6)  WordStream’s Keyword Tool (Free)

Ahhh yes… Of course I could never forget WordStream’s very own keyword tool for both SEO and PPC keyword research.

The WordStream keyword tool allows you to target certain niches (groups of related keywords), gives you further suggestions, and also allows you to group them based off of a common theme for easy ad group launches.

WordStream Keyword Tool

This keyword research tool gives you 30 searches for free, after that you’ll have to sign up for their PPC Advisor to use it additionally.

Hidden bonus? You get a free 7-day trial on top of the 30 free searches you already did!

7) Competitor Source Code (Free)

This might not be the best and most fruitful keyword research tool but it allows you to see what meta keywords your competitors could be using to try to rank organically.

Since I use Google Chrome as my browser, it’s super simple to right-click on a site and select “View Page Source.”

View Meta Keywords

After that, all you have to do is locate the keywords and read what they’ve got. That’s it!

Two caveats for this method:

  • Your competitors might not be using the best keywords
  • Your competitors might not have meta keywords enabled (since Google doesn’t include meta keyword data in its search algorithm anymore)

8. YouTube Keyword Tool (Free)

This one’s for the film nerds! If you’re a brilliant marketer (which you are, you’re reading WordStream after all), then you know that YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, potentially driving hundreds if not thousands of visitors from your videos, to your site.

Smart people know the value of YouTube and are already using it for their content marketing strategies, so it would make sense to optimize your video headlines and descriptions to get the highest possible rankings.

To do so, go to youtube.com/keyword_tool and use it just like you would the other tools I’ve mentioned.

YouTube Keywords

Be Careful Using AdWords for Keyword Research

14 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in Advanced Search, Best Practices, Google Analytics, Google SEO

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Article thanks to The Moz Blog

February 14th, 2012 – Posted by to Keyword Research

For the past decade, most of us in the field of search have relied on Google’s AdWords data (either in the public tool, the API or the tools inside AdWords accounts). It’s the best source we’ve got, but many marketers may not realize that sadly, the numbers and queries may not always match up to what’s actually happening on Google’s search engine. I’ll illustrate with an example.

An SEOmoz blog post ranks in the top 2-3 results for many keywords around the phrase “blog traffic.” Here’s a screenshot of some of those rankings:

Google Search for "Improve Blog Traffic"

I went into our Google Analytics account and pulled the related keywords along with how much traffic they’ve sent in the past 30 days:

Moz Google Analytics Data

Then I went to Google’s AdWords Tool and searched for “blog traffic” to compare the suggestions:

AdWords Search for "Blog Traffic"

Here I got confused, because many of the terms that we receive traffic for are NOT shown above in the list… Is Google hiding them? Do they not know about them?

To be sure, I typed them into Google’s AdWords Tool manually, performing [exact match] searches only:

AdWords Tool Data

Holy cow… There they are. So, AdWords does have volume for these, and will display it, but only if you enter them exactly (or rather, “more exactly” – you can find them if you do sets of imprecise, but closer queries, too). I made the chart below to illustrate which terms were available from the broad reserach:

Comparison of Keywords Suggested vs. Those with Volume

As you can see, there’s ~50% of the terms not shown in the suggestion list, which is fairly substantive and could lead to some serious missed targeting opportunities.

THE IMPORTANT LESSON: Running discovery-focused searches in AdWords may not show you all the valuable/high-volume keyword phrases connected to a word/phrase.

There are a few ways to address this challenge:

  1. If you have the budget, my top recommendation is to buy a few, very broad keywords in AdWords, send them to a relevant landing page on your site, but realize you probably will lose money on the campaign. The goal isn’t conversions, but rather to learn by watching the keyword terms/phrases for which you get impressions. This is also great conversion-testing if you have the budget to invest, but even a week or two of data can be highly valuable for future keyword targeting.
  2. When searching in AdWords, start broad, and then enter narrower queries and note the new phrases that come up. Make sure to use exact match, and be diligent in testing variations. Google only lies through omission.
  3. The relative numbers of searches aren’t perfect (as you can see above), but they are relatively decent. In fact, I’d say they’ve improved in what they show vs. the actuals you’ll see compared to prior years. However,
  4. Use your own analytics as a guide to find new terms/phrases you might be imperfectly targeting. And if you see keyword variations that have a unique or different intent, it might even pay to create a more targeted page for that query, and you often need less work to rank, since Google uses the “indented results” system to drop a second URL from the same domain directly underneath the first one on a given page.

