With this context in mind, many people are continuously struggling to get noticed in the world of the Internet. Websites are growing like mushrooms everywhere, every time. How can one’s website get past the millions of other websites and eventually be noticed by its target audience?

Search engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to a website by helping it get higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization’s goal is to make a website appear on the first pages, if not the first page of a search done through the search engine.

There are two ways to be able to get noticed by search engines. One is through pay-per-click-advertisements. A good example of a pay-per-click system that is employed by search engines is the Google Ad words system. It has created a hype and has given Google around 5 billion dollars in terms of revenue per year. Webmasters can place their bids to be shown when a keyword is searched by a surfer. The highest bidders will get their sites to appear first when the search is being done.

The second way of getting high rankings from search engines is through organic searches. Search engines evaluate websites by using what they call “spiders.” These programs scan the websites and collects information about them. They then collate the information and pass it on to the search engine. This area is primarily the main arena of search engine optimization. It utilizes a set of methods to be able to get search engines to list the website on high ranks.

Traffic

The main purpose of search engine optimization is to increase the traffic generated by a website. Websites are built to be seen by Internet surfers and search engines can help it achieve this goal.

The power of the search engine should not be underestimated. It is one of the building blocks of the foundation of the Internet. A survey showed that 90% of all Internet users employ search engines to aid them in their Internet-related activities. Google, the dominant player in the search engine industry, generates 70% of all search-related Internet activity.

People and Search Engines are alike

Search engines behave like people. They like websites which contain substantive information about a certain topic. The best sites usually appear first in search engines because people like them as well as the search engines.

Search engine optimization does not only generate traffic, it helps maintain the traffic. The behavior of the search engine is indicative to the behavior of the people who visit the website. Search engine optimization leads to the optimization of a webpage or a website. It will lead to a website which is more organized and a website which contains substantive information.

Target Audience

The use of the search engine to be able to target one’s target audience is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies. It is not like other on-line marketing techniques (such as email marketing) which can lead to a lot of leakages in terms of targeting the right audience.

Search engines segment the market and connect the right people together. People search for topics which they are interested in and this is the main strength of search engines in connecting markets together.

Cost Effectiveness

One can do search engine optimization under the assumption that he knows what he is doing. Search engine optimization is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve. This is why most people would resort to out-sourcing the job to experts who are good at what they do. One of the best SEO company I will like to recommend is www.website-control.co.uk . Search engine optimization is a very cost effective way of getting more people to know about one’s products or to know about a certain issue or event that a website is disseminating.

SEO is very important for websites since it determines the position of the website in comparison with its competitors. It does not only generate traffic from the targeted audience but is also a cost-effective way of optimizing the website.

The best thing about blogging is that there are no rules. You can write about anything you want. A self-publisher’s dream! There are some things you can do though to maximize your Google Adsense profits. Narrow your subject. Don’t just write about shopping. Write about shopping for antique dresser drawer pulls. Write every day. Have a blog at more than one site. If you develop a readership, you’re more likely to increase your profits.

Write about something you know or want to know or at the very least care about. If you try to write a great blog based on a “hot keyword” yet it’s something you could care less about, you’ll likely not stay with it long. Experiment and see what works for you. You can write based on your own opinion or something factual. You can review a product or service or a movie. Read other people’s blogs and notice how many reads they’re getting. Above all, for more details visit to www.google-atm-machine.com have fun. After all, it’s free and if you’re persistent you’ll see your Google Adsense dollars adding up.

Google Adsense: Learning About the Program and the Most Important Rule

How Does Google Adsense Program Work For Webmasters Wanting to Earn Income?

Advertisers pay Google when someone clicks on their ads which are placed on pages that contain text. For example, if you write content about lawn mowers, you will likely see ads from lawn mower manufacturers and/or retailers on that page. When someone clicks on those ads, the advertiser pays Google and Google pays you. Of course, for more details visit to www.adsense-income-exposed.com the advertiser is hoping the person that clicked on the add will actually purchase the lawn mower or whatever they’re offering. Most people can make their AdSense sites veritable cash cows! Free $97 Secret Adsense Book.

