1. Free Wordtracker Daily demand from Wordtracker, see the bottom of their page on how to install their search box into your IE7 or Firefox 2 browser - very useful.
Generate related keywords and synonyms for a word or phrase
Check the "Website Content" button and add a URL of competitor sites or great content sites/pages relating to your topic (see below) to grab more ideas
3. SearchIt! Search for keyword demand, competition, content, blog and forum searches and more.
4. SEO Book Plug in a keyword and find Wordtracker results, Yahoo! Suggest, blog searches, tags, local results plus many other ways of checking out your keywords.
5. NicheBOT Classic Keyword counts and predicted daily searches as well as drilldowns for blogs, videos, synonyms, Answers and more.
Most of the following free keyword research tools help you flesh out more keywords for a topic you're writing about, by providing suggestions, narrower or wider search terms to try - giving you more ideas for keywords.
6. Google Suggest A simple keyword generation tool to play around with.
7. Ask Search for a topic, then narrow or expand your search according to Ask's suggestions. Related blogs and articles - as a plus, you can view thumbnails of the results pages, as well as Compete.com's traffic statistics (rough estimates.)
8. Yahoo! Similar to Google Suggest, type in a search term and Yahoo!'s "Search Assist" can help you view related keywords and concepts.
9. Exalead Narrow search suggestions, plus blog or forum or media search options, as well as Directory results from DMOZ.
10. Clusty If you're searching a broad keyword such as "games", try finding "more" clusters or "all clusters" ... to find topics that can generate ideas for keywords.
11. Quintura This goes well with a nice cup of tea. It's a good idea for you to enter your own specific search terms into the box here to find ideas about topics and keywords you may not have thought of.
12. SEO Chat keyword cloud Copy and paste the URL of a great content page covering your topic to see keywords in cloud format.
13. Google Sets Find related keyword ideas by entering a few items yourself, and letting Google come up with more ideas. For example - diaper, cake, favors resulted in a good list of other topics to think about researching for a baby shower party.
14. Dictionary.com Use the Dictionary, Thesaurus or other options to find synonyms and antonyms to generate new keywords, articles and idea-sparkers.
15. Trendwatching Tips This set of trend spotting tips from Trendwatching provides fascinating insights, resource links and ideas that may fundamentally change the way you look at finding keywords to attract traffic.
17. Google Hot Trends Hot trends from Google tells you what's hot every hour of the day. "Surge" search terms that deviate the most from the historical norm find their way into this list.
People in the news figure prominently, of course, and what's hot - or "volcanic" - right now can be as cold as school custard an hour later - but used carefully and quickly, a great tool.
G=Google Search, I=Image Search, N=News Search, click keyword for specific trend/peak info:
18. Google News Browse business, sci/tech, entertainment, sports, health - and most popular stories to find current topics of interest for your market.
19. Google Adwords Keyword Tool Featured in idea No.2 above, also provides trends for keywords.
20. Wikipedia 2008 How can you exploit the fact that 2008 is the Year of the Potato? Browse events by month or topic. Or start planning for 2009 (July 22nd 2009 will see the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century the 31st December 2009 will be the last day of the 2000s decade...)
21. Subscribe to relevant newsletters - to find out about what's coming up, what's going out, people moves, and how your part of the web/industry/niche universe is changing.
22. Yahoo! Buzz Index Find out what's hot from Yahoo! Check out top music, sport, TV or video game searches, for example, or browse the "decliners" - topics currently on their way out.
23. Ask Hot Searches Ask's top searches and top advancing searches, news stories and movies.
24. AOL Hot Searches AOL's hottest, accompanied by some interesting articles.
25. Twing Search forums and online communities for up to the minute discussion
31. Digg Most recent popular stories:32. Amazon Movers and Shakers - determined by sales rank. Also check out the bestsellers, hot new releases and most wished for to hone in on hot product keyword opportunities.
33. Epinions Check out the Top 10 lists on the home page to find out what's hot in major product categories. The Top 10 GPS devices yielded well over 200 reviews, full of phrases and descriptions real customers are using and which you can research further as possible keywords. Refine any category listing into price, brands, genres etc to glean yet more keyword and content ideas.
34. eBay Popular Keywords The most active keywords on eBay - listing, product and category keywords. Or try...
35. eBay Pulse Daily trends and hot picks. The full pulse for all categories - and a ton of great keyword inspiration - in the Pulse index - which starts you off in Antiques.
Within your category, click a product to find searches - possible keywords for you - used to find that product.
More keyword inspiration from eBay in the next section:
36. eBay Listings This one provides fab topical keywords. For example, the crafts section leads to kids crafts, with sub-categories of beads, books, foam, paint sets etc - along with related guides which can give you yet more ideas of topics to brainstorm using these keyword research tools.
37. Ezine Articles Site Map The category listings provide a wealth of ideas for topics for further keyword research.
Articles about Camping from the Travel-and-Leisure category focus on campfires, food safety and bears, backpack purses, kids sleeping bags, camping gear etc etc - and many of these articles have been written around carefully researched keywords in the first place.
On the following five sites you can search for good content pages on specific topics.
Run those pages through the Adwords Keyword Tool - copy and paste the URL into the box and check the "Website Content" button, and the "Include other pages in my site" button. Alternatively, paste the URL into the SEO Chat Keyword Cloud tool in No.13 to find associated keywords.
38. Wikipedia Choose your language version, search for a page on a specific topic, then be sure to tailor your Adwords search to the relevant language and country.
39. About.com As well as articles, you can surf to your related area of interest eg food and drink - then onto vegetarian, narrow down to breakfast recipes and gather keyword ideas.
43. Yahoo! Answers Good resource to find "question" keywords (as well as the How Stuff Works site in No. 40 above) - how-tos and how-manys, wheres, whys, whos and whens.
44. Amazon Books Search Inside This feature allows you to pick up topic and keyword ideas from the list of contents and indexes of selected books from Amazon.
There's a similar feature at...
45. Google Book Search Search for a topic, then refine if you wish to find books with "full view" or "limited view."
46. Check your own site's traffic stats/logs What keywords did people use to find your site? Are you optimizing for useful keywords? Alternative sources of finding keyword activity for your site can be accessed by incorporating free traffic stat tools such as:
50. Got a site search engine? Using a search engine on your site can show you exactly what people are searching for within your site or elsewhere on the web.
51. Use visitor feedback - run a survey Providing a free ebook download or some other incentive, ask your visitors about their favorite video games, exercise equipment, or top tips. You may find your visitors give you ideas for new topics or pages, as well as keyword phrases for you to work with.
52. Simple search and surf Search for a keyword phrase in quotes on Google. Surf the top ten sites and note down keyword topics, phrases and ideas that strike you.
53. Pay attention to ads Look at the ads that appear on your page results from Google above. Could you be writing content about the products/services being offered?
54. Get offline and go to your local library There's something about being out of the house that can turn your brain into an effective keyword generator. Check out books related to your topic, their contents and indexes, and start another keyword journey. (If you're superglued to your computer, try tip No. 44 above.)
55. Browse news stands - for topic related magazines for latest news and reports about your area of interest. You'll often find snippets of info with fresh angles on a dusty old theme.
