Wallet Friendly Sources for Keyword Inspiration

Keywords set the stage for success or failure in search marketing. Remember, it’s not the keywords that you would use, it’s the keywords your customers would use. Here are some tips to help get in their head:

Include non-search geek friends and family. This is easy. Write-up an email including a picture of the product or service you’re optimizing for and ask how they’d find it in a search engine. Don’t worry if your pals don’t exactly match your target audience – your goal here is to identify as many potential keywords to analyze later on.

Word Association Tools. Sometimes all you need to jumpstart your keyword brainstorming is an old-fashioned thesaurus. Roget’s New Millennium Thesaurus is available online, but Thinkmap’s Visual Thesaurus is far cooler – and more useful. It allows you to graphically explore the English language based upon different word-to-word relationships.



If you’re targeting a younger, hipper generation, head over to Urban Dictionary. Webster is nowhere to be found here–it’s instead run by users who publish definitions for popular slang terms. Because it’s slang, watch out for profanity and anything else you might not want to see!

Product Reviews. Read what others are saying. They are a great source for understanding the vocabulary being used when describing your company, products, and services. For example, you may find out that your product has been given an unofficial acronym or nickname. That’s precisely the type of information that will help make the most if your search marketing efforts.

Pay Attention to Tags. Keep an eye on sites like Technorati, Flickr, and del.icio.us for how users are tagging content relevant to your business. While the tags themselves may be too broad to target, they provide valuable insight into how your content is perceived throughout the community.



Just Ask. Pop over to Ask.com and search for a few broad terms relevant to your business. The right portion of the SERP displays suggested refinements to your original query, including the ability to expand and narrow its scope. These may be prime candidates to include in your keyword analysis.



Your Site’s Own Search. If you’re running a larger site, chances are you have a search feature of your own. That log is a goldmine of keyword research data – it represents exactly what your users are searching for once they land on your site.

Look At Your Offline Marketing. Make sure to align your search strategy with what your business is doing in terms of offline marketing. Every touch point with potential customers has the ability to influence behavior. If traditional offline campaigns are targeting certain words or phrases, make sure to include them in your search campaign.

Early stages of keyword analysis should be focused on gathering as much data as possible. The most important thing to remember is to not allow your analysis be overly biased by only a few sources. Accumulate as much data as you can, run the numbers, and make the most informed decisions possible.