When I first started doing keyword research for building niche keyword lists, I turned to Overture. With Overture, I could freely type in a keyword and it would generate a list of up to 100 keywords that contained the one I typed in. The problem occured when I wanted to build a list of thousands.

After reading dozens of internet marketing books, I realized that the fee-based Wordtracker was the most reliable and popular one. I've used it many times and thought it was the best keyword research tool. I could type in a primary keyword, and then a bunch of related keywords could be displayed. I could then dig deeper into each keyword to build a larger list of keywords. After using Overture and Wordtracker for some time, there were still some features left to be desired:

• Automatic keyword digging
• More keyword data sources
• Automatic KEI calculations

With this Keyword Elite feature, I could just type in a primary keyword and set a limit to how many keywords I wanted. Overture doesn't have any automatic digging feature. If I wanted to display more keywords related to one on the list of results, I would have to click on the text link to query more results. With Wordtracker, it was pretty much the same. There was a dig icon that I would have to click on. It would then query that keyword as it did with the primary.

Keyword Elite has this feature built in. It prompts the user to type in a keyword and the amount of results that you want to have. You could select 100 to 10,000 keywords. So based on you primary keyword, it will automatically dig into the primary keyword and then into it's results. This is a great time saving feature. You could enter and submit the initial parameters, take a lunch break, and then come back with thousands of keywords on your PC.

More Keyword Data Sources

With more data sources, the keyword tool would be more accurate. You would have a larger data sample representing a larger amount of keywords that people actually searched for. Since Overture's keyword suggestion tool is a product of Yahoo Search Marketing, it's results are pretty restricted. With Wordtracker, it's data only comes from meta-search engines. So again, the results are limited.

With Keyword Elite, you have a plethora of databases and retrieval options. The main options are Overture, Google's keyword suggestion tool, and Teoma's database (Ask.com). In addition to that, you could even grab meta keywords from websites related to your primary keyword. Having these options are great, considering that Google and Yahoo are the primary websites for browsing the net.

So what if Wordtracker had some data that the other data sources didn't? The great thing about Keyword Elite is that it cover's some area's that Wordtracker does not. You can actually integrate Wordtracker into Keyword Elite. Another option that you have is integrating Keyword Discovery as well. So instead of being only limited to the 36 million unique keyword searches that Wordtracker has, you're able to unlock 580 million from Keyword Discovery. Keep in mind that Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery are both fee-based services.

Automatic KEI Calculations

The KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) is a popular calculation for determining the supply and demand of a keyword. Although there are other effective ways to determine the supply and demand, finding out how much competition you have is a must when planning out your websites. Overture doesn't have any KEI calculation. Wordtracker does have it, but you have to do it in bunches of 100. With Keyword Elite, you could select more than a hundred and automatically calculate the KEI. So again, you could calculate the KEI, step away from your desk, and later have the results. I prefer doing this rather than being at my PC just to click a button.

As you can see, Keyword Elite is a time saving tool. You could find a bunch of free tools to do a similar task, but how important is your time? It would be wise to use your valuable time towards tasks that actually make you money. Why not have your computer do the work and speed up keyword research for you?