In fact, Google is very strict about the integrity of this process. You are forbidden to click on your own ads. If you do, your Adsense account will be terminated and you might never get it back. You are also prohibited from asking others to click on “your ads”. It makes sense. Why would advertisers want to pay just so your friends and family could click on your ads when no one is really interested in purchasing the lawn mower or subject of the ads?

The good news is that it’s not necessary to “cheat.” Google Adsense is so easy you’ll make more money just going by the rules. Have or write interesting content that will turn up in search engines
And you have “targeted” the right people to read those ads. Just think, somebody in Indiana buys a lawn mower and you get a commission!

What Not to Tell Others about the Google Adsense Program – The Most Important Rule

Sympathy only goes so far. Not only is it against the Google Adsense Program Policies but if you rely on friends and family members to click on your ads instead of diligently working the program, you’re cheating yourself – and the Google Adsense Program.

The “help me out” wail may work when your kid is selling outrageously expensive candles for the end of the year school party but it has no place in the Google Adsense Program.

Besides, if you’re asking people to click on your ads that mean you’re not optimizing your site for valid clicks as well as referrals. Use that same energy to polish your content and your site. When family and friends ask what you’ve been up to, you can proudly show them your hard work. When they see how excited you are, you’ll see your referral revenue go up.

Google has become the most dominant search engine that almost every webmaster or web owners devote all their attention to with the ultimate aim to get their website to rank on the #1 page in an organic search. Seems a tough task but did you know Google offers help along the way?

Yes, help in sense of their FREE marketing tools available at your disposal but more often than not is looked over or ignored by many since it’s been offered free! These useful marketing tools can make your website or blog promotions easier and more profitable. Lets snap up this marketing tools now as I run through the top 5 most valuable marketing tools Google has to offer.

1. Google Analytics

Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered, Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your website. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and how it interacts with your site. This vital information allows you to create targeted ROI driven marketing campaigns which in-turn can increase your site’s conversion rate.

2. Google Sitemaps

A Sitemap is a list of pages on your website. Google Sitemaps lets you furnish Google additional information of your web pages and URL’s that might not be discovered by Google’s normal crawling process. Information such as how often pages on your site changes, last modified date of each pages and relative importance of each pages on your site are very useful information to Google that can help them crawl your site better.

3. Google Alerts

Get email notifications on topics or stories that you are monitoring with Google Alerts. It also helps you in keeping current on a competitor or industry.

4. Google Groups

As social networking fast becoming an important aspect of website or blog promotion, Google Groups offers these platform. You can manage your contact lists efficiently to make your marketing activity easy and precise!

5. Google Docs

Google Docs is a full featured online writing editor which allows you to create and share your work online. Your files are stored securely online so you can edit your work anytime and from anywhere. It also lets your publish your content directly to your blog.

All the best in exploring these very useful tools and be sure to use it to your advantage!

