Keywordfinder is a new keyword research tool that I think belongs in your toolbox. It won’t become your primary keyword research tool, but I think there are some situations when you’ll find it useful. Let’s take a look at how it works, and when you might use it.

How Keywordfinder Works

It’s brain-dead simple to use. Just provide a word or phrase, and Keywordfinder scans the highest-ranking pages on Yahoo for that word/phrase, extracts the relevant keywords from those pages, and spits back an ordered list of the 20 most frequent keywords.

In other words, it’s different from primary keyword research tools like Keyword Discovery or Wordtracker; it’s not telling you the keywords that searchers use, it’s telling you the keywords that successful web pages use. Here’s what the interface looks like on a search for Richland real estate, one of my wife’s primary keyword terms:

Some of those phrases are obvious, but something like “real estate listings” isn’t; I don’t think we use that phrase anywhere on her site, yet it’s a popular phrase on other high-ranking pages. It’s also interesting to me that “WA” appears more frequently than “Washington.”

When You Might Use It

1.) You might use it to help optimize individual web pages. But rather than simply rely on the basic list Keywordfinder provides, I’d suggest putting any new terms (like “real estate listings” above) into Keyword Discovery or Wordtracker (or whatever primary tool you use) and seeing if it’s a keyword that searchers use. That’s a good double-check you should do.

2.) You might use it when writing articles or blog posts. If there’s a specific word or phrase you’re targeting in an article or blog post, Keywordfinder might help you find related terms that could help you expand that article into something with more depth/substance.

Conclusion

Keywordfinder isn’t going to replace your primary keyword research tool, and I’m sure it’s not even trying to. But it does complement those tools with a fast, simple interface that lets you see what words and phrases are in being used on high-ranking sites on Yahoo.

(found via Frank)