Anyone who has logged into Wordtracker's Keywords tool in the last few days will have noticed some significant changes. This may come as a bit of a surprise to those who are accustomed to the older Keywords tool, so let's take a look at what's changed (and what hasn't).
In introducing the new Keywords tool, we've developed a more helpful and flexible system to find, target and manage keywords, as well as some other features to assist the working SEO in their day to day job. The tool is in beta at the moment, as we have several new features and functions to add in the coming months, but let's take a look at what we have now, and how it improves upon the older tool.
The Quick Research tool is the fastest way to get keywords from the database - in just a couple of clicks you can find the keywords you're looking for in the Wordtracker database, and you can have a Wordtracker list and a Google list open simultaneously to compare keywords in the niche you're working with. The actual searching that the tool does has been tested and is faster than the older tool - so you get your keywords more quickly. The Keywords and Search Volumes you see in the Wordtracker data haven't changed at all:
Old tool results
New tool results
What's happened to KEI?
We have made a change to the way that keywords with potential are identified. While KEI has been very useful for many people over the years, the increase in content and competition on the internet means that it's a less helpful metric than in the past - and working with KEI across multiple data sources has proved confusing for some users. To address this, we've introduced filters for the lists - you'll see these on the right hand side of the page.
These make the lists very flexible - multiple filters can be quickly set up to show or hide keywords with certain levels of search volume or competition, and also to show which keywords contain or exclude certain text. And you'll see the questions that people are using to search on the internet. We'll also be introducing a more focused competition metric that can be applied to smaller groups of filtered keywords inside a list that will offer a clearer measure of competition and difficulty on your prospective targets.
We're also looking at other viable replacements for KEI, and while the tool develops we'll be listening to feedback so do have your say.
Another change we've made to speed things up a bit for you is to show the Wordtracker and Google lists side by side, so you can quickly assess the keywords from each data source to find the ones you're going to prefer to work with:
We've also made it easy to flag target keywords, which are remembered when the lists are exported, so finding these and sharing them with colleagues or clients is quicker than it was before.
While we're now showing more Google kewords (up to 800 rather than 300), another figure that you won't see is the Google Count. There are a couple of reasons for this: firstly, while it can be a reasonable indication of 'crowd size', particularly with longer tail keywords, it's not necessarily the most helpful metric on its own - the majority of the pages counted in this figure are generally coincidental, and as a result, the number you see can be artificially inflated and not give a real reflection of intent, purely because there are trillions of pages now indexed by Google. It's also one of our least used features in the older tool
But that's just the Quick tool. Let's have a look at what setting up a Campaign can do.
Organized keyword research
In setting up a Campaign, you're laying the groundwork for some properly organized research. If you enter your domain then we can give you some quick reporting on your site that will show how many pages of your website have already been indexed by the major search engines.
This feature will be built upon in the coming weeks, and forms the basis of a more dedicated site audit tool that we're planning to develop later this year.
Moving onwards through the process, you can set up individual keyword research Projects inside a Campaign. Each Project can work for either your whole site or a category section of your site. The Project name is designed to be the seed word for this part of your research - so if the category of the site that you're working on is fruit sales, for example, then naming the Project 'fruit' will automatically generate some keyword suggestions on the Keyword Map.
The Keyword Map itself is a powerful part of the tool which will allow you to either mirror an existing site architecture, or set up the site structure for an existing site by dragging keyword niches to the appropriate part of the map. There's more information about Keyword Mapping here
We've also improved the Related Keywords tool, which now presents more relevant keywords (you can currently get to the Related tool from the Keyword Map, but this will also be available in the Quick tool and in the Keyword List view soon).
Creating new niches
Drilling down into the long tail of keywords couldn't be easier when you have a list open inside a Project - you just need to click the 'Add Niche' icon for a keyword in a list ...
... and the niche will be created and automatically populated with Wordtracker keywords in the background, so that when you come back to your map, it's ready for you to assess immediately (you can get the Google keywords for that niche as well, with just a couple of clicks):
You'll also see a Help button on each page of the tool. Clicking this will show some details about how to use each page, along with a video to provide guidance.
We're planning for the future with this tool. In the near future, additional features to expect will be:
- SERPS ranking tools
- More flexible interface for Google data
- Better site statistics reporting
There are a raft of new features and improvements to come which we'll release details of as we're ready to get them into production. The old tool will remain in place for a few months, so there's plenty of time to get used to the new system. I'll be starting a regular training webinar on 25th January to introduce new and old users to keyword research with our tools (we've been running these for the past year or so, and they've proved to be very popular) which you're welcome to attend.
You can register here or have the details emailed to you when they're released in our newsletter
We'd love to hear what you think once you've used the tool. If you have comments, criticisms, questions or suggestions, do leave a comment, or drop us a line at support@wordtracker.com
