ZillionBits-Its about number$ and te<h^0!0gy

Keyword Research describes the practise of looking at what users are searching for and how they search for it on the Internet, Keyword Research helps us understand the types of things people are trying to find, as well as the words they’re using.

There are a two common methods that Keyword Research tools use to give an indicator of competition

The first one is called the R/S ratio, which shows the ratio of searches to web pages containing that keyword or keyword phrase. R/S ratio is how many times something is searched for against how many pages are found in the search engine with that keyword or phrase included in the page.

The second common indicator is KEI, which stands for Keyword Effectiveness Index. This is very similar to R/S, however, it’s weighted so the higher the keyword volume, the more tolerance it has to lots of competing pages. Keywords or phrases with lots of searches will have a higher KEI compared with ones that have fewer searches, even though their R/S ratio may be exactly the same.

You may have heard the term “digging”. It’s a weird term to use, but it fairly accurately describes the process.

It involves processing large lists of keywords to reveal the keywords that have the characteristics of terms that are going to make money!

Digging is often automated or partly automated, Often digging is done by the Keyword Research software itself.

There are two ways digging Vertical Keyword Research and Lateral Keyword Research

Vertical Keyword Research is the process of finding variations that can occur on a single keyword or keyword phrase. For example if you’re creating a website about “turntables” you’ll research phrases that include the word “turntable”. A vertical keyword search for “turntable” may return phrases such as “turntables” (note the plural version), “turntable guide” or “turntable slip mats”. This is normally your starting point in Keyword Research from which you can expand your keyword list.

Lateral Keyword Research is the process of finding the keywords or phrases that are similar to your seed (original) keyword, but do not necessarily contain that word or words exactly. So your lateral search for “turntable” may bring back words like “stylus”, “vinyl”, or “headphones”. Often you’ll need to do this kind of lateral thinking yourself, but many tools are smart enough to offer really useful suggestions.

We also have to remember that Lateral Keyword Research also relates to building your list with a variety of keyword combinations or misspellings. For example, some tools allow you to change the order of the words. A tool may add to your list “turntable slip mats” as well as “slip mats turntables”. Or it may offer some misspelling or alternative variations such as “turntable slipmats”. Or perhaps it will offer you international spellings such as “practice” versus “practise”.

I have compiled a list of free keyword researching tools and software for Keyword Researching(Digging)

• overture
• adwords
• nichebot
• keywordspider
• goodkeywords
• pixelfast
• googspy
• keywordtumbler
• digitalpoint
• seomoz
• KeywordGenBox
• advertisertools
• kwmap
• iotaweb

If you know of any other tools that should be on this list please let me know.

Keyword Research really is an important skill to learn. It’s easy to get started and pays dividends if you master it.