Affiliate marketing programs are best alternatives to those who are sick and tired of their arduous daily work just to climb up the venerated corporate ladder. You don’t need products to sell, you just have to market them in your own web site and you don’t have to worry about processing the customers’ payments and the shipment of the products. If you are already into affiliate marketing, probably you were thinking about these benefits, too, before deciding to join an affiliate program. Of course you want earn huge amount of commission.
Who would not want it anyway? Keep in mind, however, that affiliate marketing cannot guarantee you instant success if you don’t work on it. There are a lot of ways of maximizing your income. The Internet is a huge library of information; use it to learn of other opportunities and ways to increase your income. You can partner with several merchandisers and promote different products in your website; thereby, increasing your chance to earn a commission.
The easiest way for you to rev up your revenue potential is by incorporating Google AdSense into your marketing campaigns. What is Google AdSense? What are its advantages? How can it boost my revenues? These are some of the questions you might want to ask. Let’s try to probe into Google AdSense, so you would know how it could help you in your affiliate marketing program. Merchants place their ads in Google, which is one of the most popular search engines or tools for locating various resources in the World Wide Web.
Now the Google AdSense program allows you to display these ads in you website and when your visitors click through them, you earn. The advertiser, which is the merchant, pays Google for every click-through made by the customer and you as a partner of Google, gets a share from that payment. What’s great about the Google AdSense is that the ads are relevant to the content of your web page. Most likely, visitors of your web site are interested on the theme of your site and specifically, on the content of your web page. So, seeing ads related to their interest would definitely drive them to click through the link or the ad.
Using state-of-the-art technology, Google scans your web site and matches the content of your pages to their large database of advertisers; this way, for more details visit to www.instant-adsense-dollars.com Google is able to find ads that are targeted by the users of your site. In addition, Google changes the ads in your site as you change the content of your pages, so you can always expect the ads to be relevant to your site. Having Google ads in your website is also a way of convincing your users to return to your site. Repeat customers multiply your income without having to exert extra effort to convince them again to click through your links. And your potential to earn doesn’t depend on them alone. Since you already have their confidence, they can be your endorsers as well.
They could refer your site to family and friends who probably share the same interests with them. Advertisers in the Google AdSense program range from large international brands to small-time domestic and local businesses, so the targeted market for the ads can range as well. This adds variety to your site; thereby, attracting different kinds of users. As you attract more users, you increase your earning potential as well. If you are targeting a specific nationality for your site users, for more details visit to www.adsense-income-exposed.com don’t worry because AdSense can be used in different languages. In order to boost your revenues through Google AdSense, you must pay attention to making web pages of high value topics. Make contents related to high-paying ads, so you can earn more. Some ads pay only a few cents while some ads pay you dollars just for a single click. You would need to do a little research on this so you can come up with a more relevant content.
Join affiliate marketing forums and get tips from experienced affiliate marketers. Becoming an AdSense affiliate marketer is easy and fast. You just have to apply online and once your application is approved, you can instantly set up Google ads in your site. All you need to do is copy and paste some codes in your web pages and in no time the ads will appear in your site. Strike while the iron is hot! Take advantage of the favorable circumstances the Internet is offering you. Make the most of your affiliate marketing opportunities, use Google Adsense!
www.google-atm-machine.com
www.googleatmcash.com

If you look closely you’ll notice that on almost every single blog out there you’ll see something known as Google Adsense, If your unfamiliar with them and don’t know how they work, its rather quiet simple, you take some code place it in your blog and from there Ads are displayed from thousands of publishers who use Google Adworks and when someone clicks on one of those ads you make money.

If I had to guess I would say that at least 70 to 80 percent of people who use Google Adsense have no real clue how to maximize their profit with them, most people just set up some ads and place them on their site and don’t do anything else, if you are one of these people then you are not making as much as you should be by doing this and I’m going to explain some ways of how you can improve your profit with them.

First I want to point out that every blog will generate different amounts of money by using Google Adsense, this is because the Ads come from people who are paying Google Adwords to display them and some people pay more then others, so a blog about the sky might not pay as much then a blog about technology because the technology sector is much more competitive then the sky and people will pay more to have their ads displayed.

So how do we get an idea of the amount of money we can generate using Adsense when we are not allowed to discuss it?. Well one of the simplest ways is to use the Google Adwords External Keyword Tool. Using this tool is extremely simple, lets say you’ve got a blog about cars and in the majority of your posts you use the word “Cars”, what you do is type “Cars” into the tool and press “Get More Keywords”, this will generate a list of several keywords that people are paying for, what you want to focus on is the green bar under “Advertiser Competition”, the higher the green bar, the more competitive that keyword is and the more money you’ll make if ads about that keyword are being displayed on your blog.

