I logged into my Google AdWords account the other day, and got a bit of a shock - it seems that Google is retiring their External Keyword Tool, and haven't really provisioned a replacement.
I mean, there's the Kayword Planner, but that really isn't as easy to use or as powerful as the Keyword Tool was.
Now, this article isn't going to tell you what to use instead, because there aren't really any good free replacements. If you liked the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (External) then you're going to have to put your hand in your pocket and pay for Wordtracker, or similar.
They're not paying me to say that - I mean it - but bear with me a moment, because ... it may not matter!
Recently, Wordtracker's own Mike Mindel was asked his opinion of the withdrawal of Google's tool by Brent Hodgson from Keyword Blueprint. Mindel's reply reinforced the Wordtracker line that Google's toolchain is strongly oriented towards PPC, and is, at best, inadequate for organic keyword research anyway.
And there's the rub - SEO and keyword research are as important as they ever were, but the approach needs to change. In my opinion, Mindel is only half right. Wordtracker and tools like it are only half of the answer.
It's nice to see what people are searching for, but the context shouldn't be weighted towards the volume of search requests for a two, three or four word phrase. It should be weighted towards the content that they end up looking at when they deploy those keywords in a search.
Let's trust Google to return the best quality results, while we use tools to see what keyword phrases led them to those results.
The new face of SEO is going to be (if it isn't already) geared towards creating quality content first, and then looking at the numbers later. And guess what? Google's got a tool for that; it's called Google Analytics, and my take is that a combination of content testing, post-publication tracking, and analysis of Google Analytics reports is likely to be more productive for organic SEO than the AdWords tool ever was.
Either that, or HitBox (a web counter and analytics tool from the 1990's) is going to make a comeback.
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