When you can get keywords for free from Google, why would you pay for a subscription to Wordtracker’s premium Keywords tool (even if it is only 90 cents a day)?

It’s a reasonable question. Let’s face it, no one wants to pay for something they can get at no cost. But there’s a reason why so many people continue to renew their subscription to Wordtracker’s Keywords tool, year after year: it gives them a serious edge in finding and exploiting the keywords that will make them money.

While free keywords tools like Google’s certainly have their place in the world of online marketing, they won’t give you the insights you need to generate more traffic, outperform your competitors, and multiply your profits.

Simply put, Wordtracker gives you more of what you need to be found online. For these and thousands of other results-minded marketers around the globe, Wordtracker is an invaluable resource in the quest for coveted search engine rankings.

Here Are Five Great Reasons Why Wordtracker Blows Google’s Free Tool Away

Wordtracker Advantage #1: It’s All About the Long Tail

No, we’re not talking about the primates at your local zoo. By “long tail”, we’re referring to the typically longer keyword phrases that are very specific to what your website is selling and what people are looking for. These phrases differ from the more basic, primary keywords that are heavily searched (cleverly called the “head”).

For example:

The long tail of keyword research is absolutely fundamental to your online success. Because they have less competition from other websites, long tail keywords give you a much better chance of ranking highly in the search engines – and that means more visibility for your website.

And here’s even better news: the people who search online using long tail keywords are far more likely to become buyers! These specific keywords trigger significantly higher conversions than general terms and phrases.

Something else that may surprise you: The long tail of a keyword represents a far greater number of searches than the head. In a 2008 report, Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, revealed that for any given topic, the top 100 keywords account for just 5.7% of all website traffic – while long tail keywords account for the remaining 94.3%!

Left: An illustration of the huge number of low competition, high conversion alternatives that can be found in the long tail of primary keywords. If you’re not targeting long-tail keywords you’re missing out on potential traffic.

So what does the long tail mean for you? Target a large number of long tail terms, and you can generate lots of highly targeted traffic. Since there are so many potential long tail combinations that searchers may use to find what you offer, you’ll likely need to create more pages on your website. Luckily for you, Google – the world’s most popular search engine – loves sites with plenty of pages, and tends to reward them with higher rankings!

How Wordtracker delivers a long tail advantage: For every search, Wordtracker gives you 1,000 keywords – so you can dig much deeper into the long tail of a primary phrase. And for every keyword you rank for, you’ll get more customers, more sales and more revenue for your business.

Why Google falls short: Google only gives you 200 keywords for every search, dramatically limiting your ability to find valuable long tail terms and phrases.

To get the most from any audience niche, you have to target the keywords in the long tail – not just the popular few. Wordtracker gives you more long tail keywords than any other keywords tool available today.

Click here to get 12 months of Wordtracker for only $329 – plus FREE bonuses!

Wordtracker Advantage #2: Be Privy to Rare and Valuable Competitive Data

Keywords with a high search volume and a low level of competition can bring you a quick (and substantial) return on your investment. But without an accurate measure of competition for a particular phrase or term, you simply don’t get the full picture.

How Wordtracker delivers: Wordtracker has two metrics which let you uncover worthy keywords that are both popular and have a low level of competition:

• In Anchor And Title (IAAT): Instantly measures the level of serious competition for any of the 200 million keywords in Wordtracker’s database. Find out exactly how many competitive web pages you must beat to get search engine traffic.
• KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index): Is a keyword really worth targeting? Use KEI to hone in on keywords with high traffic and low competition. But unlike the older version of the metric, the “new” KEI considers only real competition — defined as web pages with at least one inbound link containing that keyword in its anchor text.

Wordtracker can calculate these figures accurately because they’ve indexed over one trillion URLs. No other keyword research tool gives you access to such a vast database.

Why Google Falls Short: Google’s free tool gives you the number of searches for a particular phrase or term (i.e. its popularity), but gives you no idea of how much competition you face. Frankly, it’s not in Google’s interest to warn you about the competition, because they want you to buy ad space.

Wordtracker shares keyword competition data liberally with its premium subscribers, enabling you to cherry-pick the most promising keywords for your online marketing campaigns.

Wordtracker Advantage #3: Target More Moneymaking Keywords with “Related Keywords” Function

When you use the Wordtracker tool to dig deep into the long tail of a keyword, you get the most popular phrases that contain the seed keyword. In other words, a search on the term “organic” would include results such as organic food, organic gardening, organic farming, and so on.

But related keywords are different – they don’t always include the original seed keyword. For example, a related keyword search for “organic” will return keywords such as sustainable agriculture and growers. All great ideas for generating domain names, new product ideas, and captivating website content.