That sounds fairly straight forward doesn’t it? Now comes the question of targeting those keywords, most people think that there is no way to tellGoogle which Ads to display, this is a common myth surrounding Adsense, now you cannot exactly tell Google to display car ads on a biology blog, that simply will not happen, but lets say your using the word “Cars” in the majority of the posts you make and from what we can tell from theAdwords Tool the keyword “Cars” is very competitive and it should pay quiet well.

What you can do is place these two bits of code around the text that you want Google to target, the first one looks like this and the last one looks like this what these two tags will tell Google is that instead of taking every keyword on your blog, it will only take the keywords in the text between these two tags. This will refine how wellGoogle displays ads on your site.

If your using Blogger or some other sort of blogging program the easiest way would be to wrap these two tags around the tag in your template, from there Google will only display ads based upon which keywords each of your posts have. Google will generally display ads based upon how much your keyword density is, so if your using the keyword “Cars” in the majority of your posts, you’ll get more relevant ads about Cars and we know that this keyword should pay quiet well and you’ll be making more money from it.

Now I want to cover one more tag that you can use with Google Adsense if you don’t want to use the two tags I just talked about, they have another tag which looks like this and when you wrap these tags around certain parts of your blog, Google will simply ignore all the keywords in those sections, as you can tell by doing this you get much more control over the type of ads that are being displayed and once you use these systems together you can start to maximize your potential profit with Google Adsense.

These few examples will help you increase the amount of money you get when someone clicks on your ads and it will allow Google to target the content on your site much better, by having more relevant ads on your site you should see your click through rate begin to go up.

The last thing you should be aware of is the colors of your ads, the size of your ads, and the frequency of the ads showing up on any given page. The first thing you want to do is make your ads blend in with the rest of the content, you don’t want to make people think all your after is a bunch of clicks, you want them to flow very nicely with the rest of your content, so if the majority of the links on your site are blue then make your Adsense links blue and if your text is black make the Adsense text black and so on.

The size of your ads also influences the amount of clicks your going to get, if you blatantly place huge ads all over your site people will start to trust you less and when you loose a readers trust you loose that much more clicks, its better to provide your users with quality content and ads that don’t say “HEY CLICK HERE”. Have a look at this particular blog and see how I’ve got my Adsense blocks laid out, as you’ll see they blend in quiet well, they obviously could blend in a little bit better because they do pop out a bit but they don’t scream at the user, this mixed with good quality content makes the stand out more acceptable.

The very last thing is the frequency of the ads being displayed on your blog, Google only allows you to display 3 ad blocks on any one page, so if you try to place twelve ad blocks only three will show ads and the rest won’t even be noticeable, as well you have to remember that the more ads being shown on your site takes away from the amount of money you’ll get per click, I’m unsure of exactly how this all works with Google but simply put the more ads means less money.

Now I’m not telling you to only display one ad on your entire blog to gain maximum profit, you could but you won’t be reaching maximum profit, simply because the less ads you have displayed means the less people will click on them and the less money you’ll make. The best way to deal with this is to test different ad placement on your site to see which area’s gain you the most amount of clicks while maintaining the least amount of ads, you can monitor your results in Google Adsense.

Just keep an eye on your CTR (Click Through Rate) and remember how many ads are being displayed on any particular page, you’ll eventually find exactly how many ads you should be displaying and which area’s those ads should appear. If you employ all of these techniques there is no reason why your Adsense profit should not go up.

So what are you waiting for, take the 10 minutes and change things around to start earning some more money with your Adsense ads and if you found this information useful please support it by clicking the Digg button below, plus if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them and I’ll do my best to answer. Thanks & Enjoy.

Rigid, unchanging procedures threaten any business activity. With Internet-enabled and -related enterprises, keeping up with technological progress is absolutely essential to survival. As opposed to static (unchanging) websites that are not looking to strengthen or increase their industry share, any dynamic (changing) website will have new copy, even new strategies, on an ongoing basis. Regular, extensive, ongoing keyword research is not a luxury, but a basic survival tactic.

