Keyword research is without any doubt one of the critical steps for both PPC and SEO success. Though some of the long-established providers such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery are still around, there are also a plenty of free keyword research tools. A few of the latter only offer limited data sets such as the Top 100 keywords instead of thousands but anyhow they are useful – and free.

Give the following 9 free keyword research tools a chance if you haven’t done so yet:

1. Wordtracker: Free Keyword Suggestion Tool
2. SEO Book: Keyword Suggestion Tool
3. Wordstream: The Free Keyword Tool
4. Keyword Discovery: Free Search Term Suggestion Tool
5. Good Keywords ( Desktop App)
6. Google Search-based Keyword Tool
7. Google AdWords Keyword Tool
8. Google Insights for Serach
9. Google Trends

Do you know anymore good free keyword research tools? Then please tell us in the comment section above.

Technorati Tags: keyword research, keyword suggestion, keyword tools

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1. Yahoo! Search Marketing Enhancements

After Matt Cutts had announced officially a few weeks ago that Google ignores the meta keywords tag for ranking search results now follows Yahoo!. During the “Ask The Search Engines session” at SMX East in New York, Cris Pierry, senior director of search at Yahoo! admitted that Yahoo! does not use the meta keyword tags anymore.

All Major Search Engines Ignore Meta Keywords

The fact that all major Search Engines officially ignore meta keywords for ranking results should finally convince most of the website owners and SEOs who still persist in using the keyword meta tags that – seven years after Danny Sullivan’s post titled “Death of a Meta Tag” – it looks as if the time has come.

Ignored by Google, Yahoo and Bing the Keyword Meta Tag can actually be declared dead!

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1. Meta Keywords Tag Ignored by Google

In order to allow small business to advertise on Google and Google Maps without having to manage keywords and ad copies via AdWords, Google is introducing the so called Google Local Listing Ads.  These ads are displayed when users search for related businesses in a local area.

Google Help summarizes the Local Listing Ads features as followed:

• Ads shown on Google.com and Google Maps

• A flat monthly fee based on your location and business category

• Free call-tracking, announcing each forwarded customer call (’This caller brought to you by Google’)

• Full report on the number of calls, clicks to your ad, requests for driving directions, and clicks to your info window on Google Maps

• The option to cancel your ad at any time

A requirement for Local Listing Ads is that your business is registered in the Google Local Business Center with an appropriate business category assigned to it.

There has been a video posted with a few details about the new format.

Local Listing Ads are currently only available in San Francisco and San Diego. The rest of us has to wait until we can try this new format. By filling out this form Google will inform you as soon as Local Listing Ads are available in your region.

Technorati Tags: Local Business Ads, local listing ads

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1. Local Business Ads Series – Part 4: How to set up your Google Business Listing
2. Local Business Ads Series – Part 3: What is the Google Local Business Center
3. Introducing Local Extensions: Google Local Ads Done Simply

After signing the search deal with Microsoft, many of us expected Yahoo gave up on search. Now Yahoo announced a few enhancements to its search marketing program in the future. The most important for me is the Yahoo search marketing desktop tool similar to Google AdWords Editor. Yahoo expects the first release in 2010.

Other Yahoo Search Marketing enhancements:

• The BOSS search platform will allow third-party developers to syndicate Yahoo search on their sites.

• Later this month, a couple of premium advertisers will be able to test the management of Rich Ads and their budgeting, targeting and reporting directly from the Sponsored Search interface and Yahoo’s APIs.

• Planned for 2010, Network Distribution Tools will let you run your ads on either Yahoo! or its partner network and set bids separately for each channel.

These announcements are definitely good news. Now let’s hope Yahoo! delivers what it promises. I am especially looking forward to the Yahoo search marketing desktop tool because I personally don’t like the Yahoo! bulksheet sheet at all.

Technorati Tags: Paid Search, Yahoo

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1. Don’t Sell The Yahoo Bulksheet Tool As A Time Saver Please

A new feature has been introduced to Google Search. In the case in which a search query matches one of Google’s fast rising queries a Google hot trend graph is shown at the bottom of the search results with more information about the query.

Google Hot Trend OneBox

More Real-Time Search from Google

By integrating the hot trend OneBox, Google adds another real-time search feature to keep up with the progress of Twitter and friends regarding real-time search.
Next to a “Hotness” Indicator, you can see a graph which shows the queriy popularity over the last few hours only. By clicking on the query itself you get redirected to Google Trends which where you can explore news articles, blog posts and web results.
On the one hand, showing the Hot Trend in Google search results is another small step towards real-time search. On the other hand Google doesn’t consider microblogging content but only search queries. According to Danny Sullivan’s post on Search Engine Land a Real Time Results column is not coming soon.

What a pity.

Technorati Tags: Google, Hot Trends, Real-Time Search

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1. After Twitter and Bing: FriendFeed with Real-Time Search
2. Local Business Ads Series – Part 1: What is Local Search
3. Introducing Local Extensions: Google Local Ads Done Simply

comScore confirmed this week what Nielsen had published already in the middle of September: Bing’s market share in the U.S. is growing continuously. Nielsen’s Top 10 Search Provider stats reveal a 10.7% market share of Bing in August, up from 9.0% in July. Less growth announced comScore’s U.S. Core Search Report: Microsoft Search Sites could increase their US market share only from 8.9% in July to 9.3% in August.

According to comScore Bing received 7% more search queries in August than in July. Nielsen even talks about a 22% increase in search queries. Although the numbers differ significantly, we can see a positive trend for Bing. It seems as if Microsoft’s huge marketing budget could actually make an impact and accelerate Bing’s adoption.

