Free Keyword Generators

Beginners' Guide

To Online Marketing

What are keyword generators? Why and when would you need to use them? And which one should you select from a wide range that are available on the Internet?

For the benefit of those who may be completely new to online marketing in general, and keyword generators in particular, here is a little background information.

The basic keyword search tools that enable you to determine which words known as "keywords" or "keyword phrases" people use on search engines, to find anything of interest to them, are referred to as "keyword generators" or "keyword analyzers".  You may even have come across the term "keyword selector/suggestion tool".

Based on the online searches ordinary people make on a daily basis, they provide suggestions for choosing:

1. appropriate domain names that give some indication of what your site is about
   
   
2. relevant primary and secondary keywords for your website content that will help to make your website rank more highly with search engines

Why all the fuss? 

As you know, a company needs a business name of some kind. Off-line business owners can decide upon which name they choose without considering their prospective customers' opinions about the name!  They then set up offices in some town or city, advertise in the press and/or yellow pages in order to attract customers.  Before long, their telephone rings and the orders begin to flow in.

Since the dawn of the Internet, however, those of us with online businesses or plans to have online businesses and delve into online marketing have had to think more carefully about the business name we give our company since that same name may, also, form the domain name of our website.

Unlike the bricks and mortar type businesses which can buy in names and addresses of prospective customers (at great expense, I might add) and do a direct mail out to tens of thousand of people in their town, city or country, you cannot attract to your website people that you don't even know exist! Instead of going out to find customers (costly), you have to rely mostly on customers finding you!

How will they do that? Well, if you've been browsing the internet for anything from CDs, DVDs, railway timetables, TV film schedules, shopping sites to buying property abroad, then you know that every time you type in a word or a phrase (keywords) in Google, Yahoo, MSN or other search engines, tens of millions of pages appear with 10 website addresses on the left hand side of each page.

What do you think most of us do when these pages appear? That's right, we browse through the first four or five pages, at most, which means that we only consider a very small number of websites. So if your website is not ranked within those first 10 sites, at least, you might as well shut up shop and go home! You won't be found unless you are willing to pay big bucks for advertising on or off-line on a regular basis. So you have to do a number of things to "optimize" your website to be ranked more highly than #333,330,009 in order to attract even a modest amount of free traffic!  The same applies to those of us who may want to set up personal web sites.

Whether you are a FTSE 100 company or you own a small home based business, or even a personal website, the choice of domain name can be important in determining whether or not the positioning of your website on the search engines' listings is high enough to attract attention and traffic, the life-blood of any online venture.

The domain name that you ultimately choose should, therefore, be selected with extreme care.  Even more attention should be given to the relevance of that name or keyword(s) with the content you propose including on your site.

What if you already own a domain name and want to use it for your web site? Go right ahead! No one will stop you from doing so! But in view of what you now know, will that name help your customers in Cyberspace to remember your personal domain name, much less find your site? How can you be sure that they will?

If your name is Peter Ian Thomas, you may consider it clever to use the initials to form an acronym for your personal domain name, for example, www.pit.com (assuming it's available). After all, people use their initials for more distinctive registration numbers for their cars so why not do something similar for your website?   Unless your web site is about things related to a pit or pits, however, no one (other than friends and family members) may know about it or, indeed, have a clue as to your web site's content.  So they may never find your site unless you spend a fortune on advertising your website.

Before you begin to choose your domain name, therefore, you will need to consider the kind of words or phrases ordinary people choose to use when searching for your type of website. For this, you will need one or more keyword generators to see how many times in a given month people have searched for your kind of website and which word or phrases (keywords) they have used for that purpose.

Few website beginners know the first thing about keyword research and selection tools or why they should use them. And good, easy-to-understand and follow beginners' guides on the subject is rather thin on the ground.  Consequently, many beginners to the internet rush to buy domain names which they consider to be "clever," "cool," "cheap" or "free" or, worse still, which represent their favourite pet's name! Let us assume that you are not one of those who decides on a short acronym in the mistaken belief that the domain name being made up of three, four or five letters will make it easy for people to remember it. As already mentioned, they will have to get to know your brand name, first, and that, unfortunately, takes time and a large advertising budget which most of us do not have at our disposal when we begin our online businesses!

