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Wordtracker + Google + SEO = Win
Posted by Mark Nunney on 10 September 2010
Google keyword research data is impressive, powerful and now available on Wordtracker Keywords Tool. But make sure you verify its search estimates with alternative sources like Wordtracker’s own. Most importantly, use a keyword research process that ensures you find your site’s most profitable keywords. Mark Nunney explains how Wordtracker can help you.
Find more keywords
It’s frustrating, but a keyword research tool will sometimes have no data for seemingly obvious and important keywords.
For example, imagine you have a sports shoes website that sells Nike sneakers and you search on the Google Keywords Tool with nike. Your results are shown in the report below:
The above report is Google keyword research data shown via the Wordtracker Keywords tool. Yes, Google really suggests that no more than 10 different keywords containing nike are searched with. And none of them are about sneakers!
Mmmm, that can’t be right, can it? Repeat the nike search using ‘Wordtracker data’ and you get more sense:
The above report is just the first 20 of 1,000 different keywords containing nike that Wordtracker’s own database of real searches suggests. Each of those keywords can in turn be used as the seed word for further searches that will reveal many thousands more.
Simply using two data sources – Google and Wordtracker - has revealed many more relevant keywords than one. Verification with multiple data sources delivers rewards.
As well as showing that Google and Wordtracker databases can be used to find more keywords to target, the above reports show very different ways of estimating Searches.
Google starts with a sample number of searches but then estimates the number of all searches in one month for all keywords containing the shown keyword (Broad Match). Eg, all searches with keywords containing nike which includes nike shoes, nike stores and many thousands more.
Wordtracker Search numbers are the exact number of searches in a sample database of approximately 500 million real searches made in the last 12 months. And they are for the Exact keyword listed only. No extrapolations are made from the sample to all searches on the internet.
So the following two factors make Google’s displayed numbers much higher than Wordtracker’s:
1) Both based on samples, Google estimates all searches on the internet and Wordtracker gives the specific numbers in its sample.
2) Google estimates are for all searches containing the shown keyword but Wordtracker gives searches for the exact keyword only.
This doesn’t mean Google is estimating more searches than Wordtracker, just that they show different things.
As we’ll see below, the numbers aren’t what really matters – it’s what you do with them that counts.
It’s not the numbers, stupid
Keyword research tools’ estimates of the number of searches made with particular keywords are just that – estimates.
Plenty has been written about Google overestimating searches, Google’s sources including non-searches and Wordtracker’s numbers being too small. They are all interesting and some are great works of research but they miss the point, which is …
… are the numbers useful and if so, how?
Accuracy v usefulness
The job of a keyword research tool is not to give exact estimates of searches. It is to be useful …
… to help you get more response …
… to help you get more visitors who will buy your stuff or read your message.
It doesn’t matter much if a keyword research tool over or underestimates the number of searches made with a keyword. What matters is having a tool that can help you get more response.
Estimates of searches for particular keywords – no matter how accurate - don’t get you more response. They are important clues to get your SEO and PPC work started.
Those search estimates will always be wrong to some degree. And even if they were precise, they wouldn’t be any more use because:
• You don’t know if your site can beat the competition for those keywords.
• If you beat the competition, you don’t know if your site can get response for those keywords.
So what’s useful?
What is really useful?
For a keyword research tool to help your site achieve more response it must help you implement a proven working method for SEO that allows you to:
• Quickly reject keywords that you can’t get visits for because the competition is too great for you.
• Quickly reject keywords that you can’t get response for.
• Find your site’s most profitable keywords …
• … including those that don’t appear in any keyword research tool’s database.
• Plan the website content required to target profitable keywords.
• Plan the content required to build the links you need to be successful.
• Organize the structure of your website to help users and your SEO.
• Prioritize your search marketing efforts.
Wordtracker Keywords tool and Wordtracker Strategizer will help you implement such proven working processes for SEO. (Both those tools work for PPC too but the processes are different, of course).
It’s what you do with the words and numbers that counts
In my recent book, Wordtracker Masterclass: Keyword Research, I give step-by-step details of a keyword research process for SEO that uses the Wordtracker Keywords tool and Wordtracker Strategizer to deliver visits, response and profits to your website.
Wordtracker Keywords tool is the perfect tool for new websites and those looking to find new markets and niches to explore. You can try it out here for free for one week.
Wordtracker Strategizer is for websites that already receive a reasonable amount of organic (non-paid) search engine traffic. You can try out Strategizer here for one dollar for one month.
The proven SEO method I give in Wordtracker Masterclass: Keyword Research is the same process I’ve used successfully for my clients for nearly ten years. If you’re not happy with the book then ask for your money back.
About Mark Nunney
Mark Nunney has been a successful professional SEO since 2000. He is CEO of The Website Marketing Company and he publishes Leadership & Management Review from ThinkingManagers.com, the business management website.
Mark wrote SEO for Profit, Wordtracker Masterclass: Keyword Research book and co-wrote Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building with Ken McGaffin. He also is also the founder and project manager of Wordtracker Strategizer.
You can follow Mark Nunney's SEO on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ and read a Q&A here.
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