Wordtracker Keyword Tool Review
http://www.keywordworkshop.com/articles/51/1/Wordtracker-Keyword-Tool-Review
Craig Cahill
The newest recruit to the Marketing Fanatics Team, Craig is a diverse "online guy" with background in design & code, copywriting, advertising and SEO. By Craig Cahill
Published on 03/4/2008
Wordtracker is a paid keyword research tool that has stood the test of time. With new and free keyword tools lauching online every second week, I decided to log in to Wordtracker and re-review its service. Is it still worth paying for?
Wordtracker Keyword Tool Review
I’m out of the office today but still working - doing some basic keyword research to help boost search engine traffic on a new website. So without the trusty arsenal of keyword tools on my work computer, I need an online research tool.
Knowing how many keyword gurus swear by Wordtracker (including my boss Jay Stockwell), I thought I'd login and remind myself exactly why they do. I know Jay’s reviewed this tool before, but Wordtracker wouldn’t be a crowd favorite without continued improvements and updates. Let’s have a look.
Wordtracker has been time-tested since 1997, so it’s one of the original keyword research tools. It’s web-based too, so you can access it from any computer at any time. As a paid subscription it’s not “cheap”, but it is really powerful. They offer yearly, monthly and weekly subscriptions, so you can test it for a month and make up your own mind.
The main tools inside Wordtracker are Keyword Universe and Keyword Researcher. These two extract, expand, predict and compare keywords. And there are a few extra tools like Reports and Projects that help to organize and save your working data.
Keyword Universe
If you’re starting fresh and need to generate keyword lists or research a marketplace, Keyword Universe is your tool. If you’re anything like me, opening it for the very first time may startle you (split-screen, scrolling windows aren’t exactly the norm). But it does create a space-saving, single-page working environment that becomes second nature quickly.
On the left is the Related Keywords tool with lateral and thesaurus options. This tool generates lists of phrases and keywords that are similar to your own keyword. My keyword is “payday loans”, so I:
Wordtracker does the rest by extracting other keywords from the websites that rank highest for “payday loans”. 60 seconds later I have a 300-word list of keywords in the left window pane. It’s that simple.
So now I can use Wordtracker’s massive database (of over 300 million searches) to determine exactly which phrases are most popular for my keyword. This is also where the logic of the split-screen display becomes apparent.
My related keyword list includes the terms:
Some of the keyword variations include:
Using the volume and predicted search data (plus my own nouce) I can now determine the most suitable phrases. The data is so important in this case where “loan till payday” and “loan til payday” are so similar by definition, but so different by search popularity (returning 33 and 15 search queries respectively). Both phrases use shortened versions of the word “until”, but “loan until payday” isn’t even popular enough to appear in this top 300 list. And this is exactly why keyword research is so important - you find out exactly which phrases people are typing into search engines instead of relying on guesswork.
I can dig deeper into each phrase here using the “dig” button. But I’m done, so I’ll now email, export or compare the competition of my keywords. I want to check how competitive these keywords are in Google and MSN, so it’s time for a Competition Search:
One database query later I have KEI and competition values to further refine my keyword choices. I have a good idea now which phrases are worth targeting for specific search engine traffic, so I can email these results for future reference.
Keyword Researcher
For a little cross-tool checking, I'll now run my keywords through Wordtracker's Keyword Researcher tool. This tool is less a generator, and more a researcher – so when you already have keyword lists, it’s the tool to use.
I manually add “loan until payday” to check its value against the shortened variations. I can see it has only 8 search queries. “Information is power” they say, and all the information you can squeeze out of a keyword research tool helps make more informed keyword decisions.
Summary
It doesn’t take long to appreciate Wordtracker as a quality keyword research tool.
Strengths: It's very easy to use and and accessable from any computer. Wordtracker uses a unique dataset and has excellent lateral search ability.
Need Improving: The control panel, main menu and Keyword Discovery tool all need a fresh coat of paint (and code) to look as good as the Keyword Research tool does. Data management needs to be easier.
