Hi!

Obviously, there's a lot of paid keyword tools and, by their nature, provide better service too. But if we're not ready to plunk down cold cash for those tools yet, there's several online alternatives:

1. Google ==> https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
2. Yahoo/overture ==> http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
3. Wordtracker ==> http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

I also found out that you can research the most popular search words using Google Hot Trends and the Yahoo Buzz Index. I don't think stuffing your copy with references to Brittney Spears actually helps, though...

You're right, cirsusmama. In a way, anyway. It will not help you because so many other factors go into it. SEO is not a sub-topic of philosophy so it's not overly complex, but it is a topic that requires understanding to get anywhere. Mentioning Britney Spears in your content, numerous times, will do you no good what-so-ever unless you take advantage of the many other ways that work hand-in-hand with the content.

As for the keyword site, yes, I use http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ but you may also try out the keyword search tool in AdWords.

Britney Spears? lol

I wouldn't even dare think about stuffing my articles with her name. Might bring bad karma. Anyways, keywords are supposed to be content relevant. Here's another free keyword tool I recently discovered and is testing right now... http://www.webceo.com/download/

I like this tool as it gives a lot of information about the searched keyword and most importantly, I can search about the high paying keywords and based on that, I can create my articles or website.

@ circusmama

Google hot trends and yahoo buzz indeed hints on the most recent popular keywords. I followed it for some time and saw they're usually based on the news. And you're right, they're mostly about britney spears and some other celebrity and global warming. I think they're mostly people looking for definitions and pixes, like what wildhoney said, and prorbaly won't break out their credit cards when they land on a page selling something.

I am always looking for great tools like these. Thanks ever so much for this information. If you want to check keyword density you can go to www.textalyser.net That is a great site that even tells you how easy your copy is to read!

this topic was well intentioned because i was looking for free tools not being able to put my money down yet for a payed one.thanks a lot:D

I like this little free tool I found recently for finding related keywords

http://www.gorank.com/seotools/ontology/

there are a couple of other seo tools if you look here too http://www.gorank.com/seotools/

I never used anything but Google Adwords. I'm sure that all of those free websites do just as good though! I'm just a Google fan I suppose. But yes, in regards to Adwords, I like how it helps you find the best paying keywords you might like to put in your article.

Thank you everyone for all the great tools. I have been looking for ways to push my humanitarian blog and forum to a better search engine position. I will be back to tell everyone how it goes.

I've just been beginning to research keywords and have bookmarked most of the ones posted here so thanks to everyone who shared their free ones.

Wordtracker and Google Adwords seem the best so far just on first glance but I'll be sure to try out the others and post impressions if they work out well for me.

The free wordtracker is my favorite, plain and simple. Although I wished we could dig deeper than the top 100. I like to check it results with Google's external to see how people bid on a particular keyword.