Keyword research forms the foundation of any kind of online marketing endeavour. Without proper keyword research, a marketing campaign is dead in the water. No wonder then, that advanced keyword research programs come in many shapes and sizes. This post is a quick roundup featuring three of the most popular keyword research tools: Market Samurai, Keyword Blueprint and Keyword Elite 2.0.
Read on to see the roundup video and a short summary for each contestant.
UPDATE:
Since the original writing of the post, I have co-created a keyword research tool of my own. SECockpit addresses all of the issues and drawbacks of the tools mentioned below and it’s just generally so much more awesome that once you use it, you’ll never want to go back. Just sayin.
Roundup Video
I have been using MS for over a month now, and I have to say I absolutely love it! Haven’t had a chance to check out the others, but for my purposes, MS does a great job so far.
Hi Keith,
Thanks for your comment! Yeah, Market Samurai is a great tool for sure. I’ve become a bit of a tool-snob, because I’ve tested so many different ones. ^^
I can’t really pick a clear winner from the three programs in this article. They’re all solid products. KE2 might just be a tiny bit more solid than the others. :)
Cheers,
Shane
Nice overview.
Of the three products, I’ve only used a trial version of KE2.0. I found it quite good, although if you hammer Google too hard, Google places a temporary ban on you doing any searches, which can be a real pain.
At present, I use Traffic Travis Professional (which isn’t all that different to the free version), which I does a pretty good job. It’s definitely the best of all the free keyword products out there.
Yeah, I hear Traffic Travis is good, although I’ve never tried it myself.
I’ve only had the problem with Google blocking me once, so far. It seems you can pull as many keywords as you want, but if you start digging deeper into the data, there’s a certain limit you can’t exceed.
How long is the block effective and/or what do you do to get unblocked? Interesting topic.
Don’t know how long it lasts. I have dynamic IP, so all I have to do is turn my router off and on again and I’m a “different person” online. :D
I have used Traffic Travis in the meantime, by the way. Very good product, especially since most of the features are available in the free version.
I use MS as well and love it. I like some of the features especially the promotion. It was a bit odd at first with the design but after a bit I started liking it more and more. I also use micro niche finder. It’s been a good tool but the latest update changed a lot of things around and it actually is missing some key features. Maybe, I need to re-upload it. I wish we could combine all the great components of each tool for an all in one though.
Hi Jason,
Yeah, I wish I could mush all the tools together and cherry-pick the best features of each, as well. :)
I’ll have to do an extensive review of both MS and KE2, because they both offer so many more features than just the standard keyword research. Looking at the big picture, it’s really hard to decide which is better…
Thanks for your review, you provide valuable information.
As you said the three tools complete each other. I used all of them and I conclude that when you want to search for a niche, you need Market Samurai , Keyword Elite 2.0 and Keyword Blueprint to find a perfect profitable market that you can get a passive income from the niche because the competition is very high with websites.
In my opinion the competitors that create the tools give us in return a solid softwares that help us a lot.
I’ve just come to this review Shane – after you sent out an email re. Vita Vee’s WSO and I was really interested in KE2 that he used in a video.
I had the old KE and found it very difficult to use and I was very narked, like so many others that Brad did not upgrade his old customers, or at least give us a good deal.
Interesting that KE2 has come down from just under $200 to $97.
Hmm!
:-)
I agree with you about Market Samurai too, it’s ugly and clumsy. A blueprint/KE2 fusion sounds good!
Thanks for the reviews.
Alex
Likely few of you (maybe no one’s of you) is interested in using this tools in a different language which is not English. But when it comes necessary going on with kwywords research Traffiic Travis (whcih is the tools I’ve tryed for a while) is not well performing.
Market Samuray, on the other hands, give you the opportunity to choise the proper language as well as the country you’d like to get in for a keywords research.
Unfortunately I’ve not experienced the other one’s, yet.