Advanced Keyword Tools

The Google Keywords tool is a great place for you to start looking for keywords, but
when you need professional-grade keyword research you should consider a more
advanced tool like WordTracker www.wordtracker.com.
With WordTracker you can setup “Keyword Projects” that allow you to create, manage
and save multiple keyword lists. You can also perform more advanced and refined
keyword searches.

For example, WordTracker has a wildcard search, which is helpful for finding misspelled
keywords and plurals. WordTracker also has advanced syntax options that help you find
the exact keyword, or show you phrases that include the keyword.
WordTracker provides search volume estimates for keyword results, but I’ve found that
these estimates are sometimes very inaccurate. The best way for you to predict search
volume is to use the Keywords Traffic Estimator in Google AdWords. You can learn how
to use this tool by visiting:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6270

Yahoo Search Marketing also has a keyword volume estimator, but they’ve announced
plans to retire this tool in the near future. As of this writing the Keyword Selector Tool is
still live, but may not be by the time you read this:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Ask Your Merchant Partners for a Keyword List

Affiliate managers want their affiliates to succeed and will often provide their trusted
partners with additional resources like keyword lists, unique creatives, and customized
landing pages. Take advantage of this partnership and reach out to your affiliate manager
through e-mail or over the phone. If you build a good rapport with your affiliate manager
it opens the doors to new opportunities and information.

Check out Your Competition

One of the best places to find inspiration for new keywords is your competition. Your
competitors aren't very likely to hand over their keyword list, but with a little competitive
intelligence, you may be able to uncover some of their keyword gems.
A few years back, many webmasters used the Keywords Meta tag to help them rank in
the search engines. The Keywords Meta tag can be found in the underlying source code
of many web pages. In the early days of search, the Keywords Meta tag was used to help
the search engines know what a web page was about. Webmasters would stuff their
keywords into the Keywords Meta tag, hoping to somehow influence the search engines.
Modern day search engines no longer rely on the Keywords Meta tag, instead they rely
on the actual web page content. The Keywords Meta tag is essentially useless, but many
webmasters still use this tag to try and optimize their web pages for the search engines.
Website owners, who are a step ahead of the competition, can use this to their advantage.
You can check and see if your competition is using the Keywords Meta tag by viewing
their web page source code.

If you're not familiar with HTML, I recommend using the free Keyword Research Tool
http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/tools/keyword_tool.php , by Apogee Web
Consulting. Simply type in your competitor's URL, and if they are using the Keywords
Meta tag, a list of their keywords will be returned.

If you're already familiar with HTML, simply view the source code of the web page, and
search for the tag that looks like this: meta name="keywords". If they are using the
Keywords Meta tag, you will be able to view their keywords.

Your savvy competitors will probably know that the Keywords Meta tag is pointless, and
will not use it on their web pages. Your less savvy competitors will stuff their most
important keywords into this tag, in an unsuccessful attempt to influence search engine
rankings. Take advantage of these less savvy competitors by gleaning potential keywords