Tag Archives: Keyword Research

Understanding Competitiveness in Search Engine Rankings [Keyword Research Tools]

By richardbaxterseo | Published April 7, 2010

SEOmoz have just released an exciting update to their keyword difficulty tool. The new version of the tool gathers data from the Google Adwords API and Linkscape to help get a more detailed understanding of the SEO challenge involved with targeting a specific keyword ranking. I’ve been super lucky to get an early view of the tool and in this post we’ll take a first look at it and use exported data to get a sense of how competitive some search engine rankings can really be.

Keyword difficulty tool  Read the full post...

Using Tables in Microsoft Excel 2007

By richardbaxterseo | Published October 27, 2009

[How to] use tables in MS Excel

In my SEOmoz pro session last week I spent some time explaining the benefits of using Tables in Microsoft Excel. Gone are the days of broken formulas that once worked, and extending your cell range references every time you add new data in a spreadsheet.

Using this technique isn’t all that different to using cell references, and the outcome is a more agile and robust Excel, with an ability to manage your data faster making for a more time efficient experience. What’s not to like?

What are Tables?

From Microsoft Office Online [Overview of Excel tables]  Read the full post...

Google Keyword Tool [External vs Beta] – What’s the Difference?

By richardbaxterseo | Published October 8, 2009

Testing keyword research tools from Google in the lab

On the 24th September 2009, Google announced a revision of their Keyword Tool, the imaginatively titled “Keyword Tool (Beta)”.

As Barry reported that morning at Search Engine Roundtable,

Google has a beta version of a new keyword tool available in the AdWords console. To get to it, login to adwords.google.com, go to a campaign, click on opportunities (if you have that tab), then on the left bar, click on keyword tool. A “beta” link should be available for you to click on in the top paragraph.  Read the full post...

Matching user intent to the right organic landing pages – IBM Thinkpad

By richardbaxterseo | Published August 2, 2009

Getting traffic to a site through a vast portfolio of traffic driving, high value keywords is at the top of every search engine marketer’s priority list. That said, what if all that traffic is going to the wrong pages on your site?

While researching laptops this afternoon I decided to take a look at the IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads and compare them to some other machines I’d been looking at from HP.

Using the search term “IBM Thinkpad”, I blindly selected the first organic result:

search results IBM thinkpad

A click that took me to a page I didn’t expect, until I realised I’d entered the site via the hardware drivers page:  Read the full post...

How to calculate approximate traffic volume for the past 12 months in Google Keyword Tool

By richardbaxterseo | Published December 26, 2008

In my “Demand for SEO Jobs” post, I plotted keyword demand for the phrase “SEO Jobs” across 2008 based on Google keywords data. A few folks have asked me to explain how I did that, so without further ado:

How to calculate approximate traffic volume for the past 12 months in Google Keyword Tool

First of all you’re going to need the data. Go to Google’s keyword tool and select a few keywords you’re interested in.

Before you export data from the keyword tool, be sure to select “Show Search Volume Trends” in the “Choose columns to be displayed:” drop down list:

keyword tool seasonal volume trends  Read the full post...

Using VLOOKUP to match keyword volume and rankings data

By richardbaxterseo | Published November 21, 2008

Ever needed to compare lists of keywords in different data tables and match corresponding values together? For example, matching keyword volume data to search engine rankings? Today we’re going to take a look at a really simple but powerful query in Microsoft Excel called VLOOKUP which makes that possible.

Here’s the definition of VLOOKUP from office.microsoft.com:

Searches for a value in the first column of a table array and returns a value in the same row from another column in the table array. The V in VLOOKUP stands for vertical. Use VLOOKUP instead of HLOOKUP when your comparison values are located in a column to the left of the data that you want to find.  Read the full post...