Above: The top 10 searches on the term “organic” using Wordtracker’s related keywords function

How Wordtracker delivers: The Wordtracker Keywords tool offers you more related keywords than any other tool – up to 300 per search, as a matter of fact. This enables you to squeeze the most value out of every single term or phrase.

Why Google falls short: Google’s free tool gives you just 50 related keywords, leaving you with far fewer opportunities to discover fruitful new markets and attract more paying customers.

Wordtracker Advantage #5: Get the Benefit of World Class Support

Online success can’t be achieved in a vacuum. When you’re navigating the often complex world of search marketing, it helps to have a reliable network of expert resources right at your fingertips.

How Wordtracker delivers: Subscribe to the Wordtracker Keywords tool and you’ll get the best service and support available, including:

• Live chat or a call with a member of their knowledgeable support team. They’re happy to give you one-to-one guidance on your keyword strategy
• Free online training videos
• A wealth of how-to articles and advice in our free Wordtracker Academy

Why Google falls short: Google’s online Help Center is geared primarily toward people who already have AdWords accounts (in other words, they’re already putting money in Google’s pocket). Those who aren’t AdWords users must search cumbersome Q and A databases for the answers they’re looking for. Who has the time – or the patience – for that?

Wordtracker’s business is to help your business succeed. That’s why they provide live support as well as ample access to information that helps you get the most out of your keyword research.

Click here to get a year of Wordtracker for 90 cents a day – plus FREE bonuses!

Wordtracker Advantage #6: Get More Done in Less Time

Let’s face it – in today’s ultra-competitive business world, productivity reins supreme. You need to make the best use of your time, each and every day.

How Wordtracker delivers: With Wordtracker’s intuitive, easy-to-use interface, you can generate thousands of powerful keywords in a matter of just minutes. That means getting your keyword research done faster – and putting the results to work sooner.

What’s more, Wordtracker enables you to build structured projects and lists quickly, saving you hours of tedious work. Every keyword list can be used to create a category on your website, and each individual keyword within a list can be used to generate compelling ideas for web content, articles and blogs.

The Wordtracker Keywords tool also enables you to map your keyword lists directly to your website, so you can be sure that you’re targeting the long tail effectively.

With a premium subscription to Wordtracker, you can create and save valuable projects and lists and access them from any computer with an internet connection – anywhere in the world, day or night. Even better, you can store an unlimited number of projects – ideal for a business running several campaigns or an agency serving multiple clients.

Why Google falls short: While Google allows you to save your keywords, it doesn’t give you the enhanced management tools that Wordtracker provides – nor does it allow you to generate so many keywords in such little time. In fact, if you’re using Google’s free keywords tool, finding 10,000 highly targeted keywords just might take you all day! Chances are that’s more time than you have to spare.

Wordtracker gives you enhanced tools to make your keyword research faster, easier and more effective. That means you can drive your website’s performance without sacrificing a substantial amount of your valuable time.

Harness the Power of Effective Keyword Research – for Less Than $1 Per Day!

Effective keyword research is at the core of internet marketing – and can mean the difference between your success and failure. Whether you’re a web professional who wants to exceed client expectations – or a small business owner who wants to drive performance – Wordtracker helps you stay profitable by keeping you connected with what your customers want and need.

The cost of a Wordtracker subscription is just $329 a year – that’s less than 90 cents per day. When you consider that a single keyword can generate thousands of new customers, you can see how Wordtracker is a smart investment that quickly – and exponentially – pays for itself!

Here’s what you get when you subscribe:

Bonus #1: Keyword Basics Ebook (Value – $29)

One of the most frequently asked questions from website owners today is, “Why can’t my site be found on Google?” They know it’s important to appear prominently in search engine results – but they don’t know why it’s not happening for them.

Written by Wordtracker’s chief marketing officer, Ken McGaffin, the  ”Keyword Basics” ebook tells you how to use keyword research to propel your website to the top of search engine listings. This new edition of the book contains all the latest techniques. You’ll learn:

• How search engines work
• A simple method for choosing your best keywords
• A simple way to expand your lists of moneymaking keywords
• How to use keywords to create mouth-watering web content that keeps visitors coming back for more

Downloadable immediately, this easy-to-follow guide gives you smart, practical insights from a recognized SEO guru – so you can turn your site into a profit-pulling, high ranking machine in no time!

Bonus #2: “Profit from Keywords” Video Series (Value – $39)

For the first seven days of your annual Wordtracker subscription, they’ll send you a video a day, each designed to help you get the most from the premium Keywords tool. These videos cover everything from starting your keyword research to optimizing your Google AdWords campaigns. The series includes:

• Video 1: Search engine success starts with keywords. Learn how to optimize your website with keywords to achieve greater search engine rankings.
• Video 2. Assess your market with keyword research. Discover how to use keyword research to analyze your market and identify potentially profitable niches.
• Video 3. How to build an effective keyword strategy. Find out how to organize your chosen target keywords into lists that match your site’s structure.
• Video 4. How to optimize your web content. Learn how to effectively use your target keywords in page title tags, headlines, subheadings and body text.
• Video 5. Pay-per-click (PPC) for testing and profit. Discover how to create a lucrative PPC campaign using the Wordtracker Keywords tool.
• Video 6. How to use keywords in linking text. Find out how to maximize traffic by creating keyword rich links on your own website as well as in other sites’ links to yours.
• Video 7. Expand into new markets and beat your competition. Learn how to use Wordtracker to continually refine your online marketing campaigns and improve your results over time.

