Online tools help editors choose traffic-building SEO keywords

Keyword discovery tools can help editors choose better keywords and headlines for SEO. Personal perspective is great for readers, but to catch some lift from search, objective data is better.  Here are some online tools to help editors make business-based rather than perspective based SEO choices.

For example, Google's free keyword tool can help pinpoint effective SEO terms and generate keyword ideas by displaying related terms along with each word's traffic. The data is displayed in a table and is generally vast. But editors that interpret data visually may find it tedious and time consuming to wade through it all in order to spot some pattern or idea. 

This type of thinker might work most effectively by referencing a data-interpreting illustration. According to The Economist, data visualization (e.g. word clouds) helps reveal patterns and relationships that can prove useful in making business decisions such as choosing SEO keywords.  You can read more about data visualizations and infographics here.

No editor can predict all of the search scenarios a user may think up, but Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus offers alternatives in the form of visual graphs of words complete with synonyms, antonyms, definitions and relationships. The visual interpretation can illuminate new ways of communicating a message—new ideas that may turn up more favorable traffic results in Google Trends.

The subscription-based service is available in six languages and offers users the ability to right-click on any word to launch an Internet search for that word. Users can also drag and drop any word from a file or web page into Visual Thesaurus. Clients include Ask.com company Thesaurus.com.

In the March 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Wolff wrote that owning a platform is akin to being a political superpower. If online platforms are the new kingdoms, it follows that search engine optimization (SEO) is the new public works. Without the free-flowing and direct roadwork of solid SEO, e-commerce and tourism can't get to your domain.

Online publishers: Pave your inbound roads with smooth SEO by encouraging your editors to find keyword discovery tools that work for them.