Keyword Research 4: Market Samurai takes researching keywords to the next level

In my previous articles (see links below) I took you through the steps I use to research keywords, analyse the results and how to place your keywords in your content to the best effect. You can make great use of the free Google Keyword Research tool, but for anyone wanting to take their keyword research to the next level, then I can recommend Market Samurai.

Using a link to the Google keyword research tool, not only will Market Samurai help you identify strong keywords, but the data it makes available will help you identify where potentially you could rank higher than what appears to be your strongest competion.

Market Samurai is free to try out and even if you do not want to buy the full version when the trial is over, you will still be left with an awesome keyword research tool, with the option to upgrade at a later date.

The first thing you learn about researching keywords is that powerful keywords are not just those that have high search volume. They are also words and phrases that have low competition - a relatively low number of pages that use those particular keywords.

Market Samurai applies what the developers refer to as The Four Golden Rules of Keyword Research. These are:

Relevance
You have to be able to filter out irrelevant keywords and tightly focus on those that are relevant to your content

Traffic
You are looking for keywords that have a high search volume

Competition
Forget about the high competition keywords. Market Samuarai will tell you what the low competition keyphrases are, but you may be surprised where you can compete

Commerciality
You can also find the highest paying keywords if you are writing to attract high paying Google Adsense ads

In addition to the Keyword Finder, Market Samurai also includes the following tools:

SEO Competition; Monetization; Find Content; Publish Content; Promotion; Rank Tracker.

Planned for release: AdWords

The Market Samurai SEO Competition Checking Tool gives an in-depth analysis of the top ranking sites for the keywords you are researching and considering targetting.

As I have already stated, you are looking for a keyword by checking how many people are searching for a phrase and how many pages will compete with your content for that phrase. It is simple enough to analyse whether or not you should bother and I outline how I do it on Keyword Research 2: How to do Keyword Research.

However, if you were to have even more information about the highest ranking pages for that keyword, you may be surprised to learn that you may be able to beat what appears to be tough competition. This is what the Market Samurai SEO Competition Checker does - it gives you that priceless data.

The competition checker helps you decide whether or not you can compete by looking at whether the sites are properly optimized for their best keyword. It's amazing how many "authority" sites have little knowledge of SEO and as a result, fail to use their keywords properly.