As the great philosopher once said, if you can’t be free, at least you can be cheap.

For many years Overture was a very popular keyword research tool. But it wasn’t that accurate, and it stopped being updated regularly.  Free, and very, very cheap.

But Overture is still used widely as a meaure of popularity.

Guys, we’ve moved on. Use old data and you miss out on important changes.

There are more accurate data available - even free. And a professional subscription to a keyword tool costs $30-60/mth.

Understanding keywords is much more important than is generally realised. And I think a habitual dependence on Overture can mean missing what is right in front of you. The world has moved on.

Understanding keywords, and knowing how to make use of keywords research, is a powerful differentiator for online business.

To help explain keyword research to business owners and those responsible for marketing strategy and planning, I’ve written an introductory article called Keywords Research: Sonar for Online Marketing.

The article introduces keyword research and explains how it can be used in an online business. The article aims to be concise (as simple as possible, and no more).

I’ve left a few concepts out. For example Keyword Effectiveness Index (or KEI) didn’t get a mention. KEI measures popularity of a keyword over competition, so a popular keyword with low competition has a high KEI.

It is left out because if you are running a business with competition, KEI just isn’t useful.

Brian Clark of CopyBlogger has recently launched his Teaching Sells educational programme (highly recommended if you are in any way involved in delivering education services online).

In the Teaching Sells course material, there is a quote that makes a very important point:

The idea behind entering into a high-demand market is not to avoid competition, but to successfully compete.

Rather than focus on where there is limited competition, I would rather work with strategies that allow you to compete successfully.

And that is the focus of the article, how to use keywords as a competitive tool.

Please read the keywords-as-sonar article. Let me know what you think and suggest any improvements - I do plan to add to it over time.