Now I’d love to hear from you – what are your experiences around keyword research in AdWords? Are you seeing the same thing we are? You can share your thoughts in the comments and/or use the poll below (from a new service called Quipol that has some fun twists):

BTW – Given that 30%+ of our referrals from Google searches are keyword (not provided), I’d venture to guess that all of the numbers from our analytics are underreporting by about that same percent. Keep that in mind when comparing the data from AdWords vs. our analytics above.

Google Webmaster Guidelines Update Calls “Low Quality Guest Blog Posts” Spam

14 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in Advanced Search, Best Practices, Bloging, Content Marketing, Google SEO

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This article was shared from Search Engine Land

Low quality guest blogging is considered little or no original content by Google.

on August 12, 2014 at 4:49 pm

Low quality guest blogging is considered little or no original content by Google.

Google has updated their webmaster guidelines, specifically in the little or no original contentguideline, to add “low-quality guest blog posts” as an example of “scraped content.”

Brian Ussery first spotted this change, noting how Google has been fighting the use of guest blogging and posting around link building. Specifically when Google’s head of search spam said guest blogging is done for SEO purposes.

Since then, Google has penalized several guest blog networks and continues to set their targets on low-quality guest blogging that aims at manipulating their search results.

Here is a screen shot of the guidelines page before the change:

little-original-content-old

Here is a screen shot of the guidelines page after the change:

little-original-content-newq

What does Google say about keywords, should they drive your blog or should content?

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Advanced Search, Bloging, Content Marketing, Google SEO, Google+, Online Marketing

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Form over fashion, chicken or the egg, and keywords before content are just some of the intellectual debates that have raged as humankind attempts to come to grips with the big questions that plague our times. While the relative merits of comfort over appearance are well known, the chicken versus egg chronological lineage is still up for debate when people bend their thoughts to more esoteric contemplations. What is not up for debate is the importance of quality content over keywords when it comes to writing engaging online copy that will appear high in search engine results. Indeed, the old days of stuffing a 500-word article with 122 examples of the exact same keyword are long gone thanks to changes made by Google to their search algorithms, which punish the practice of keyword stuffing and rewards content that it perceives to be relevant and helpful to the end user.

Rise of the Machines…

In the “Wild West” of early internet interaction, it was discovered that the search engine rankings could be “gamed” into recognizing, and singling out, websites that practiced the art of keyword stuffing. Simply stated, keyword stuffing is the practice of writing online copy to be read by a machine rather than copy designed to be consumed by a human user.

This old formula was predicated on the notion that search engines scan the internet looking for certain keyword density in response to search inquires. When the engines located articles displaying such keyword density, they posted the results in search rankings for the end-user to consume. Unfortunately, this practice dictates that copy be written for machines rather than humans, and the results rarely offered compelling or helpful information.

Recognition that People Are Using the Machines…

Search engine giant Google sought to change this reality by tweaking their search algorithms in early 2012. Known as a Panda Update, the changes affected nearly 12% of all search inquiries, and the results have transformed the way people write copy on the internet. Under Google’s new protocols, the sure fired methods that drove search rankings in the past, no longer guarantee the lofty heights that they once achieved. In much the same way that you cannot discount the movements of an elephant when you are sleeping together in a twin-sized bed, the shear size of Google has assured that their changes are felt throughout the online search world.

Google based their changes on observations of social media. The propensity to share valuable information on such platforms as FaceBook, Pinterest, and Twitter drove the recognition that the yardstick for high search ratings is quality content rather than the ham-fisted tactic of keyword stuffing.

The Nuts and Bolts of a Panda Attack…

If your site is negatively impacted by a Panda update, you will know almost immediately, and it will manifest itself in the form of dramatic drop in traffic. It is possible to bounce back from a panda hit, but it takes some diligent work and a little time. Google recommends reviewing your site for substandard material as that is the new yardstick in determining high search rankings. Further, it should be noted that quick fixes would not provide a solution:

  • Panda is not about back links and anchor texts.
  • Tidying up a messy back link profile will not help.
  • Reconsideration requests won’t help.
  • Recovery will be re-measured once Google rolls out another update.