Understanding how people actually use words, and the relationships these words have in the context of an Internet search, is key to threading these words and phrases through the fabric of your site. Because the Internet is so very dynamic, with word relationships changing seemingly by the minute, this is a huge and growing challenge for more and more people and companies. After all, the Internet is growing into the major commercial and communication hub of the world. Accurate and useful keyword suggestion tools – and their intelligent implantation into business and marketing strategy, are a major part of the solution.

There are a plethora of keyword suggestion tools available, from free to cost-based, including NicheBot, Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, SEOBook, and the various Google keyword tools. In this two-part article, we will consider these tools and the differences among them. Part one will cover the first three on the list, while part two will cover the Google tools and SEOBook’s Keyword Suggestion Tool.

Most importantly, perhaps, these tools help you estimate the relative (rather than absolute) size of the search referral “market” produced by particular words and phrases. You will develop a better understanding of what terms appear how often in search queries, and what other terms are correlated with them, and how many times they are searched compared to those other terms. The analytics you develop with the tools will also give you a good idea of how their suggestions will fare, and provide a means of understanding “competition levels” for specific words and phrases.

Naturally, there are differences both large and small among these keyword analysis/suggestion tools. Google, of course, compiles its tool data from its own search network of sites and offers tremendous functionality at low or no cost. The subscription-based services, such as Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery, take advantage of databases of multiple sites and data that can be assembled, broken down, repurposed and presented in myriad ways.

Specific tool functionality
Wordtracker aggregates its keyword data from the leading meta search engines, primarily Dogpile but with input from MetaCrawler and others. In Wordtracker’s attempts to mine keyword gold, it will discover how many times a certain term or phrase shows up in its database of over 316 million words. This is quite a trick in itself, as English (according to linguists) has between 600,000 and two million words, depending upon how we define a “word.” It is clear that Wordtracker leaves no permutation or word-form uncounted, which is a distinct benefit.

Wordtracker’s brain trust asserts that metacrawlers process the queries of the leading search engines with some precision, and that the software robots that continuously check site rankings and such do not interfere with the count. In a different approach, KeywordDiscovery relies on its global “premium database” of some 4.5 billion searches based solely on user data, thus diminishing the distortions inherent in some other strategies.

If you are considering which tool to use, you can still get free trials of most tools, except that you usually need to provide contact information, with phone numbers and e-mail addresses required. There are few ways to use and compare the tools anonymously, so the next best approach is “meta-analysis,” in which we look at various published third-party reports on the actual use of these tools.

In a study published last year, one technology writer performed keyword forecasts for “dog food” with KeywordDiscovery, Wordtracker and several other programs. Despite using different original data sets, all of these tools try to supply reliable estimates of the available search referral traffic without “data inflation.” There are numerous ways to analyze and present the results.

On average, KeywordDiscovery predicted there would be some 1,088 searches for “dog food” daily, while Wordtracker calculated the probable search referral market for “dog food” to be about double that. KeywordDiscovery does have a unique and quite useful algorithm that considers “seasonality” in its results, letting you review the seasonality of terms historically, as monthly estimates or even as a component of annual trends. Search engine market share is developed, as well.

KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker results can both be repurposed to estimate just Google referral traffic or that of any other major engine. In the tech columnist’s example, the Wordtracker daily estimate for Google’s “dog food” search was 1,043, or almost half of all the “Daily Prediction” information. KeywordDiscovery had Google accounting for 67 percent of its “Average Daily” results, thus suggesting that 738 “dog food” searches would be made in Google every day.

Perhaps this does not seem to be much of an absolute difference, but when considered over a 30-day period, the difference scaled up considerably in this particular test. KeywordDiscovery estimated some 22,000+ “dog food” searches that month, but Wordtracker projected over 31,000 “dog food” searches for that same period.

