There are hundreds or thousands of keyword tools on the market, so I decided to write about the keyword tools I use more often. To get the most out of these keywords you need test them and see which ones suit your needs. I have ordered them according to how I use them in a typical keyword research project:
Keyword Discovery
A far better alternative to the Overture keyword tool, it is more accurate because collates data from over 200 search engines including foreign languages and regional ones. It is great for the initial keyword research steps enabling you to build comprehensive initial keyword lists.
Keyword Nortometer
This tool analyses the top sites for any given keyword and displays the most common keywords used on those sites, it helps you narrowing down your keyword list and getting ideas about what you should be writing about on your web site.
Keyword Competition Check
This tool gives you statistics about up to 10 top ranked websites for any given keyword, it gathers data such as PageRank, Google and Yahoo! backlinks, site saturation, directory submissions and other relevant SEO metrics and also shows a cool graphic display of this data. In essence it tells you how optimised your competitors are.
GTrends Tool from Wordtracker
GTrends is a mashup that combines data from Wordtracker and Google Trends. It compares the number of potential clickthroughs for a number one position in Google against the number of phrase match results. This keyword tool is focused on finding niche markets and it's not so relevant for bigger markets.
Keyword Density
Well as the name indicates this keyword analyses the density of keywords on any given web site. I use it for checking if a site is well optimised and to generate different keyword combinations.
SpyFu
"Spy on your online competitors", this tool tells you which keywords your competitors are bidding on and which ones they're ranking for in natural search results. It gives you a host of useful data such as average CPC, number of Adwords advertisers, other keywords bought by your competitors for PPC and also gives you the top 10 Google natural results, related terms among other things.
Keyword Optimizer
This tool simply remove duplicate entries and re-order the list alphabetically, great time-saver!
These are the tools that work for me for most SEO projects. What about you? What keyword tools do you normally use?
Tino
SEO Programmer
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation | No Comments »
PPC campaigns that are managed by SEM agencies are usually done so on a management fee basis. That is to say that, the client pays a proportion of what they spend on the search engines as a fee for the management of the campaign by the agency. The percentage charged can vary, but a typical rate is 15%. The reasons for this variance in fee could be for example, a very large spend from a prestigious blue chip client. They can barter for a lower rate as there are added benefits to the agencies of working with these kind of clients.
This is largely how it has been since the advent of PPC. However is this model in danger? The growth in affiliate marketing, and initiatives from Google such as their “pay per action campaigns” has meant that there has been a leaning towards paying for performance/sales rather than purely on percentage of click spend. How does this all work? Below is an example.
XYZ Travel Agents spend £10,000 on Google per month, the SEM agency gets £1500 (15%) in fees. On a CPA deal the client will agree an amount they are prepared to pay for each sale that the agency can generate. For example £40, so the agency pay all the costs of the clicks and for each sale they get £40 from XYZ. This gives the agency an incentive to increase performance because they will get more revenue for doing so. The client is also content as they only have to increase the management fee as the sales increase. The other way to arrange this is to say that the agency gets a proportion of revenue generated.
There has to be a balance struck so that the agency can make more than on a management fee basis and that the client is making a good enough margin on each sale. There can also be problems, if an agency is getting £40 per sale regardless of order value, they will try to sell lots of cheap products rather than the more expensive ones. Also not all industries are suited to this model, particularly ones with a protracted conversion process. The amount paid for each sale will have to be kept under review as CPC costs increase. There can be seasonal discrepancies, plus the agency will need assurances that the company will not increase prices drastically. They may also need an opt out clause stating that if a campaign does not perform for a certain length of time they can part company. Or failing this a retainer fee for day to day management on the campaign.
This kind of Cost Per Acquisition payment model is more common in affiliate marketing and is still in it’s infancy with regard to PPC. However as more and more agencies offer this model, such as RO EYE, the more it will appeal to merchants as a risk free way of managing their online marketing budget.
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