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Rochelle
In this post I am going to compare three methods for doing keyword research. I am also going to be upfront about why I am writing this post, which will be explained in just a bit.
Some time ago I purchase Micro Niche Finder. I used it for a while, then forgot about it. Shortly after that, I signed up for an account with WordTracker, and that is where I have been doing my keyword research.
Two things have recently happened that prompted this post:
1) MicroNiche Finder is running a contest where the creator is asking people to submit videos, PDFs, etc. of how they use Micro Niche Finder to earn money or research keywords. I passed the first three e-mails or so that I received about this. The one I got today, though, motivated me to actually submit an entry (the creator upped the anty by offering some really niche freebies to everyone who enters).
2) My subscription to WordTracker is soon to expire.
If my subscription to WordTracker wasn’t about to expire, I might have deleted the most recent e-mail about the contest, as I did with the others. But I started to wonder if there is actual value in Micro Niche Finder.
So, here is the truth about why I am writing this post. I decided to see how Micro Niche Finder compares to WordTracker. I am going to conduct an unbiased test on these two keyword research methods, and I will submit this post as my entry. I will be completely honest about my results and my ultimate opinion about both methods. In other words, I am not going to fawn all over Micro Niche Finder just to make the author of the program like my entry. I don’t really care if I win. I am genuinly curious about how this will shake out.
Without further ado, onto my testing.
I have a niche store that is all about pin cushions (or pincushions - ha! I just snuck two different keyword phrases in here! - That’s exactly the kind of research you need to know about with your own niche stores.). I’ll use this keyword research test to look for additional types of pin cushions that people are searching for. My site is only pin cushions that are sold on eBay, not pincushion patterns, history of pincushions, etc. All I want to know is if there are any pin cushions that people are looking for that I should add to my site.
Micro Niche Finder vs. WordTracker vs. Google Keyword Tool |
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Micro Niche Finder
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| Up first is Micro Niche Finder (aka MNF). I will start by entering the phrase "pin cushion" into the software and see what I get. | |
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MNF returned a total of 26 results for "pin cushion," as seen here: |
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| There are a few results that have to do with specific types of pin cushions, which would be helpful to me regarding my niche store. The rest of the results don’t interest me (at least not now), as I don’t have any pages that deal with those phrases. | |
| You may notice that there are several keyword phrases relating to the term "pin cushion," but not much more information. I can easily get that information by clicking on the keywords that interest me, then asking MNF to find that information for me (ok, it’s not really asking, but pressing a button). In this case, I would like more information about how often some of the returned phrases are searched for. After I pressed the button, MNF let me decide which results to ignore, such as adult content: | |
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| So, now I have search counts for my selected phrases. I see that those phrases are being searched for, but I’d really like to know if those exact phrases are being search for. Now, I will have MNF look up how often my selected phrases are being searched for, exactly as they appear: | |
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| Last, I would like to get a feel for the competition that may exist for these keyword phrases. So, I will have MNF search the Strength of Competition (or, SOC) column (each time I have MNF do a search, it kindly reminds me that if I do too many searches that Google may temporarily ban me): | |
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| I have now completed my research in Micro Niche Finder, and it took me less than five minutes. It was pretty easy, though there was a bit of selecting and clicking required on my part. I think, though, that MNF does not automatically return every aspect of every search as a courtesy to Google. If correct, I appreciate this act of kindness. | |
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Potential keywords found: pincushion plant, pin cushion queen, pincushion urchin, pincushion man, and pincushion hakea. That’s a total of five possible new pages for my niche store. |
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| I’ll admit that some of these may not be actual pin cushions (I have no idea what a pincushion hakea) is, but I’ll skip that aspect of my research, as I can do that another day. My focus right now is strictly to test these three tools. | |
| WordTracker | |
| WordTracker (WT) is a bit trickier to use. There are many keyword research options (there are, in fact, four options!): | |
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| To be honest, I have not used all five of WT’s keyword research methods. I usually use Keyword Universe: Research. Since this is what I usually use, that is what I will use for this test. My apologies to any WT aficionados who know a better choice. Like I said above, I’m not trying to skew the results, so I’m sticking with what I know. | |
| As with MNF, WT offers me the option of removing certain results from my search. In fact, the filtering options for MNF are identical to WT. Here is where I entered my keyword phrase of "pin cushion." Note that WT is asking if I would like lateral terms and Thesarus terms included in my results. That sounds good, I’ll take them: | |
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| WT came up with a whopping 300 results! Wow! But, wait. Before I get too enthusiastic about that, it seems that almost none of the results have anything to do with pin cushions: | |