A ‘niche’ player
Nichebot came on the scene with some degree of fanfare. It is a complex program, with a tightly specified methodology that lacks flexibility in some important ways. On the other hand, it gathers data from more sources than Wordtracker  – leveraging the results from KeywordDiscovery and Google – and provides a great selection of explanatory videos, instructive screenshots and excellent “Help” functions.

However, Nichebot recommends a five-step system, which can be time-consuming and confusing, even for veterans. There are, of course, some free “quick-dig” tools, including, oddly enough, Wordtracker and its thesaurus. While it is free to search Wordtracker via Nichebot, you get only basic counts, and must pay for a premium search if you wish to see competition data and the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI).

You can dig a bit “deeper” without additional cost by clicking on a term or phrase in the results, which provides a list of associated phrases. One savvy forum poster declared that the primary purpose for using Nichebot is “to find as many keywords from multiple sources to cover as much territory for the maximum traffic for your website.” In practice, he explained, one can start “from a broad search and just keep refining, merging, narrowing in.”

The proliferation of “niche” tools and functions would seem to be a sensible development given Nichebot’s name, but the added functionality comes at a price. For instance, you can get the addresses of the sites that have the greatest number of backlinks for a particular term, but the learning curve involved with this program makes the more arcane data difficult to develop.

Generally speaking, Nichebot results are excellent, and it allows better organization of projects and searches via its folder hierarchy. Further, the program checks your site for keyword density “red flags” that Google may note (and disapprove of). As premium search charges kick in a bit early compared to others, the question for users has to be, Do the premium charges return enough value to offset the time and money spent to obtain it?

Time and tide
While meta-analysis of user comments at a random selection of forums discloses that they don’t find Nichebot particularly intuitive, it is considered an impressive software achievement.

Even its appearance gives Nichebot the impression that using it takes time and discipline.  While KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker can be used in a stream-of-consciousness manner at times, Nichebot does not lend itself to brainstorming or “fluid” search styles. This is a direct result, of course, of its having the power it does. Despite that power, it does have a number of anomalies that are commonly reported. For one thing, it applies its vaunted “Jackpot” rating to keywords for which it finds no competition, even if that is the case because of error or anomaly.

Finally, a number of users report that advanced searches can get stuck in a “holding pattern” (in a queue) and take from 15-20 minutes to generate results. With the tide of the Internet forever washing new waves onto the shore, time is of the essence.  Even though advanced keyword research searches can return valuable data, it is no stretch to say that many marketers might consider 20 minutes per keyword tool inquiry to be a barrier to frequent or consistent use.

Rating the tools
Wordtracker is easier to use for most people, but the possibilities are certainly expanded with Nichebot. Doing random or unassociated searches “by the seat of your pants” is among Wordtracker’s great strengths, but Nichebot works well to focus your work and helps you take a step-by-step, measured approach. It can be said that Nichebot can not only return search terms and numbers, but can actually sub as your defacto keyword research process.  As one user commented at a KEI forum, Nichebot “takes a lot of the guesswork out [but] getting there is somewhat painful.”

KeywordDiscovery’s “9-in-1 tool” approach (check their site, it’s even divided up this way) is popular with many users. It goes some 10,000 keywords deep and the more you pay the deeper you can go. Nichebot does provide more information, but it has that steep learning curve and much harder to learn than the more “friendly” Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery.

What works best for you will most likely be a product of trial and error – and for many will be a combination of the tools. Because you have to give up more and more personal data to get the “free trials,” however, you may want to let other people’s fingers “do the walking” and continue to do meta-analyses of others’ results. Thee is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from multiple opinions, yet there is nothing like running your own research your own way.  Trust the judgment of tech columnists and meta-analysts, or acquiesce to giving up some personal information to see for yourself.

