As we've worked through learning about how to build a keyword strategy, one central tenet always emerges: the overwhelming importance of keyword search volume. If keywords are the foundation of your entire web strategy, then keyword-search-volume data comprises the bricks that make up that foundation. Find the high-volume keywords and rank for those keywords and the customers will come.
Keyword research is done primarily with free and paid online tools that maintain databases of keyword search volume. In the following sections, we'll cover four popular and effective free tools: Google's search-based keyword tool, Google Insights for search, Wordtracker's free keyword tool, and SEOBook's free keyword tool.