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Scary image; great product. Go figure...

It hasn’t been that long since I started seeing Keyword Winner banners plastered all over different blogs.

Naturally, I got curious.

Add the word “keyword” to any tools, plus attached Dan Lew‘s name to it (DanLew.com), and you got my attention.

However, I couldn’t really find any good reviews out there - of course, I’d rather see someone else test-driving the product and telling me (hopefully the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth) how they did or didn’t like it.

Not such luck though, so here I go again - if you want to have something done well, do it yourself.

Why would I be interested in Keyword Winner, you ask, if one of my favorite products is Market Samurai - arguably the best keyword research software on the market?

Not only that, but I also use Scribe SEO - keyword research and content optimization tool from Copyblogger.

One thing at a time though.

Let me see how I like Keyword Winner first and then I’ll tell you which ones I’ll stick with.

And now you know what I know. Almost.

Of course, I played with this plugin a whole lot more after I finished the video and here are the things that are worth mentioning.

Keyword Winner: The Upsides

1. Every post can rank.

You might’ve heard me say before that not every post is meant to rank for a keyword. Some of them are just that - posts.

One of the latest posts I mentioned it in is this one: SEO Content Writing: How to Write a Title Pleaser That Ranks Well Too

The reason I am referring to that post is more than just to deep link my posts, although that’s always great to do, but the fact that the title of that post used to be “Title Pleaser: Kill Two Birds with One Stone”.

It’s a great post on how to optimize titles for both SEO and readers and all the title tricks I’ve learned along the way.

And now, thanks to Keyword Winner research that took me one whole minute, I optimized the title for the post about title optimization.

Now, I might actually get it ranked for something.

2. Takes no time.

In my world, if I can have a tool that comes up with quick keyword ideas on the spot, it’s a keeper.

3. SEO competition.

Gives you a good idea whether it’s a good idea (yes, I know I said “good idea” twice… three times now) to go for a keyword.

With its color-coded system that even my now 4 year-old can understand (Happy Birthday, Emma!) - red, yellow, green - it’s incredibly easy to determine what you are getting yourself into competition-wise. Green (Go!) is your best friend here.

4. Link building.

Wow, that’s quite a feature! It tells you how many links you’ll need to build (judging by what your competition has or doesn’t have) to rank for your keyword.

Granted, I’ve never seen a market where you need only one link to outdo your competitors, until I used Keyword Winner. But hey, if the search volume for those keywords is high enough, why not?

Makes your link building life that much easier.

5. First page Google ranking.

It’s never easy to rank on the first page of Google, but if you have the right combination of a low competition keyword and a decent search volume (otherwise, why would you want to rank for something that no one is looking for?), you just might get there a lot sooner.

Dan Lew promises as soon as 3 hours. Haven’t used the plugin long enough to get those kind of numbers, but I don’t see why not.

6. Great tag ideas.

I recently wrote a post on what tags really are and how to properly use them over at Kikolani.com:

• What Are Post Tags & Why You Should Be Using Them

Keyword Winner makes it a cinch to find the best tags and automatically add them to your post. This gives you even more chances to rank on search engines, this time for properly chosen tags.

Keyword Winner: The Downsides

1. Great tool, but…

I don’t believe this plugin is meant to be the final word on keyword research.

It’s great to find some great keywords quickly for any of your posts, but if you are doing keyword research for your blog in general, categories, pillar articles, I would still use Market Samurai - hands down.

Again, I use Keyword Winner to quickly look up possible keywords for my post title and take it from there - very needed function that no other tool has filled in so far.

2. Page competition rank checker.

So far, this is one of the features that needs some work, in my opinion.

This feature is supposed to screen your titles of already published posts to see if the title is anywhere close to ranking high on Google (I think it’ll show you if it ranks within the first 30 spots.)

Well, most of my posts came up as ranking #1…. Hooray for me? Not really.

They were ranking #1 for my entire title, not any particular keyword. At least I can get ranked for that.

But you know what, the good news is Dan Lew knows this is a bit of a downside and he’s working on it.

When working properly (and it actually did in some cases), it’s a great feature to have.

Keyword Winner vs Market Samurai

As I was listing my cons against the plugin and mentioned Market Samurai, I knew there was a question brewing in your head:

So which one do I prefer? Market Samurai or Keyword Winner?

Hands down, both of them.

Why?

To sell you both of them and make more money…

No, not really.

This is not a review of Market Samurai, but I’ll tell you this - it’s still the most thorough keyword research, SEO competition research, domain research, content research, and every other kind of blogging research there is kind of tool.

But I won’t use it for every post.

As efficient as it is, it still takes time. Again, the word “thorough” doesn’t go with “quick”, at least in this case.

Keyword Winner, on the other hand, gives me the flexibility to rank ANY of my posts for a keyword or two.

The best example of that is the one I gave you above:

“Title Pleaser: Kill Two Birds with One Stone”

vs

“SEO Content Writing: How to Write a Title Pleaser That Ranks Well Too”.

Huge difference. This kind of difference can mean zero search engine traffic and a steady stream of it 24/7.

Which one would be your preference? Exactly my point.

Side note: here’s another thumbs up for Market Samurai as a niche marketing research tool from dazzling Donna Fontenot.

Keyword Winner vs Scribe SEO

I’ve been an avid user of Scribe SEO by Copyblogger for a while now.

And now the time came for me to take Scribe SEO OFF MY Internet Marketing Tools LIST in favor of Keyword Winner.

Once again, this is not a review of Scribe SEO, so I am not going into great details as to why I am switching.

Suffice it to say, that Keyword Winner simply makes more sense.

It lets you optimize your post even before you start writing it - in the headline, whereas with Scribe SEO you write the post first, THEN the plugin will tell you which keywords your post happens to be optimized for.

The thing is though, with link building still playing such a prominent part in your search engine rankings, I can rank any post for any keyword I want to (within reason) with proper links and proper anchor text pointing to it - even if that keyword is not even mentioned in the body of the post.

Plus, weighing a monthly fee of $27-$97 (depending on the level) with Scribe SEO, and a one-time fee of currently only $47 with Keyword Winner… well, as you can tell we have a clear winner.

Marketing Takeaway

Is Keyword Winner for me? Definitely.

I am actually addicted to checking my titles with it now and it’s a good thing.

Is it for you? Absolutely.

I know you can benefit from it as much as I can and at such a low price point, I’d hate for you to not take advantage of it.

Love it or hate it? Comment to show me that you’re alive!

Tagged as: keyword research, keyword research tools, keyword winner, keyword winner vs, keyword winner vs scribe seo

This post brought to you by Ana Hoffman

Ana is the founder of Traffic Generation Cafe and wants you to know that her 7 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination free SEO report = SEO Made Simple. Don't forget to pick up your own copy today - just click on the link above!

Ana has written 233 great posts for Traffic Generation Cafe.