Click here to get 12 months of Wordtracker for only $329.

Exclusive Extra Bonus (Value – $49)!

To help you get the most from Wordtracker’s Keywords tool, they’re  laying on an exclusive 45-minute webinar. You’ll be taken through the basics of solid, business-based keyword research, including:

• How to use the Keywords tool to plan your website structure
• How to avoid the most common keyword research mistakes
• How to search wide and deep to find missing keyword opportunities
• How to understand what your customers really want from you

And that’s not all: You’ll also learn how to manage your research projects effectively, export keywords for use in your AdWords campaigns, and gain insights into their exclusive keyword metrics! Only Wordtracker subscribers can attend the webinar.

Risk Nothing / 100% Money Back Guarantee

Between the benefits and the bonuses we’ve just outlined, subscribing to Wordtracker today is a no-brainer. But they’re going to up the ante even further by throwing in a rock solid satisfaction guarantee.

You have absolutely nothing to lose when you sign up for an annual Wordtracker subscription. If in 30 days you don’t feel that their premium tool has brought you real value, they’ll give you every penny back that you paid – no questions asked. That’s how confident they are that Wordtracker is the most powerful, effective, rank-boosting keyword research tool on the market today.

With Wordtracker, you’ll:

• Drive more qualified traffic to your website
• Create engaging web content that converts more browsers into buyers
• Come up with innovative ideas for new products and services
• Discover and pursue exciting new market niches
• Get a serious leg up on your competition
• Do it all more quickly and effectively than the free Google tool allows

Click here to get a year of Wordtracker for 90 cents a day – plus FREE bonuses!

Disclosure: Brian Farrell is an affiliate of Wordtracker, and this post contains tracking links.

I love these questions, because it gives me an opportunity to talk about my favorite topic — paid marketing. For nearly every business, paid marketing must be part of your mix.

Here are my top 3 responses to the “why should I use paid” question:

1. Control the page. Even if you had the greatest SEO team in the world, the best you can get for any given search is two organic listings. So what better way to dominate the page than with a paid result as well? In most cases, you’ll have two, if not three links (think “chances”) to capture a potential prospect. And when using the same keywords for both paid and organic, you should see far better results overall (for both spots).
2. Control the message. The snippet and URL shown for your organic search results may not be the best possible place for your prospects to visit. Instead, support this listing with a paid result. Within reason, you can say what you want to say in the ad, and direct clicks to the page on your website which converts the best. From another perspective, if you’re facing negative or less than desirable organic results, use paid marketing to level the playing field.
3. Expand your reach. The only way to expand your reach organically is to create content and links which support your additional keywords. But try doing this for more than a few dozen terms, and you’ll never make progress. If you want to be found for hundreds, even thousands, of potential keywords, the only way to get this type of reach is through paid marketing.

With the given change in Google’s search page, organic results are getting further and further down the page. These three reasons apply in all situations, and for all businesses. To borrow a page from politics, you’ve got to pay to play, and the only guaranteed way to get traffic from a search engine is to buy it.

Photo credit by Penny Matthews.

Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of following best practices in order to gain better position in a search engine for one or more keywords or phrases. With SEO, visitors use a search engine to find sites that are relevant to the keywords and phases they provide. The most common search engines used today (Yahoo!, Google and MSN) are relied on by over 90% of web users to find what they are looking for online, but most only view the top 30 results produced by search engines. These factors make getting to the top of a search engine’s results for specific keywords an absolute online necessity for websites.

Search Engine Optimization has several advantages which make it appealing to those looking to be online for the long run. Its most noted advantage is that, when using sound practices, its results are realized for the long term. Another major advantage of organic SEO comes in its cost, which ranges from free to minimal as the only costs incurred, if any, are those paid to make website changes. SEO methods that focus its keywords on the products, service and information provided by the website also have a better chance of delivering repeat visitors and customers that are ready to act.