Nevertheless, there is still a long way to the top. Google is in the U.S. still far away on position number and that won’t change anytime soon.

Technorati Tags: Bing, comScore, Microsoft, nielsen, search market

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1. After Twitter and Bing: FriendFeed with Real-Time Search

Now it’s official: Google ignores the Meta Keywords Tag for ranking. What many SEOs have suspected for quite a time has now officially been confirmed by Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team. In an interview published on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog he said: “Because the Keywords Meta Tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the Keywords Meta Tag.” The fact that Google doesn’t use the Meta Keywords for ranking, doesn’t mean they don’t index them – they actually do. But while processing the search query, Google will not look in the Meta Keywords Tags in contrast to the body text for matching terms, i.e.matching documents.

Meta Keywords Tag with Other Search Engines

Ok, so using Meta Keywords doesn’t help your website ranking on Google. What about other search engines? Danny Sullivan’s blog post called Meta Keywords 101 dated back to 2007 examines the issue further. After testing he came to the conclusion that while Google and Microsoft Live ignore the Keyword Meta data Tag completely, Yahoo and Ask don’t. Actually he ranked in both search engines for a matching term which could only be found in the test pages’ Keywords Meta Tag.

Meta Keywords Tag Recommendations

On the one hand, using the Meta Keywords Tag doesn’t harm you, so if it is feasible for your site then it’s still a good practice. Recommended are also to add misspellings of your key phrases to the Meta data. On the other hand filling in the gaps is a time consuming work and this time can surely be used more efficiently for other activities. Also have in mind that your competition can see instantly which Keywords you are targeting on each page. Not that this is very hard to determine using other tools, but at least you don’t hand it over to them on a plate!

Technorati Tags: Google, meta keywords, meta tags, seo

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1. Meta Keywords Tag Finally Dead. This Time For Real!

In a blog post about the Yahoo Bulksheet Tool on the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog the author highlights its advantages. I agree that you can “speed things up a bit” but still, the Yahoo tool is so far behind the products of the competition and using it is very time-consuming and error-prone. During the trainings I gave I could observe that the bulk upload often poses a problem for new people in the Search Marketing business. Let’s be honest, if you compare the Yahoo bulk upload tool with its competitors, namely Google AdWords Editor and Microsoft adCenter Desktop it doesn’t have the slightest chance. Yahoo hasn’t and probably never will publish an offline tool that allows the management of Yahoo’s  PPC campaigns in a time efficient manner. I’ve seen too many desperate people grappling with this tool, thus I can’t let this blog post about the so called advantages pass by without expressing my opinion.

C’mon Yahoo, don’t try to sell the bulk upload tool as a time saver!

Any disagreements on that?

Technorati Tags: bulk upload, Paid Search, Yahoo

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1. Yahoo! Search Marketing Enhancements

As you may know Google AdWords offers local business ads besides the other ad formats such as text, image, or mobile ads. The main difference between local business ads and standard text ads is that local business ads are associated with a specific geographic location. Therefore an advertiser can include more relevant information within his ad which consequently delivers more value to the user.

Example: When somebody in Madrid is looking for a Search Engine Marketing agency on google.es just by using the search query “sem” without any local identifier Google will show the usual text ads plus relevant local business ads which correspond to the user’s location and additionally show the business location:

Google Text Ad with Local Extension

So, now Google announced on the Inside AdWords blog a change which affects local business ads directly – and that’s the introduction of local extensions. These local extensions expand a standard text ad with additional business information such as an address. As a consequence it will no longer be necessary to create specific local business ads but instead you can create standard text ads and add a local extension.

The new local extensions feature is not yet available to all advertisers. As soon as it is working you can either manage your business address on campaign level by changing the campaign settings or you can manage it at the individual ad level. For more information consult the Google AdWords help section about ad extensions.

The local extensions feature makes the creation of local business ads easier and I hope more and more advertisers make use of geographic targeted and therefore more relevant ad formats.

Technorati Tags: AdWords, Google, LBA, Local Business Ads, Local Search, Paid Search

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1. Local Business Ads Series – Part 3: What is the Google Local Business Center
2. Local Business Ads Series – Part 1: What is Local Search
3. Local Business Ads Series – Part 4: How to set up your Google Business Listing

Twitter published on their business site the so called Twitter 101 – A Special Guide.  It was written by Twitter with Sarah Milstein who is a consultant specializing in Twitter for business, and the co-author, with Tim O’Reilly, of The Twitter Book.

What is Twitter and how do I use it?

There are several sections. First you learn how Twitter works, then how you get started and finally how to use and understand the Twitter lingo properly. This is pretty straight forward and there are not many new wisdoms in there, but still it’s good to have that information from the company directly. Pretty useful are the tips.

One example of a tip:

This is the kind of information that business users with no or little Twitter experience are looking for.

Twitter Success Stories and Case Studies

And then there are the Twitter Case Studies, starting with the famous @DellOutlet success story. Dell started tweeting back in 2007, and since then they’ve earned more than $2 million in revenue at @DellOutlet.

The case studies are definitely interesting and businesses can draw some conclusions out of these. The success stories come from a broad range of companies and sectors and of course are stuffed with the typical marketing slang that you expect from case studies:

• Raising awareness
• Increasing sales
• Connection with customers
• Building trust
• Gathering feedback
• Sharing information
• Holding conversations

These phrases are worn out but in this case they make perfect sense because they correspond to the benefits businesses can expect from Twitter. But only if they do it right

Technorati Tags: tutorial, twitter