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| Hmmm. Only two of the 300 terms displayed are pin cushion terms. It might seem as though I did something wrong. No, not exactly. WT was simply coming up with terms, or activities, related to pin cushions that might be of interest to me. I am left to wonder, though, how the term "Marlboro" relates to pin cushions (yes, that was result #37)… | |
| What I need to do now is click on any of the 300 terms and look to the column on the right. This will show me what I want to know. In this case, I clicked on "pin cushion" and WT then showed me 50 keyword phrases for "pin cushion." These results came from Dogpile and Metacrawler queries, not Google: | |
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| There are definitely some good keyword results here, but not many that are specific to types of pin cushions, which is what my site is about. This is similar to the results I got from MNF. | |
| WT is not finished with keyword research. I can click on the little shovel (under the "dig" column) to go deeper into results for that specific keyword. But this doesn’t always do anything. In this case, if I click on the shovel for the term "pin cushion" I get the same exact results. So I would need to choose a different word to get more results. | |
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Just out of curiousity, I clicked on "pin cushions" (plural) to see the results for that term. Here is what I got: |
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| This provides me with some excellent longtail keywords (keywords with many words), but very little about specific pin cushion types. If I wanted to add content to my pin cushion niche store, then this would be good, but it really doesn’t help me for my current goal of finding keywords for pin cushion types. So, on to the third keyword research tool. | |
| Honestly, I’m not really sure what would be a good keyword phrase for me to focus on. Like I said, there are great keyword phrases here, but not really any for my needs, which are admittedly narrow (it is, after all, a niche store). | |
| Potential keywords found: cupcake pin cushion, pewter pin cushion, flower wrist pin cushion, and wool cupcake pin cushions. That’s a total of four potential new pages for my niche store. | |
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Well, that was interesting. Between the two methods I have found nine potential new pages to add to my niche store. None of the results overlap, meaning, I didn’t get the same results with either method.
Ultimately, I think both methods are good. There is no doubt that WordTracker has an excellent reputation as a keyword research tool, but its price is pretty steep. Micro Niche Finder, in my opionion, provided equally good results (at least, from this test), and was easier for me to use. While the purpose of this post is not to endorse one product over the other, if you want to conduct keyword research (which you should be doing, regardless of the tool used to do the research!), then you might want to consider Micro Niche Finder, as the price is much easier to swallow.
Rochelle
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Nice article.
Thanks for sharing.
One of the best things about Wordtracker is it’s ability to do right and left hand word stemming. Done properly, you can sort through all of their best keyword phrases in seconds.
Another tip when doing this is to watch for user behavioral trends or phrases that tell a story.
Micro Niche Finder is also a nice tool for keyword research. Although Wordtracker is superior for performing Keyword Forensics on behavior.
The last tool that I highly recommend for extreme accuracy is a new tool that few people have heard of. It is called SEO Sniper and it actually is quite amazing because it uses an even better KEI equation on actual Google search data rather than Meta crawlers. It also measures several other on-page criteria and assigns a difficulty score to each phrase so you know exactly how tough or how easy it is to compete based on all of these factors.
http://www.SEO-Sniper.com
Also here is an article I wrote not long ago comparing Keyword Discovery to Wordtracker with a benefit matrix.
http://www.searchengineworksho.....overy.html
Thanks for posting and highest regards
John Alexander
Director of Search Engine Academy
Author of Keyword Forensics for SEO
http://www.wordtracker-magic.com
Rochelle,
This was very helpful to me. I have micro niche finder and I had a trial subscription to Wordtracker, so I have used it some. I feel the same way you do about MNF. It is fast and easy. Wordtracker may offer a deeper dig though.
I purchased Market Samurai during the 30 Day Challenge for a pre-release rock bottom price. So far, it is my favorite for keyword research. Besides being easy and thorough for Keyword search, it includes info such as the top sites for a particular keyword (phrase) and factors about those top sites such as backlinks, rating on Alexa, anchor links, so you can see exactly who your competition is and how strong they are. Like MNF, MS connects you to content that you can rewrite for your site. Also, you pay one purchase price (no monthly fee) and all the upgrades are included. This is like MNF, but not like Wordtracker which you have to continue to pay for.
There is no doubt that you can get some deep digs with WordTracker. I liked using WT, but it could also be confusing at times. I like something that makes sense to me without my having to read the manual. WT requires “reading the manual.”
Rochelle
Thanks for the review Rochelle!
I’ve been using Wordtracker for several months now and have been pleased. But I’m always curious to learn of other tools too.
Jamie
It always pays to have an assortment of tools to rely on, I agree. I never get tired of testing things. I also agree with Rochelle, that simplicity is always best.
If you are interested in learning about an alternative tool that is now available, it allows you to:
-research actual Google data using an improved KEI score
plus it measures many of the on page factors like
–H1
–link text
–body text
–keyword density
–keyword prominence
–plus the timing and magnitude of traffic spikes.
It then assigns a difficulty score so you know exactly how hard or easy the optimization will be based on all these factors. Most people have not seen this tool because it is so new. I’ve just posted a short bit about the tool on the http://www.KEIobservationDeck.com
The search engines love simplicity and so do I. I also love the element of greater accuracy, which in the long run is very beneficial.
Highest regards and keep up the great blog posts.
John