Remember, because of the many search engines and the multitudes of sources the keyword tools get their numbers from, all of the results are relative. For starters, check out the most important, relevant and highly “trafficked” keywords and terms already associated with your site’s content. As we move to Part Two and consider the Google tools and SEOBook’s program, don’t forget that ongoing study, research and testing are the most fruitful ways to stay abreast of an ever-changing universe of words – and all their relatives, too.

The 800-Pound Gorilla and the New Kid on the Block: Google and SEOBook

In our last article covering the similarities, differences, and uses of the most commonly used keyword suggestion tools  we focused on comparing the usage, operation models, and results of Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and NicheBot.  For Part Two we will be covering the tools Google brings to the table and SEOBook’s Keyword Suggestion Tool.

Google rising
With the way the company has exploded in the last decade, especially over the last five years or so, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Google was taking over the world, not just the Internet. The fact is, they are growing, changing, expanding and refining all of their diverse operations with such velocity that some bloggers and “industry analysts” make a full-time out of tracking Google.

They track Google while Google tracks everything net-related, so you can avail yourself of some of Google’s powerful tools. Some are free, some used to be free – like its Adwords API (Application Programming Interface) – and others cost you in various ways, from money to time to learning curves. But there is no way to do your work, if you work in web marketing, without the Google tools.

The basic Google tools
Google Suggest is good place to start accumulating your list of words and phrases to be researched. It is a fast (some would say “quick and dirty”) way of identifying common word combinations and how many pages are relevant to them.  When you start typing your search into Google’s search box, a dropdown box opens listing terms that start with those letters and the number of pages that would come up in a search for each term.  What this basically gives you is a very quick way to get a snapshot of related terms and their relative competitive landscape.

If you were to type in “fly,” Google Suggest would potentially give you such extrapolations as “fly fishing” or “fly larvae,” taking you off on your chosen tangent. Typing in parts of words, like “prob,” might show extrapolations such as “probation,” “probability,” “problem child,” or “probono.” This tool is particularly helpful in building out your first keyword lists, letting you then focus on terms you deem most worthy of further research.

Google Trends lets you assess the popularity of particular terms and phrases against one other, and even supplies a history of the “most searched” terms from 2004 through the present. The particular search terms’ popularity is expressed as a proportion of the total search volume, which is calculated for different regions of the world, even in a variety of languages.

You can also compare the volume of searches among multiple terms, and can display news associated with search terms on charts displaying the effect of the news on term popularity and presence. This can help you make snap decisions about whether to concentrate on one set of keywords or some other. If you want to get a handle on how searches are affected by regional anomalies and external factors, this is a good tool for that.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Until late 2006 the features in the AdWords tool kit were free. Then Google began to charge for the API portion of the tool, with a 25-per-thousand fee that sounded low until big users started adding it up. The controversy has abated greatly, but it did leave a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.

Google responded with a free External Tool outside of AdWords for those that desired keyword help but did not have an AdWords account.  It was truly a tool that suggested keywords only, returning a great number of keywords related to the term you entered but offering no search quantity numbers to show how often people actually searched for each term daily or monthly.

More recently Google added the search metrics that a lot of marketers and business owners have been craving.  Their External Tool now shows how many times the keywords you are researching were searched last month on Google related properties, as well as a twelve-month average for the terms.  It also features a measurement that shows you the advertiser competition for each.

For AdWords accounts holders the AdWords Keyword Tool is tightly “Google integrated” of course, and not only helps you estimate your AdWords campaign cost but provides information on the competition levels among your chosen, targeted keywords and terms.

The AdWords Traffic Estimator is another tool that can provide data on total potential clicks for each ad, each day, for each keyword, but they are merely approximates.  It also estimates potential cost so you have an idea what your daily spend would be for those terms.  For natural search research it is helpful in compiling an initial list for further, detailed research, which is the point at which you would bring other keyword analytics tools into the process.

