26 Keyword Research Tools for SEO and SEM

By Aaron Evans 2-11-09

There are many Keyword tools available to use, so which are the best keyword research tools for your needs? First you need to understand the difference between the different types of keyword tools. Here are the different basic types of keyword tools available:

1. Keyword Suggestion Tools - This type of tool will suggest keywords based on either keywords you enter or URL’s that you enter. Some popular keyword suggestion tools are:

• Google Adwords Keyword Tool
• Keyword Elite
• SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool
• Wordtracker
• Keyword Discovery
• Wordze
• Microsoft Keyword Forecast
• Yahoo Keyword Tool

2. Competitive PPC Keyword Research Tools - Competitive PPC keyword research tools measure the competitions paid search keywords, CPC’s, Budgets and overall search marketing strategy.

• Compete.com – A good tool that is relatively low cost with that shows competitive PPC keywords
• Hitwise.com – A great competitive research site if you can afford the expensive upfront cost
• KeyCompete.com – Download competitors keywords and adwords
• SEMPhonic – A competitive SEM research consultancy
• Spyfu – Download your competitors keywords and PPC data

3. Competitive SEO Keyword Research Tools - Competitive SEO Keyword Research tools focus on the organic strategy of competitors websites and measure the keyword rankings, keyword density, backlinks, internal links and other SEO-related factors.

• SoloSEO – This tool uses its IndexRank to collect Google indexing rate data for different time periods
• SEOMoz Trifecta – Measures domain, blog and page strength
• SEOMoz Linkscape – Measures unique domains linking to competitors websites
• Spydermate – A free SEO tool Crawls URls and gives Spyderranking with lots of SEO stats
• SEOBook Keyword Density Tool – A free tool that quickly shows the number of each keyword occurance
• SEOBook HubFinder - A tool for SEOBook members that shows authority sites for various industries based on keywords
• SEOBook Link Popularity Comparison Tool – Compare your backlinks to a competitors
• MajesticSEO – A competitive Link Analysis Tool that analyzes anchor text and backlinks
• batchSEARCH.com – a bulk search tool that allows you to search multiple keywords at once with up to 100,000 search results in just minutes.
• googlerankings.com – A Keyword density SEO tool

4. Keyword Ranking Tools -

• Firefox Rank Checker – A free browser plugin to rank up to 100 keywords in google, yahoo and msn at one time.
• Cleverstat – A google ranking tool for download. only works with Windows.
• mapelli.info – Calculates your supplemental index ratio

There are other keyword tools out there and more popping up everyday. Stay tuned for a future post about link analysis tools and an update on new SEO and SEM keyword tools.