Using WordTracker

Before you use WordTracker, you should first brainstorm and make a list of all possible words and phrases that you think a customer may use to find those products, services, or information that you are offering on your site. Don’t include industry jargon, acronyms, or buzzwords that only experts in your industry or marketers would know. Think like your customer. This is an important distinction to keep in mind.

WordTracker offers both a free trial version and a paid (full) version. You will need to sign up for the full version of WordTracker to be able to find search terms that people have searched for using Google. The free trial of WordTracker only allows you to find keywords people have searched for using the AltaVista search engine.

WordTracker is quite inexpensive to use, and there simply is no better way to research the best keywords to use for your website. In fact, you can use it to estimate beforehand how much traffic you can potentially expect to receive so it is an invaluable tool for general business research as well.

You should first use the trial version to learn how to use WordTracker effectively. Go through the Online Tour and read through the online manual. This is time well spent!

Here are a couple of screenshots in WordTracker to aid in following the procedure:

Because some people may find WordTracker a little tricky to use at first, here is the actual step-by-step procedure for using this tool:

Using WordTracker step-by-step

1. After signing up for the full version, click Login from the home page.

2. Under Keyword Universe, click Here.

3. Under Step 2, type in what you think is your best phrase overall, and then click Proceed. Leave all other settings as is.

4. On the left pane, scroll down to see the list of related synonyms that WordTracker has returned. You will likely find terms and phrases that you may not have thought of. Jot down the most interesting ones - you will want to add these later on.

5. Click the first phrase in the list (the one you entered in Step

6. In the right-hand pane, you will see a list of related phrases. Click on those that you believe are the best. They are then added to your “cart”.

These are the actual search phrases that people have been entered into search engines over the last 60 days, along with how many times each was used.

7. Go back to the left pane and repeat steps 4 through 6, adding as many phrases as you feel are needed. These phrases will be analyzed later on by WordTracker.

Tip: You can also import keywords into WordTracker that you have in a .txt file. Copy and paste your keywords into the Use your own box in the right pane and then click Go. Each keyword must be on a separate line.

Alternatively, you can also import keywords into an unused project from the Projects link on their home page.

8. When finished, click Click here for step 3.

9. Under Step 3, look at those terms at the bottom of the list that have very low numbers in the Count column, as compared to the terms at the top. Click Delete for each low-count term you want to remove, and then click Competition Search.

10. Under Step 4, select the Google check box, and then click Proceed. WordTracker will now analyze these terms to see how many times they were entered during search requests using Google.

11. When WordTracker is finished, scroll down the page and study the list, paying particular attention to the KEI Analysis column. KEI is very important – a high value represents those keywords that are most popular in Google AND that are used on the least number of other websites. Put another way, you want to look at those keywords that have the highest number in the Count column and the lowest numbers in the Competing column.

You can have the best keyword phrase on the Internet, but if 10 million other websites also use the phrase, your chances of getting a top ranking are greatly diminished. You want to find those niches where people are searching for a phrase, but where there aren’t a lot of websites that you would have to compete with for traffic.

12. Write down those phrases with the highest KEI value. These are terms that are the most popular and are found on the least number of competing Web pages.

13. Write down those phrases that also have high Count values, regardless of KEI value. Using KEI alone can be misleading. While you do want to pick out phrases with high KEI values, you specifically want those that have a KEI value AND have high traffic. Using terms with very high KEI values but with low Count values, which results when there are virtually no competing pages, will not be that productive.

14. From these two lists, select those phrases you feel are most relevant and important to your website.

15. When done, pick 2 or 3 of the more broad-based phrases – these will be used on your home page. Next, pick several more specific phrases that can be used on your product or service pages.

WordTracker allows you to export your keyword list and your Competition Search results (in tab-delimited format) to Excel or Access, where you can then easily sort (and resort) the data any number of different ways. This is a useful feature and I highly encourage you to do this. This is also great if you have more than 7 projects, the maximum you can store with Wordtracker. This way you can export and store your projects offline. If you want to rerun WordTracker against a set of keywords that you exported, simply pick a “reserved” project on WordTracker, import your keywords into the Use your own box (mentioned in Step 7), and rerun.

Tip: Pay special attention to whether the plural form or the singular form of a keyword phrase has a higher KEI rating or higher traffic. This is important as one form of your word will be more important than another.