Crazyegg.com is a nifty and inexpensive heat mapping software package that tracks where people click on your web pages and produces stunning heat map reports that will help you visualize your user behavior.

A Click Heat Map is a visual representation that shows aggregated analytics data.  It is based upon where your website visitors click.   The heat map reports are quite handy for post-click usability improvement.  Post click analysis is when you analyze your website based strictly on what your past visitors did.  This helps test and improve the “assumptions” that every webmaster uses when building a website.

Here are two examples of heat maps produced by Crazy Egg.  This example shows colored dots where people click – each color represents a “referrer”… in this case, the orange would be Google:

This is a more proper example of a heat map, which shows “hotter” colors for the areas with the most clicks. (more…)

There are several niche keyword research tools of interest to the tourism marketing strategist. These keyword research tools focus on finding demographics like age, gender, location of searches.

At our recent Blizzard University: All About Google, there were several tourism attendees from Denver and Aspen.  One of the topics was focusing your design on your demographic.  A good tool to see what your demographics might be is the the MSN Adcenter Labs Keyword Forecast Tool. It shows age and gender demographic trends.

Enter your keywords:

See how they distribute by Age:

See how they distribute by Gender:

Another question revolved around determining international and Geographic based search terms.  Two tools to consider are:

Google Insights To Search lets you strain your data with several parameters:

• The Location of the Searcher
• The Keyword Phrase used
• The Timeframe
• By Category

Brian Lence from Vacationsinc.com, a Winter Park rental company, suggested  the Google Global Firefox Extension which lets you simulate searches in contry specific versions of Google.  This tool is worth exploring if you are targeting international visitors.

Other Keyword Research Posts:

Keyword Research: Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Keyword Research Tool: SEMRush

Keyword Research Tools: KeywordDiscovery by Trellian

Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a favorite tool for sure — it is free and powerful enough for many purposes.  It is the first (and only) keyword research tool that many people use who don’t want to pony up and pay for an even more powerful tool.

It is easy and fast. Here is an example I performed for Catalina Vacations which offers vacation rentals on Catalina Island:

Check out the SEMRush tool for awesome keyword insights based on phrases your competitors are using succesfully.

Keyword Research Tool: Demographic Research Tools

Keyword Research Tools: KeywordDiscovery by Trellian

After doing the “obvious” keyword research using a tool like KeywordDiscovery, I like to get some out of the box ideas using SEMRush.  SEMRush will show you the keyword phrases your competitors are ranking for, and, undoubtedly will reveal some phrases that you hadn’t even though of.

As an example, Hilton Head Vacations and Golf Rentals has several formidable competitors.  I use SEMRush to see who their competitors are.  I enter their domain name:

Then, I look down to their organic competitors:

Then, I select a competitor and look for some good keywords I didn’t consider in my previous search… here is an example:

SEMRush costs $99 for six months… the free version only gives the top 10 results, which probably won’t be enough for the purposes of finding some new and good keywod phrases.

Read an earlier article about using SEMRush to track your search engine rankings.

Other Articles about keyword research:

Keyword Research: Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Keyword Research Tool: Demographic Research Tools

Keyword Research Tools: KeywordDiscovery by Trellian

A popular question around the office is about a  favorite keyword research tool… if we could only subscribe to one keyword research service, it would have to be KeywordDiscovery. It is easy to use and fast. The paid version starts at $69.95 per month. It has an extensive feature list and is powerful enough for enterprise level keyword research.

If you do a search for Orlando rental it will provide many suggested keyword phrases:

One of KeywordDisovery’s strengths is that it shows a seasonal and geographic view of the keyword data… in the hotel and resort industry, this can make a difference! For example, the number of searches for Vail Skiing is would be a lot different in December than May.

You can look at seasonal breakdowns:

(more…)

It is getting harder and harder to get a good domain name.  Just finding a name that is available is tough, especially if you want a .com

The first tool I usually use is the Domain Suggestion Tool which will create dozens of suggestions if you give it a phrase or a domain.  It usually adds and/or substitutes you didn’t think of.  When I put in Glenwood Springs it came up with domains like www.glenwoodspringsworld.com, www.myglenwoodsprings.com and www.glenwoodspringsalive.com. It also suggested www.glenwoodbrooks.com.

Another tool that is more fun is the Domai.nr which creates new combinations using top level domains like www.glenwoodsprin.gs. Domai.nr searches hundreds of lesser-known TLDs (top level domains, like .com, .org and .net) for creative solutions.

OK, I admit it.  I am color challenged.  I know great color when I see it, but am not confident in my own abilities to pick colors.  Recently I have been using online color tools to find new and better color schemes.

Kuler by Adobe is a handy tool that lets you choose different colors to base your palettes on:

to create color palettes like these:

Another similar program that I like even better is Color Scheme Designer. It has a slick color selector and shows off the colors intuitively:

You can take your palette and see what it would look like on a website too:

Find our other favorite tools in our Toolbox.