Keyword Research Beyond the AdWords Keyword Tool, Part 2

Last week, we began our discussion of keyword research beyond the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. A few suggestions included the YouTube keyword tool, Google Trends and Microsoft’s Ad Center download. Today’s post will continue that conversation by focusing on keyword research using Facebook, Twitter and a few other tools. Our near-term goal is not to replace the AdWords Keyword Tool, it is to complement that tool with ones that better present long-tail and socially-derived results. Our long-term goal is to identify, prioritize and hone an engagement plan for the target audiences revealed by this research.

Using Facebook for Keyword Research
Google developed the AdWords Keyword Tool to help its advertisers build better campaigns. Similarly, Facebook’s burdgeoning ad platform contains a research tool offering keyword and audience data. For access, log in to any old Facebook account and then go to http://www.facebook.com/advertising. Click Create an Ad and enter your site’s URL as the ad target. The next screen reveals the tool:

In this example, I’ve used the site SportsmansGuide.com as the advertisement’s target. When reaching the ad creation page, use the Location and Broad Categories sections to scope audience size on familiar topics but look to Suggested Likes and Interests for new audiences and related concepts. In the example below, we learn that an audience interested in hunting is also interested in mountaineering (who knew?) and gun politics. I’d venture to say most hunting and outdoor gear sites aren’t targeting these key words and concepts.

There are many more features available that are useful in sizing markets (by age, gender, marital status, etc.) but, at minimum, look to Facebook’s Suggested Likes and Interests for socially-sourced, semantic keyword groups.

Using Twitter for Keyword Research
There are two great ways to use Twitter to expose hidden audiences and keyword groups.

1. Twitter advanced search – not very glamorous, right? Enter a seed keyword like “boots” and, like we saw from Facebook, socially-sourced, related keywords and audiences are returned. For example:

   The first thing to note is that nearly all of the tweets are from (apparently) female users. Next, apple bottom jeans and the mention of fashion week in conjunction with boots spark a few new ideas as well. Finally, if we’re researching for the sake of paid advertising, it looks like metabolism might be a good negative match keyword (eg “boot your metabolism”(?)).

2. FollowerWonk.com – brought to you by the folks over at seoMOZ, FollowerWonk allows you to search Twitter user bios for keywords much like Twitter Search allows you to look across tweets. The advantage here is that we can see what interests and keywords real people wrap around a concept. In the example below, we’ve entered “boots”:

   With this search, we see two negative match keywords (“striker” and “knockin“) and several keyword concepts to explore including safety boots, boot materials (“shark boots“) and more. The uses for this tool in conducting influencer research is obvious, but don’t overlook the fact that these profiles are rich in semantic keywords.

Other Keyword Research Tools
There are many, many free and paid tools online that offer keyword research – so many, in fact, we’ll never be able to list them all – but a few deserve mention here:

• Your Analytics Package – just like native site search can reveal what your visitors are truly after, but your analytics software can also help by exposing the most valuable keywords currently drawing traffic. Ask IT to run a sales report by keyword, descending sorted by number of sales and see what turns up – it may be that materials-based keywords drive revenue far better than gender or color-based keywords.
• GoRank.com’s Ontology Finder – can be useful in suggesting semantically-related phrases or re-inforcing keyword selections you’ve already made. In this example around “boots”, there isn’t much that’s notable other than that, once again, boot materials like leather seem to be a popular choice for development.

• Princeton’s WordNet – think of this like a dictionary but an exhaustive one particularly useful in exposing negative match keywords. Here, we see “computer” as a likely negative match keyword associated with “boot“.

• Hashtags.org – has gone to a paid model to see most data but this is a useful, Twitter-based research tool that will let you see what hashtags are trending and appear with your keyword of choice
• KeywordDiscovery.com – this paid tool collects keyword data from >200 search engines to compile their database of >38 billion searches. KeywordDiscovery adds value to this data by organizing it into industry-based, seasonal, related and misspelling keyword reports.

With the multitude of data sources available, there’s no reason for digital marketers to use the Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool alone in developing their audience targeting plan and/or keyword lists. Site-side and socially-derived data should absolutely be used in crafting this core element of a search marketing campaign.