Competitive Keyword Analysis

Keyword analysis is a very important factor for the success of both Search Engine Optimization strategies and PPC campaigns. Insufficient or incorrect analysis will increase the costs associated with a PPC campaign, risking paying too much for unpopular or under-performing keywords, while missing the ones that offer a better relationship between cost, popularity and effectiveness. At the same time, bad keyword research will affect SEO, wasting time optimizing for keywords that aren't likely to bring as much traffic to the site. 
Keyword analysis can be performed by combining the results provided by each Ad network, using tools like the Google keyword analysis too, searches on all major search engines to see which ads display for every keyword and trial and error to figure out the most effective ones. However, researching keywords this way is slow and prone to human error. If a campaign has more than a few keywords, or is targeting more than one ad network, keeping this every changing information up to date becomes impossible. For this reason, the use of keyword analysis tools becomes the most effective way of performing a website keyword analysis. The main benefits of using a keyword analysis tools are:

Extended data

Keyword analysis tools go a step beyond offering basic data such as estimated volume of searches or cost per click on a specific keyword. By analysing search engines results and the ads displayed information such as competing websites target keywords, detailed view of the ads triggered or the distribution of impressions among the different competing websites helps make the best decisions about what keywords are worth including on a campaign.
By using a keyword analysis tool to research what the competition is doing it's possible to benefit from their research when building a new campaign. Keyword analysis tools gather information about what keywords trigger competitor website ads, and this way they can suggest new keywords that also fit your website. Information about the estimated cost per click of each keyword helps reduce the time invested on trial and error, and missed impressions due to bids being too low compared with what other websites are paying, and also allows weeding out keywords that are too expensive for the assigned budget. In many cases, it's better to focus on a few lower cost articles, instead of aiming for a highly competitive, highly priced one.

Historical data
 
Unlike tools such as Google keyword analysis feature, professional keyword analysis tools also provide information about the data over time, as opposed to snapshots of the situation at a certain moment of time. This means that trends can be detected, and reduces the risk of wrong decisions taken because the snapshot reflected an anomaly on the users behaviour due to external causes, such as something happening on the news.
The data is always current
The Internet is an extremely fluid environment, and the information about a keyword popularity or cost can change within hours. For that reason, the data obtained by a manual keyword analysis can be obsolete and lead to the wrong decisions. With keyword analysis tools, the information is always up to date, and it allows for fine-tuning of campaigns without having to do all the research, from scratch, every time. It also eliminates the risk of human error due to having to gather all that information manually and for many similar keywords.

It's more time efficient

Keyword analysis tools are also the most efficient way of optimizing a PPC campaign or deciding on the most effective SEO targets for a site. By freeing you from the need to research individually each and every keyword combining results from different tools and search engine listings, it allows you to focus on optimizing the results of the PPC campaign, or  selecting the best performing keywords that are also being targeted by competing websites for SEO. Since the number of keywords a website can be optimized for is limited, this allows for better decision taking to focus on the most popular keywords within that website industry.
By using keyword analysis tools is possible to have all the information about a keyword, it's costs, competitors and estimated display volume on your fingertips, at the click of a button. Unlike with manual research, this information is always current, and in an area as changing as online keyword triggered advertising that is crucial to take the right decisions. Having all this information aggregated and presented graphically and in a human friendly way reduces the time taken to understand it and allows for more efficient and quick tuning of a PPC campaign for the best performance.