Organic search engine optimization has two clear disadvantages, which are always outweighed by the advantages SEO methods provide. The first disadvantage is that SEO takes time – time in constructing pages to appeal to search engines; time for the search engines to find, index and “trust” the pages; and time to realize the positive ROI between customers and efforts spent. This disadvantage is usually minimal to those looking to be online for the long term. The final disadvantage with organic search engine optimization is that it does not deliver guarantees, especially for websites with lots of competition online. Keeping in mind that each website has the opportunity to “optimize” their pages as well should put the chances of success through SEO in perspective.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Both new websites and those finding it difficult to get their fair shake in the top of the search engines, may opt for Pay-Per-Click advertising to increase their visibility online. In short, Pay-Per-Click advertising allows you to select, bid, and pay for keywords that are relevant to your website’s offerings. In exchange, the Pay-Per-Click program offers a website guaranteed visibility when a searcher enters in the chosen keyword and when the searcher is on a website that is related to the keyword.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising guarantees that websites are put in the eyes of their chosen target audiences. When properly managed, the pay-per-click advertising costs can often times be recouped through the increase in sales that are driven to the website. In addition, the flexibility in keyword selection, the precise management of campaigns, the instant feedback provided, and the ability to budget spending make PPC appealing to most companies that do not appear in top search results.

There are several disadvantages to pay-per-click advertising which can be reduced or even eliminated with proactive PPC campaign management. One major disadvantage results from the bidding nature of PPC programs, which tend to list the highest bidder for a keyword ahead of lower bidders. This “bidding war” forces the lower bidder to increase their bid in order to regain position, and can squeeze out companies with smaller marketing budgets. Another disadvantage to PPC advertising comes in the improper selection of keywords which results in bidders paying for visitors that are simply “window shopping”, and have no intention of buying products. The final disadvantage to PPC advertising is the most obvious and the most painful – once the payments for keywords stop, so does the website’s visibility.

Which Method Is Best?
Websites with little or no visibility can easily change their circumstances by using Pay-Per-Click advertising to instantly gain web presence. And although the guaranteed visibility comes at a cost, those just starting out on the web can often time recoup their expenses through the building of repeat customers, word of mouth referrals and increased traffic flow. Also, keep in mind that paying to be in front of visitors has major disadvantages that good SEO should eliminate over time. So, our suggestion is to always use Pay-Per-Click advertising to get into the face of web surfers in the early stages of a website’s growth, but to also implement the techniques of Search Engine Optimization which will provide the website with long-term staying power. Used in conjunction with each other, your website will realize both immediate and long-term success on the web.

Photo credit by svilen001.

Here’s a short checklist of mistakes business owners (and some agencies!) make, and how to avoid them:

Bidding on irrelevant keywords.
If you don’t write about the broad category of keywords, don’t bid on them. Use Wordtracker to generate lists and permutations of phrases based on a root keyword, and then use Google’s Keyword Tool to get a suggested list of phrases based on the copy of your website or landing page.

Not segmenting ad groups.
Having few keywords, one campaign and one ad group is never the way to structure your account. To have the best relevancy, segment your ad groups based on your various landing pages. The search engines, and Google in particular, like to see clicks lead to a page appropriate for the query.

Not targeting your local market.
Make sure you target geographically both within the ad group’s settings and by including geographic place names within your keywords, ad copy and landing pages. For example, if you’re a divorce lawyer in Lubbock, TX, your keywords could be “divorce lawyer Lubbock” or “Lubbock divorce attorney”, etc.

Leaving content match on.
This is a default setting in nearly all PPC engines, and is designed for maximum profit for the search engines, not necessarily for the advertiser. Content match publishes your advertisements on non-search based pages, alongside relevant content (or within your targeted geographic location). Content targeting is best if you have “impulse” goods or services for sale. In your account settings, disable content match until you get a flavor for the types of traffic pure keyword-driven search brings. Only then should you consider expanding to the content network.

Sending all clicks to your homepage.
Unless the homepage is your only page, it’s almost never right for the first click, since it will require your visitors to navigate, search or do something before they can take your desired action, such as signing up for your newsletter, or requesting your whitepaper.

Poor account setup is very common, and is easily fixed. If you’ve made these mistakes, it’s never too late to restructure your campaign. In just an hour or so, you can be well positioned for better PPC success, save some money, and get more predictable results from your paid marketing campaigns.

Photo credit by spacey.

• Does the copy on your website agree with the copy of your ads?
• Have you removed or disabled outbound links on your landing page? Consider keeping only links that move your prospect towards a sale.
• Does your website copy answer predictable questions in your prospect’s mind? Create a rationale for purchase.
• What more could you offer to make your pitch more compelling?
• Have you built trust with your prospect? Explain shipping costs and return/refund policies up front to avoid surprises later.
• Can you minimize the number of clicks it takes to complete a sale? Combine pages and request only the data necessary to transact a sale.
• Do you have a clear, call to action? “Buy now”, “Subscribe”, “Order” and other descriptive buttons tell your reader what to do.

Nothing on your landing page will make a customer convert if the features and benefits aren’t a solution to a problem they have. But once your prospect decides to buy, make it easy for the transaction to take place.