Webmasters can expect a Panda roll out every four to six weeks on average, and continuously upgrade their sites in the interim to achieve better results. Specifically, they should keep an eye out for content that would draw Panda’s ire:

  • Remove material that would probably not be shared by readers.
  • Get rid of duplicate material on your site. This might apply to content that has been pilfered from elsewhere on the web, or it could mean pages have been duplicated across your site.
  • Scour the site for thin material with an eye towards replacing pages that only have a sentence or two with quality engaging content.

Improved Literary Frontier…

These new rubrics have resulted in a marked improvement of the quality of online copy. While the use of keywords has not been removed, their use is within the framework of a natural, in-depth discussion of the topic that leads to their use in a naturalistic way. As such, copywriters and SEO professionals are scrambling to develop superior copy that represents an improved literary frontier for those looking for quality online information and content.

 

Written by Danny BenDebba

CEO of http://www.daasn.com and http://www.daasnlocal.com

Twitter Advanced Search – Find those hidden gems

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by in Advanced Search, Twitter

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twitter birdTwitter is a torrent of information. And those tweets just go whizzing by on your timeline!

Posted in Social Media By Ashley Faulkes On December 18, 2013

So with all the noise on Twitter, how do you find the information or people you are looking for?

Well luckily for us, Twitter has provided a simple tool and some powerful tricks to help you find the exact things you are looking for.

Let’s take a detailed look at Twitter Advanced Search and how it can help you.

Twitter Advanced Search Interface

Doing searches using the advanced search interface provided by Twitter is actually pretty easy.

This is what it looks like:

twitter social media search

You have four sections which you can fill out and help you find the tweets you are looking for.

I will break it down for you and provide some examples to help you understand how it works.

Words Section

The first is the Words section, which gives you lots of options for narrowing down your search.

Example 1.
If you wanted to find all the tweets containing blogging and fitness but not involving pilates.

  • Just put blogging and fitness in All of these words
  • Put pilates in None of these words

** Beware: These tweets will have both blogging AND fitness in them. If you want tweets with blogging OR fitness, use Any of these words

Example 2.

If you wanted to find all the tweets on blogging OR writing and including the topic weight loss. 

  • Just put blogging and writing in Any of these words
  • Put weight loss in This exact phrase

** We put weight loss in this exact phrase because we want tweets with these words written together (otherwise it could be weight and loss but anywhere in the tweet)

Example 3.

If you wanted to find all the tweets on blogging and fitness but not only in French. 

  • Just put blogging and fitness in All of these words
  • Choose French from the Written in list

Example 4.

If you wanted to find all the tweets on blogging and social media during the South by South West Festival in 2013 (#SXSW13).

  • Put blogging in All of these words
  • Put social media in This exact phrase (ensures you get these words together)
  • Put #SXSW13 in These Hashtags

People Section

This section is a lot easier to understand. You can add in the Twitter handles of people you want to find tweets:-

  • From these accounts 
  • To these accounts
  • Mentioning these accounts

All you need to do is type in a twitter handle or handles (eg. madlemmingz, justinbieber) into the field that does what you need.

Places Section

Because tweets are sent from a specific location, Twitter can help you narrow your tweets down to an area.

Simply type in where you want your tweets to come from.

For example,  if you are a physical business in Seattle, you might want customers near you – just type in Seattle and fill out any other relevant fields you need to find the tweets.

**Note: If you need a more accurate location, you can use Geocodes. There is more detail on this further down in this post – click this link if you want to jump to that.

Other Section

This section seems a little crazy, but it is actually quite helpful.

The attitude fields (positive, negative) help you find tweets where people are happy (or not). So you can use it to find people with problems your business can solve.

For example,  if you want to find people struggling to lose weight, just check the Negativeattitude field, and then type in weight lose in the All of these words field.

Similarly, you can find people who are asking questions, or only find retweets. All by checking the appropriate field.

Twitter Advanced Search – Power Tips

The Twitter Advanced Search Interface is great, but sometimes you want a more detailed query.

That is where the following section comes in handy. It shows you how you can do the same queries as above and more.