Overall: I easily see past the ancient interface and the subscription cost when a tool saves time and makes money. And Wordtracker offer a 100% money-back guarantee, so they’re sure of their worth. For $30 you can test the full version with a 1 week subscription. Give it a try.
Knowing how many keyword gurus swear by Wordtracker (including my boss Jay Stockwell), I thought I'd login and remind myself exactly why they do. I know Jay’s reviewed this tool before, but Wordtracker wouldn’t be a crowd favorite without continued improvements and updates. Let’s have a look.
Wordtracker has been time-tested since 1997, so it’s one of the original keyword research tools. It’s web-based too, so you can access it from any computer at any time. As a paid subscription it’s not “cheap”, but it is really powerful. They offer yearly, monthly and weekly subscriptions, so you can test it for a month and make up your own mind.
The main tools inside Wordtracker are Keyword Universe and Keyword Researcher. These two extract, expand, predict and compare keywords. And there are a few extra tools like Reports and Projects that help to organize and save your working data.
Keyword Universe
If you’re starting fresh and need to generate keyword lists or research a marketplace, Keyword Universe is your tool. If you’re anything like me, opening it for the very first time may startle you (split-screen, scrolling windows aren’t exactly the norm). But it does create a space-saving, single-page working environment that becomes second nature quickly.
On the left is the Related Keywords tool with lateral and thesaurus options. This tool generates lists of phrases and keywords that are similar to your own keyword. My keyword is “payday loans”, so I:
- type “payday loans” into the search box
- select the lateral and thesaurus options
- click the “proceed” button
Wordtracker does the rest by extracting other keywords from the websites that rank highest for “payday loans”. 60 seconds later I have a 300-word list of keywords in the left window pane. It’s that simple.
So now I can use Wordtracker’s massive database (of over 300 million searches) to determine exactly which phrases are most popular for my keyword. This is also where the logic of the split-screen display becomes apparent.
My related keyword list includes the terms:
- payday loan
- cash advance
- pay day loan
Some of the keyword variations include:
- 1000 loan payday
- faxless payday loans
- payday and loan
- payday loans online
Using the volume and predicted search data (plus my own nouce) I can now determine the most suitable phrases. The data is so important in this case where “loan till payday” and “loan til payday” are so similar by definition, but so different by search popularity (returning 33 and 15 search queries respectively). Both phrases use shortened versions of the word “until”, but “loan until payday” isn’t even popular enough to appear in this top 300 list. And this is exactly why keyword research is so important - you find out exactly which phrases people are typing into search engines instead of relying on guesswork.
I can dig deeper into each phrase here using the “dig” button. But I’m done, so I’ll now email, export or compare the competition of my keywords. I want to check how competitive these keywords are in Google and MSN, so it’s time for a Competition Search:
- click the “competition search” button
- select the engines or directories to search
- click “proceed”
One database query later I have KEI and competition values to further refine my keyword choices. I have a good idea now which phrases are worth targeting for specific search engine traffic, so I can email these results for future reference.
Keyword Researcher
For a little cross-tool checking, I'll now run my keywords through Wordtracker's Keyword Researcher tool. This tool is less a generator, and more a researcher – so when you already have keyword lists, it’s the tool to use.
I manually add “loan until payday” to check its value against the shortened variations. I can see it has only 8 search queries. “Information is power” they say, and all the information you can squeeze out of a keyword research tool helps make more informed keyword decisions.
Summary
It doesn’t take long to appreciate Wordtracker as a quality keyword research tool.
Strengths: It's very easy to use and and accessable from any computer. Wordtracker uses a unique dataset and has excellent lateral search ability.
Need Improving: The control panel, main menu and Keyword Discovery tool all need a fresh coat of paint (and code) to look as good as the Keyword Research tool does. Data management needs to be easier.
Overall: I easily see past the ancient interface and the subscription cost when a tool saves time and makes money. And Wordtracker offer a 100% money-back guarantee, so they’re sure of their worth. For $30 you can test the full version with a 1 week subscription. Give it a try.