5 Free Tools Every Online Niche Marketer Needs

The keys to online niche marketing are the ability to identify niche markets and the ability to get high keyword rankings in the search engines. Over the course of the last couple of months I have found several free tools that have become invaluable to improving my niche marketing efforts. With these tools you will be able to both identify new niche markets to persue and optimize your niche sites to rank high in the search engines for your target keywords.

5 Free Tools Every Online Niche Marketer Needs

1. Digital Point's Keyword Tracker - This very powerful tool allows you to track your site's keyword rankings on the three main search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN). Since the tool also stores the data, you can view a graph of your websites ranking trends over time to see how well you SEO efforts are working.
   
   How I use this tool: - I use this tool to measure the effectiveness of my SEO efforts for my sites. Using the historical data, I can see if my sites is trending down in the rankings. This let's me know that I need to work on optimizing that particular site.



2. Digital Point's Keyword Suggestion Tool - This tool will provide you search data from Overture and Keyword Tracker for keyword phrases related to the entered keyword. With this information you can design your site(s) to target popular keyword phrases.
   
   How I use this tool: - I use this tool as a start to find potential high traffic keyword niches. Once I have found a keyword niche using this tool, I will then research it further using some of the other tools on this list before I actually pursue the niche.



3. Niche Watch - This tool will let you analyze the top 20 sites for any keyword phrase (it will also diplay your site's analysis for comparison.) With the information that this tool provides, you can quickly determine how competitive a niche is for a target keyword, or you can see how well your site stacks up against the competition for your target keywords.
   
   How I use this tool: - I use this tool to determine the competitiveness of the keyword niches found using the suggestion tool above. I am looking for a niche that I can fairly easily rank in the top 20.



4. URL Trends - This site allows you to track some key metrics of your sites over time (the free version let's you track up to 10 sites.) The statistics are only update once a month, but it is a good tool to see how you site is developing over time.
   
   How I use this tool: - I use this tool to track my sites, so that I can see how well my sites are progressing over time. With this tool I can see the key metrics of all my sites on one page.



5. Directory Tracker - This tool will allow you to track your directory submissions for it's list of around 300 directories. It allows you to track submissions and listings.
   
   How I use this tool: - I use this tool to track the directory submissions for all my new sites. Once I have submitted the site to all the directories, I then go back periodically and run their directory checker to see which directories have listed my site.

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