And another benefit is, you can do it easily from the main Twitter page by just typing into the search field at the top.

twitter social media search

Some of the extra possibilities you get include:

  • Date Range Searches
  • Location searches with a radius and Geolocation
  • Filters (specific content types)

The table below shows you the type of search, how you would do it, and the types of results you will get.

Search Type Example Results
Exact match “blogging tips” Tweets containing exactly this phrase ”blogging tips”
OR Search blogging OR writing Tweets containing “blogging” or ”writing”
AND Search blogging AND writing Tweets containing “blogging” and “writing”
NOT Search blogging -tips Tweets containing “blogging” and not“tips”
Question blogging tips? Tweets containing “blogging tips” in a question
Since a Date blogging since:2012-12-25 Tweets containing blogging tweetedsince 25th December 2012
Until a Date blogging until:2012-12-25 Tweets containing blogging tweeted until 25th December 2012
Near a Place near:San Francisco Tweets sent near San Francisco
Near a Place Within a Distance near:San Francisco within:15mi Tweets sent near San Francisco within 15 miles
From a User from:madlemmingz Tweets sent from madlemmingz
To a User to:madlemmingz Tweets sent to madlemmingz
Positive Attitude twitter social media search Tweets with a postive attitude
Negative Attitude twitter social media search Tweets with a negative attitude
Hashtag Search #bloggingtips Tweets sent near San Francisco
User Search @madlemmingz Tweets sent containing @madlemmingz
Filter by Language lang:de Tweets sent in German (de)
Filters filter:links Tweets sent containing links – or (retweets, replies, images)

**Languages: This is a list of common two letter language codes for language filtering

Examples Using Twitter Advanced Search

The above list of search possibilities might seem a little confusing, so I thought I would explain a few of the less obvious ones.

1. Searches based on Attitude

Twitter has found a way of determining if tweets are positive or negative, and by using these symbols in your search you can find these kinds of tweets.

One great example of this is if you as a marketer are trying to find people with a specific problem which you can help them solve, and perhaps lure them to your website.

Let’s say you are selling a guide on how to lose weight fast:  why not search for people who are having trouble losing weight?

Search: can’t lose weight 😦 

2. Searches based on Location

If you run a business with an actual store in the center of Seattle, then you are probably wanting to connect with or find customers nearby.

This is where Twitter location search comes in handy.

If you are selling nutrition supplements for adding muscle fast, you could search for people near you tweeting about this.

Search: can’t gain muscle near:Seattle within:15mi

3. Searches based on Specific Locations (Geocodes)

Location search can be a bit hit and miss with Twitter, so using Geocodes is your best bet.

I know, it sounds confusing, but just popover to this site and type in your address to get your Geocode.

Then, use the “Copy x,y” and add it (plus a search radius) to a search like this:

geocode:43.913723261972855,-72.54272478125,100mi

To break this down – it is the Latitude, Longitude, Search radius

This website has some great examples to show how you would use it in real life

And you can head over to this post on Twitter location search to see how to do it on TweetDeck, Hootsuite etc.

3. Searches based on a Question

This is a great way to find people who you might want to interact with.

For example, I stumbled across someone the other day (not actually using search, but by chance) who was asking if anyone knew how to migrate from blogger to wordpress?

If you offered this service, it could be something you are looking for with a search like:blogger wordpress migration ?

3. Filtering specific content types

Filtering is one of the things you can only do with this type of search.

Simply type in the word filter: following by any of the following types of content and you will only find tweets with this content in them:

  • retweets
  • replies
  • links
  • images
  • videos

For example, if I wanted to find all images related to Justin Bieber (some people’s favourite person): Bieber filter:images

Summary

There is alot of power in Twitter search, and it can really help you find people who need your help or services.

Combine the right kinds of words and filters, and you will be finding the people or tweets you need in no time.

Try out the Twitter Advanced Search Interface to begin with, but if you want more power and freedom, learn the special words and just type them into the search bar as you use Twitter.

Reblogged by permission:  Posted in Social Media By Ashley Faulkes On December 18, 2013  Photo credit: CarbonNYC via photopin cc

If you would like to read more by Ashley follow him on : http://madlemmings.com/2013/12/18/twitter-advanced-search-find-hidden-gems/