A few months ago, while analyzing all the keyword tools on the market, I came up with a classification system that makes it possible to evaluate these tools and quickly determine which one is right for you. The surprising thing is that you rarely need a “Swiss army knife” approach, where you are inundated by every piece of obscure data available about a keyword. But there is one aspect of every keyword that is always REALLY important. But this “major detail” seems to be the EXACT one glossed over by most tools on the market.
I refer to this “important piece of data” as the Tao of Keyword Data.
Which tool you choose should depend on two things: What kind of data you need for the work that you are doing and HOW you need that data interpreted. (This is usually decided based on the PURPOSE of the data.
Kinds of Data:
It turns out that are 4 different types of data a keyword tool can provide.
The tool you should choose should contain the data you need for the aspect of online market that you are researching. If you are heavy into adwords marketing, then data about adwords campaigns and competitors becomes more important. If you are building websites and blogs or if you are creating a social media campaign, the search and domain rank data is more important. Let’s look at each type of data and the kinds of data elements comprised in each category.
1) Related keywords and basic search data. Given a seed term, additional keywords are fetched along with associated standard search data; broad match cost, broad match paid traffic, natural traffic, competing pages.
1a) Not so standard search data. Then there is the more obtuse data; frequency of use by competing websites, phrase match paid cost and traffic, competing page data from multiple search engines, along with other variations of the standard search data.
It’s very useful to give some kind of index of the relevance of the keywords returned compared against the seed term. Many tools have this today, though Theme Zoom was one of the first with our TRI algorithm. Additionally an initial presorting of the keyword list either based on source or relevance is sometimes offered so you are not looking at a random bunch of terms.
In Krakken’s VOMA module the keyword list is filtered heavily so that only markets and market segments of the seed term are returned. Keywords which have few competing pages, very little traffic or no cost are filtered out because we require the keyword meet the definition of “market” or “market segment”. This is why Krakken cannot be classed as a “keyword research tool”. It is a market analysis and market research tool.
Further, Krakken’s Blueprint module filters heavily on theme relevance so that you only get keywords which will clearly support the themes of your silos and articles.
By contrast, the Last Keyword Tool returns all keywords found.
2) Pay per click ad data. This is information about the paid ads that are run for this keyword; long running ad text, quantity of ads (because of day parting this is impossible to do properly, and can be used as an indicator only), data from the landing page for ads, and estimated ad spend are the data types most commonly collected.
3) Domain Rank info for keywords. This kind of data consists of listing the top ranking domains, occasionally with the provision to specify additional domains. Data for these domains usually includes; page rank, inbound links, pages indexed on site, age of domain, etc.
Less common factors include; deep links to site vs. index page, important inbound links from .gov, .edu, wikipedia, etc.
3a) There are two additional types of data for ranked domains:
1. On page factors for top ranked pages; keyword in title tag, keyword tag, h tag, keyword in italics, alt text, bold, anchor text, multi-media, keyword density, etc. (this list can be huge because different search engines target different factors)
2. Off page factors for top ranked pages (i.e. inbound link originating page info) page rank, keyword in title, keyword in anchor text, number of outbound links on page, date of last update
4) Commercial intent. This idea has gotten a lot of press, especially since Microsoft introduced the idea in their suit of data a year ago or so. We looked at including their data into our tools, but it didn’t seem very consistent. We then approached the idea of creating that reference ourselves, and as we took a hard look at what data aspects could consistently indicate commercial intent, we found that the idea is actually bogus. Sheri Thurow does a great job of explaining why this is topic is a slippery slope, so I don’t have to go into another entire blog post in the middle of this one.
The Tao of Keyword Data:
Finally we get to what I consider to be the heart of a keyword tool. I had to resist the desire to bold and italicize this entire section.
You see, it’s not in the aggregation of raw data listed above that a keyword tool proves its usefulness, but rather in the analysis or how the tool presents the data to be analyzed that a keyword tool succeeds or fails.
Because information that is not easily comprehensible is useless. For data to be useful, it must have meaning and you must know what action is appropriate to take.
A keyword tool can give you all the data in the e-sphere and still not be the least bit helpful. Because without a map as to how to interpret that data, to give it meaning and make it actionable, you might as well not have the data at all.
It is because of this that we created The LAST Keyword Tool, and it is here that all of our tools really shine. They allow you to analyze the data from any perspective you like, be it market analysis, keyword analysis, competitive analysis and more, giving you not only a unique perspective of your data within the keyword market, but because with the user definable filters and columns in the Last Keyword Tool you can actually specify the way you view the data, it is a personalized perspective that will allow you to find your perfect themes and keywords specific for your USP and for your market.
Sue and the Theme Zoom Team
Theme Zoom Krakken is an integrated application suite that radically combines Market Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Keyword DNA Creation, Automated Silo Structured Blueprint and Website Development.
For more information about The Last Keyword Tool visit Theme Zoom.
Written by Theme Zoom Architect Sue Bell.