As with all of the free and fee-based tools, they are best seen as an “information buffet,” a range of tools and tests from which you can assemble the best toolkit for your particular project. Your needs may change from one task to the next, from one product to the next, so you need the greatest amount of flexibility you can get. Some people are now saying that SEOBook’s Keyword Suggestion Tool is the best “anchor program” on which to hang other specialized tools.

The up-and-comer
SEO industry stalwart Aaron Wall developed the Keyword Suggestion Tool for SEOBook, and it is popular for not reinventing the wheel, essentially. That is, it aggregates the most successful and effective suggestion tools on the Internet –Google tools, the “visual tool” Quintura (with its “word clouds”), Wordtracker and even Yahoo metrics, back when there were some.

Its proponents say that SEOBook’s tool is the right one for anyone, any time, because of its components. By combining results, it does save time, but some professional traffic mongers prefer to set the tools against each other for comparison, rather than aggregation, purposes.

Still, features of the tool are legion. It can estimate certain keyword traffic in Google, Yahoo and MSN independently, or add it together for average total daily traffic. It links up to the Google Trends data for the targeted keyword(s) and employs the Google Traffic Estimator to determine the daily cost for advertising the subject terms.

The SEOBook tool also allows you to get an idea of your competitors’ numbers by interfacing with Google, Wordtracker and the UK’s Overture. It also makes use of the GoRank SEO Tools and Ontology Finder, and checks the top 1000 Google results for your terms by running queries on related words. It would be a good idea to look at GoRank’s new link popularity analyzer, which is just now being made ready for beta testing (as of September 20). It’s completely free and supports up to 30 backlinks. Once beta testing is complete, it will have the capability to analyze up to 1000 backlinks.

At the bottom of the SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool page is a list of potential searches you can perform on a “vertical database” – for news, blogs, directories, tags, thesauruses, dictionaries, encyclopedias, classified ad listings, audio, video, competitive, groups and other tangents.

Who, what, how and why
There are still differences among keyword analysis tools and keyword suggestion tool, but as they continue to aggregate each others’ functions and link to various other third-party programs, there is bound to be some “convergence.” There is a great deal of “shakeout” still to come in this sector, and following Yahoo’s almost-ignominious retreat from this arena the winnowing process would appear to be gaining some momentum.

Using any or all of the available suggestion tools can be a very nerve-wracking experience. There is always the chance that you will start taking the results and suggestions as gospel, and making sweeping changes based on data that changes by the nanosecond. It takes patience to make these tools perform their best, and there is no substitute for the human brain. It is the ultimate analytical tool.

Whatever tools you use, in whatever manner, it is wise to maintain a healthy skepticism about the results. Various industry analysts have run tests that show a wide discrepancy between what some of the tools report, and what they actually do. This is not to say there is misrepresentation (sometimes called “lying”) going on. It is more a function of the transient nature of knowledge and the rapid turnover of data sets in Internet-related enterprises. Use the tools, certainly, but use your head, primarily.

As 2007 rolls to a close, and 2008 peaks at us from around the corner, it’s interesting to see just what people were searching for online in 2007. Was it celebrities? Was it cell phones? Was it top news stories?

Well, judging by Google’s own Zeitgeist for 2007, it was a little bit of all that and much more. Not surprisingly the iphone came out at the very top both in the US and across the globe. Other top searches included facebook, webkinz and of course youtube. What surprised me when I read the list is “club penguin.” What the heck is club penguin? while I go search that at google, I’ll leave you with this fascinating little list:

The Fastest Rising Searches in 2007 (global) were:

iphone

badoo

facebook

dailymotion

webkinz

youtube

ebuddy

second life

hi5

club penguin

The Fastest Rising Searches in 2007 (U.S.) were:

iphone

webkinz

tmz

transformers

youtube

club penguin

myspace

heroes

facebook

anna nicole smith

The Most Popular Google News Searches (global) were:

american idol

youtube

britney spears

2007 cricket world cup

chris benoit

iphone

anna nicole smith

paris hilton

iran

vanessa hudgens