IMMania.com

In the relatively short time that I’ve been involved with IM, I’ve acquired quite a few software tools in an attempt to make my life easier. These tools consist of both the free and paid variety. Some of the tools that I paid top-dollar for sit unused on my hard drive. Most of these tools I purchased on the recommendation of other Internet Marketers that I respect.

The tools that I no longer use are all well-designed and do what they were advertised to do, but for whatever reason, don’t serve a purpose in my business. These tools fit into the general categories of rapid content development and competition spying. There are definitely some very clever software tools in these spaces, but I haven’t been able to find a suitable use for them.

At the other end of the spectrum are keyword tools and there are more of these kinds of tools than you can shake a stick at.

The one thing that gets confusing about keyword tools is the two major types of keyword tools:

1. Keyword Research Tools
2. Keyword Analysis Tools
3. Combination of 1 and 2 above

It took me a while to figure out the difference and I may still be getting it wrong, but keyword search information is gathered and maintained by search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo!, etc. Keyword research services such as WordTracker access the search indexes from meta search engines and build their own keyword database from them.

Keyword analysis tools essentially perform data mining on keyword search results. In other words, you can sort, filter, combine, etc. on keyword results, but the keywords ultimately come from search results provided by Google, Yahoo! Search (Overture), or WordTracker.

There are tons of keyword analysis tools, both free and paid with some being rather expensive. The one I use exclusively now is Micro Niche Finder from James J. Jones.

It’s not an exaggeration when I say I absolutely love Micro Niche Finder! Before I begin writing an article, or setting up a new website, or even writing a blog post for that matter, I first consult with Micro Niche Finder. Though I primarily use it for SEO, as its name implies, it has several very neat features that allow you to mine for niche topics and products related to those niches.

I’ve been a long time customer of James Jones and purchased his “Porcupine Marketing System” prior to the release of MNF. Yes, it’s a strange title for an info-product, but the techniques James teaches in it inspired him to create Micro Niche Finder.

Rather than me continuing to ramble on about the virtues of MNF, all you need to do is visit the sales page for MNF and watch all 5 of the videos that James has up there on how he uses MNF to make money online.

To be honest, the material contained in the videos is worth more than a lot of the info-products I’ve purchased over the years. The videos on the sales page are packed with great tips and “Aha!” moments, and I’d be surprised if you didn’t get at least one new idea from them.

And one other thing — James Jones is one of the truly good guys in IM. He personally has sent out email alerts and updates whenever there has been an issue with the MNF server, which has been rare. The latest updates to MNF (v2.0) are really useful. Not just cosmetic tweaks. In fact, the Strength of Competition (SOC) feature is very similar to WordTracker’s KEI. For most of my SEO work, I no longer bother subscribing to WordTracker’s paid service. Instead I just fire up Micro Niche Finder.