There are a lot of great tools available, both free and paid, to conduct keyword research. However, one you might overlook is what is in front of you every time you go to google search. Aand if you are like me that is lot.

Google Suggest is the drop down box that appears with synonyms for your query when you type into the search box. What this shows you is relevant, and possibly alternative, search phrases to you keyword. Best of all, the suggestions are “straight from the horse’s mouth” being Google’s mathematically determined suggestions to your search query.

Use the “inanchor:” and “allinanchor:” operators to see which of your competitors have obtained keyword rich links to their site. This will help you analyse their link building effectiveness on keywords you target or should be targeting.

Example: inachor:"product keyphrase here" would return results with “product keyphrase here” in the link anchor text