I was part-way through writing instructions for how to find keywords on Google’s Webmaster tools. It was to be posted on Wednesday.
Then, this afternoon I found this great article by Search Engine Watch. Not only does it give you ten ways to find keywords, it explains Google’s decision to suppress ALL of them. I decided to just link to the article because it describes the situation and solutions better than I can.
A client call got in the way. Then a friend was in my neighborhood and invited me to happy hour.
By the time I got back to my computer there was a new announcement: Google has removed all keyword data from Google Webmaster Tools. I swore.
It may be a bug. Google’s not saying anything, but that means nothing.
So making a plan C out of a plan B, the Search Engine Watch article is still a great article. Just with an extra keyword source.
The ones to use are:
- Learn from Avinash Kaushik
- Look at Non-Google Keywords
- Analyze On-Site Searches
- Use Google AdWords
- Use Search Volume Tools
- Look at Historical Data
- Use Google Trends
For more detail on each of these, here’s another link to the Search Engine Watch article.
PS, anyone want a half-written, now potentially useless, post on how to find keywords using Google’s Webmaster Tools?