Keyword Research is the stepping stone to successful optimization. So what’s new?
Effective Keyword research today is beyond Count, Competition and KEI realm. Today keywords need to attract the Web 2.0 searches and gear up the websites organic campaign for web 3.0 and beyond.
I recommend and follow a funnel approach to Keyword Research. It starts with the Seed Key Phrase list and flows through the following steps
1. Developing the Basic Key Phrase Universe.
2. Adding Lateral Web Search data.
3. Search Intent and Semantic Web analysis and filters
4. Social Web, Freshness & Buzz filters.
5. Real World and Business filters.

Here are the tools I like and recommend for these steps
Step 1: Basic Key Phrase Research
- 3rd Party Keyword Suggestion Tools: Wordtracker
- Competition Key Phrase Analysis Tools: SpyFu
Step 2: Lateral Web Data Filters
- Search Engine Volume Predictors: Google Trends, Microsoft Keyword Forecast
- Key Phrase Cyclicity/ Trend/ geography analysis: Google Insight
Step 3: Search Intent and Semantic Web
- Search Intent Indicator Tools: Google Sets, Microsoft Commercial Intent Predictor,
Microsoft Demographic Predictor
- Visit Intent Analysis from the Log file /site Search Data**
- Vertical Search Potential Analysis: News, Local, Images, Video, Product, Blog
Step 4: Social Web Filters Freshness & Buzz Filters
- News: Google News
- Social Media:Face Book Lexicon, Twitter Trends
Step 5: Real World and Business Constraints
- Spelling Mistakes: FatFingers
- Phonetic Variations
- Domain Typos:Domain Typo Generator
- Patent Search: Google Patents, USPTO
**Visit Intent Analysis from the Log file /site Search Data is a process and not a tool. A process to segregate keywords into various baskets of Predicted Commercial Intent of search. The Commercial Intent is predicted based on the Referring Website, Landing Page, Activity on the Website and the Search Term Modifiers. This idea is to map Visitor Intent (visitor’s stage in the buying cycle) to the Query Intent. The process is illustrated in the figure below.
