When approaching a client with a keyword list build out, there are many factors to be aware of.  These factors range from product details, trending, and web analytics.

Find out what your customers are searching for using these keyword research tools: what keywords they use and how often they search.  You can even see at what times they search based on seasonal trends. I’ve also provided an infographic that speaks to the usefulness of developing a strategy and keyword plan before moving ahead.  Plan wisely and execute.

As for those of you who are looking for solutions which can alleviate your keyword research work load, here is a list which I feel with be a great deal of help.  Remember, keyword research is research.  Dive into the data and root around looking at web data, competitive data and related data to truly find those keywords which will prove to have right CTRs at below typical CPC costs.

1. Google’s Keyword external tool has fairly accurate search volume numbers and can be seeded with a website URL to generate reports from (if you wanted to look at a competitor’s keywords).
2. Our very own Organic SEO Click Distribution Calculator tells you how much traffic (and revenue, optionally) a particular keyword might send to your website at a given position (1-10) on Google’s results pages.  This tools is great to see how much you *could* make if you were to get to X position.
3. Quintura shows you systemically related keywords that you wouldn’t otherwise think of.
4. Google Trends lets you see keyword trend data over time, a great tool for understanding if a keyword is a good candidate for organic or PPC search campaigns.
5. Keyword Discovery and Word Tracker are two excellent paid programs that also offer free tools for keyword research.  Both services are good for mining long tail keyword phrases.
6. Google’s Sktool looks at your existing web page’s keywords and cross references that data with search volume numbers to show you relevant.

If you have a list of free tools which you would like to share with us, please feel free and add them along withh a brief discription on why you recomend them.