Internet Marketing ABC

Wordtracker has put out a new (free) keyword research tool which is currently in beta. It’s the “Keyword questions” tool, and I like it A LOT.

You type in any keyword… and it spits out a list of questions people ask about this particular keyword.

Great!

For example, I just typed in internet marketing, see the list of questions it spit out:

This can be a really great way to shortcut your niche marketing research and “get into the prospects head”. One of the most important things that you need to know about in any market is what questions people have, what information they are looking for. This tool makes it so easy to get a feel for different niche markets with the click of a mousebutton.

Really, really awesome.

Here’s how wordtracker itself describes the new tool:

People often type questions into search engines. Now you can find these questions, answer them and get some great search traffic. You’ll be targeting long tail keywords and providing content that readers want to read and link to. Also try the keyword tool the professional SEO uses. Enter a single or a short keyword to find the questions people are asking in your market (examples: business, diet, car, organic, climate change, obama, mccain).

Keyword Questions, like the new Wordtracker keyword tool, now uses one year’s worth of search data.

When you do your keyword research, one of the most important things that you want to figure out is: is this a keyword that will just drive traffic to my site, or is this a keyword that will convert?

Too many people optimize for the wrong kinds of keywords. And they end up with lots of freebie traffic – people who are “just looking”, window-shoppers.

This can be really frustrating, because whether you use SEO or PPC – generating traffic takes time and effort, and if all that time and effort doesn’t translate into results (money or opt-ins), then that’s frustrating.

Microsoft offers a free commercial intent tool that can help you to figure out: is this a “buying phrase” or is this a “browsing phrase”. Microsoft terms them informational or transactional – meaning, one keyword is a keyword that people use when they look for information and another keyword is a keyword that people use when they want to buy something.

Always aim at transactional keywords – but of course, this free keyword research tool from Microsoft isn’t fail-proof. You still gotta use your brains. But it’s a pretty damn good tool that I always use before I get ready to generate traffic for certain keywords.

Further Reading:

• Targeting Transactional Keywords
• Finding Transactional Keywords