Keyword research is the lifeblood of Internet marketing. It is
really important to have a tool at your disposal that makes the
process of finding high search but low competition keywords and
phrases quick and easy.
For the last couple of years I’ve been strongly recommending a
product called Niche Inspector that was simple to use and
incorporated powerful filters to make assessing the hundreds of
keywords it found a breeze.
A lot of Kickstart readers bought Niche Inspector on my
recommendation – I even created a video review of the product!
Over the last few days I’ve started to get emails from people
asking why their copy of Niche Inspector has stopped working and
could I get a message to its creator Myleena Phan to sort things
out?
Myleena has always been very good at answering emails I’ve sent
her, but now there is a resounding silence.
My own copy of Niche Inspector has also stopped working.
On investigation it appears that Myleena has stopped developing
and supporting the product. She also seems to have disappeared
from sight.
I’ve read reports on some forums that PayDotCom have banned her
for non-payment of affiliates and that the order form is no
longer active – although I haven’t been able to verify either so
can’t be sure that they are true. However, the fact that her
customer support was patchy for some time, that she no longer
seems to reply to emails and that the software no longer works is
enough reason to send this email to you.
It is a a great pity, because I loved Niche Inspector and I know
a lot of Kickstart readers did too.
I just hope that Myleena is okay and that her disappearance is
not due to accident or illness.
Having said all that, keyword research is still a vital part of
our businesses and it is important that we find a suitable
alternative tool to use. To that end, I’ve been assessing some of
the options available out there.
#~#~#
Keyword Elite
At the top end there is a program called Keyword Elite, by Brad
Callen. this one was always my favorite before Niche Inspector
toppled it off my recommended list and it is still a solid bit of
kit.
On the plus side, Keyword Elite is massively comprehensive. It
contains five modules that can perform all kinds of analyses for
you. The results it gives you are extremely good.
However, there are some negatives.
The amount of data that Keyword Elite provides is huge, but that
comes at a price – it takes forever to gather it all. This is a
very slow program indeed. The main reason seems to be that Google
hates to be automatically searched and so Keyword Elite waits a
long time before each ‘hit’ on Google to prevent your IP address
from receiving a temporary ban. That is a good thing, of course,
but it makes the program maddeningly slow to run.
Another negative is that at times Keyword Elite stops working
right in the middle of a run, with no warning and no way to
retrieve what it has already analyzed. It doesn’t happen every
time, but often enough to be really irritating.
Keyword Elite is also a tool that is best suited to fairly
advanced marketers. If all you need is a quick keyword list,
Keyword Elite is overkill – you simply won’t use most of its
features and there are way better ways to achieve what you need
(some of them free).
Finally is the cost. At present Keyword Elite costs $176 – a lot
more than the competition. It is top of the range though, so for
power keyword researchers it would be very good value.
http://www.urlnex.us/ke
[There are some interesting videos on that page, so it is worth
taking a look even if you aren't planning to buy.]
Note: as far as I understand it, Brad Callen is currently working
on Keyword Elite 2, which will be web based (the current version
runs on your computers, the new one will run on theirs) and will
have a monthly subscription fee to use it. No more details are
available at this time.
#~#~#
Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Right at the other extreme is the free keyword tool that Google
provide. This has recently been upgraded to give more data and is
actually fairly useful.
With Niche Inspector out of action, this is the tool that I’ve
been using to get keywords for use in my Info Product Killer
sites. (Although see below for why, from today, it has been
superceded in my toolbox.)
https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal
At the risk of talking myself out of some affiliate commissions,
I have to say that if all you need are a few well targeted
keywords to make your web pages more attractive to Google, then
this tool is probably all you need.
A huge benefit is that the data is straight from the horses
mouth. With all keyword tools, there is always a question mark
over where the data is gathered from and if the search numbers
are accurate. at least with Google’s free tool you’ll be sure
that the search data is pretty robust!
There a no bells and whistles – it gives you a good list of
keywords (and their synonyms if you ask for them), with search
volumes for the latest full month and the average of the last
year, and an indication of the number of sites competing for the
term.
Analysing and filtering the data is up to you – you can export
the data to a spreadsheet and work on it yourself later.
For the price it can’t be beaten, but when your Internet
marketing becomes a little more sophisticated you might want to
use something with a bit more power.
#~#~#
Micro Niche Finder Review
I just learned about Micro Niche Finder this morning and I wish
I’d found it sooner!
After watching the videos on the sales page my mind was bursting
with ideas and possibilities, In fact, for everyone who has
already purchased Info Product Killer, video #5 will blow you
away!
I couldn’t wait to buy it and was nicely surprised at the price.
I’ve been playing with it ever since.
Micro Niche Finder is a very different kind of keyword research
tool to what you may have used before. Rather than ‘just’ give
you a list of keywords and let you decide how useful they are for
yourself, it gives you access to all kinds of tools.
For example, you can instantly look up to see if there is a
ClickBank product associated with the keyword or phrase. You can
check AMAzon to see if they see a product related to the term.
You can see if there are any articles on Ezine Articles – and
loads more!
The Hot Trends button instantly gives you a list of the things
people are search for right now, and then, using the other tools
you can find out a lot more that you can profit from. I just
discovered, for example, that there are a lot of people searching
for robotic vacuum cleaners, that ‘irobot roomba 415′ (IPK users,
can you see where this is leading?) is a hot search term right
now AND that I could buy AdWords PPC clicks for it for just
$0.05! I also learned that AMAzon sell the product.
I used to use Niche Inspector almost every day. Now that position
will be easily filled by Micro Niche Finder. In fact, as it does
so much more than any keyword research tool I’ve used before, I
can see me using it even more often.
This one is highly recommended.
http://www.urlnex.us/micronichefinder
I hope you found this Keyword Tool update useful.