Until your personal domain name becomes as easily recognisable as BAFTA, CAP (Citizen's Advice Bureau), RAC, IRS or FBI, people searching for your kind of website will have no way of finding you unless the keywords they choose to type in Google, MSN or Yahoo search engines correspond with those you use in the domain name and content of your website.  This is where keyword generators come into play.

So let's start with a few free keyword selection tools:

Web CEO - http://download.websiteceo.com/cgi-bin/webceo.pl

The Dowser - http://www.thedowser.com/freeversion

I have not used either of the above but they are listed, here, for your convenience should you choose to make your own enquiries before you decide if either of them is any good for your purposes.

Until recently, you could also use Yahoo's Overture Keyword Selection Tool.  However, it has been a tad irratic in its function, of late the original Overture Keyword Selection Tool (see below) seems to have been disabled altogether although if you click on the link, you may get January 2007 results!  http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

If you click on the above link, it will take you directly to the search page where you can type in a word or phrase that you may be considering for a domain name and/or for your site.

Any of the keyword search tools will enable you to see if anyone has searched for that word or phrase and if so, how many times they have done so in the past few weeks. For example, if your site is going to deal with "racing" of some kind, type the word into the search box of the selection tool of your choice. Within seconds you should see how many times that word has been searched for during the past few weeks as well as see the number of searches carried out for numerous likely and related words and phrases derived from the root word.

Google's own free keyword selection tool. As the name suggests, it's intended for Adwords (PPC) advertising.  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

If you are a complete website beginner and have little or no resources for buying or subscribing to one or more sophisticated keyword generators, then Google's free search tools would be helpful and certainly better than nothing. And, if you have the time and patience, you could refine your search, still further, by using Google's own free Adwords search tool to view the search trend for that particular word or phrase. Click the link to check it out. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Just bear in mind, though, that this link takes you to a page intended for searching and selecting suitable Google Adwords should you wish to advertise on Google (right hand side of Google's search results pages under the title "Sponsored Links").

As for how user-friendly Google's own Adwords selector tool is, despite the fact that it generates a large list of terms and related keywords for you to consider, I find the process slow and extremely time-consuming. Furthermore, Google doesn't provide the kind of detailed information you would need to base your final choice.

Each of the following also offer free trial packages.  As with all free products, however, there are limitation so use them, by all means, but be aware that you might not get the full picture when generating keywords for your domain name or website content.

Keyword Discovery now offers a similar free keyword generator tool, also. If you use this free resource, besides getting 100 or more keyword results, the site also offers additional information that may be of interest and help to you. Have a go on this free tool, too, and compare the results you get on Keyword Discovery with other free keyword generator tools.

Don't expect the results to be identical, though, because the criteria and source each software uses may be different. However, you will get more than a good idea of the popularity of your word or phrase. Just remember to treat the figures that follow as estimates rather than absolutes! If you click on the link that follows, you'll be taken straight to the search page. Free Keyword Research tool by KeywordDiscovery.com

Once you have your list of keywords, particularly those in which you are interested, you will then need to see how many pages x 10 websites there are (your likely competitors) with any one of those words that best describe your intended website or domain name idea. For that, you'll need to use a search engine.

Whilst Yahoo and MSN are good search engines, choose Google to do your searches because it is, currently, the most popular of all search engines. Type your chosen word or phrase, first without quotation marks to see the number of web sites that appear and then within quotation marks, the latter (exact word or phrase searched) usually produces less competing website pages and will give you some indication of how likely it may be for your site to appear within the first page of Google's search results (especially if your website is optimized correctly) rather than being on the millionth page!

On the advice of at least three internationally recognised marketing experts whom I trust, I have used a number of keyword generator software packages but have narrowed the list down further to get the most out of the systems used. All four of the following keyword generator software providers will allow you a free trial period before you commit to using the full version and paying for the software programs after the first 14 or 30-day trial period.

As with all subscription-based services, you can cancel your subscription at any time. Just make sure you monitor your use of any that you do subscribe to and make the most of the opportunity to use them frequently to build up on your PC a large database of keywords to use in your chosen niche or niches.

Single Payment and Subscription-based

Keyword Generators and Keyword Analysis Tools

"Word Tracker Review"

"NicheBot Review"

"Keyword Discovery Review"

"Keyword Country Review"