This free open source keyword suggestion tool grabs the Overture search counts for different geographic markets.
The tool then:
- Offers suggested monthly regional search volumes by market for Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.*
- Links the search volumes to the related global search results.
- Provides links to price estimate tools from Overture and Google AdWords. That Google AdWords tool shows the necissary bid to rank #1 for 85% of queries, and roughly how much traffic you could expect AdWords to send you based on that bid price.
- Links to Google Trends, Google Suggest, Google Synonyms, Yahoo! Suggest, Nichebot and Wordtracker keyword research results.
- Links to various vertical databases like Topix.net, Google Blogsearch, and Del.icio.us to let you know if people are talking about your topic and what types of resources they are referencing.
Want more free PPC or keyword research tips? Need more Keyword Research Data?
- If you use pay per click marketing you are probably best off using Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing over the smaller PPC engines due to typically higher click quality and faster feedback loops.
- Wordtracker offers a subscription based keyword research service and has a free keyword research guide [PDF].
- Aaron Wall offers a free Google AdWords & Yahoo! Search Marketing Tips PDF, a free keyword research video (including info on how to use this tool), and many more videos on aspects of SEO.
- Dan Thies' SEO Research Labs offers professional keyword research services and this free 75 minute keyword research video.
Potential problems with this tool - in the main, issues with Overture's data format:
- Overture switches the order of some phrases. "SEO Company" may appear as "company SEO" in the Overture output.
- You have to use a bit of common sense and look at some of the other numbers from other tools to tell what the appropriate word orders are.
- If you see something like Diego Estate San Real - well, that's pretty obviously mixed up.
- Typically, people tend to use language in similar patterns. If there are 14,000,000 search results for ["car hire"], and only 2,000,000 pages for ["hire car"], then odds are "car hire" is a more common search term.
- Overture blends plural and singular terms together when showing their keyword data. Keep in mind the terms may be very different in meaning, competition, query volume, and conversion.
- Since we estimate Google and MSN traffic based on Yahoo!'s numbers, any sampling error is amplified.
* Please note this tool currently assumes Google has double Yahoo!'s search traffic, and Yahoo! has double MSN's search volume. Depending on your topic or vertical, and your geographic location, the search engines may have vastly different search volumes. The tool can only offer approximations. Vanity searches, click bots, rank checkers, and other forms of automated traffic make exact search volumes difficult to find. Exceptionally valuable search terms show far greater volume than they actually have, because various competitive commercial forces cause greater automated search traffic.