Amsive

PUBLISHED: Mar 9, 2010 2 min read

Yahoo!’s Search Marketing Desktop: The 2 Ways Its Keyword Tool Stands Alone

Yahoo!’s Search Marketing Desktop, formally released, speeds up your paid search efforts…and offers an uncommon take on a common feature.

Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop

From what I saw, Yahoo!’s editor offers most of what you’d normally need for developing and optimizing paid search campaigns, including bulk editing of campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords, statistics and a keyword research tool. I didn’t notice a way to add negative keywords or edit geo-targeting, though these aren’t deal-breakers.

Yahoo!’s editor is quite useful by itself, to any paid search marketer, simply due to its bulk editing feature. That said, its most interesting feature is its keyword research tool.

Yahoo Keyword Research Tool

First, with most keyword research tools, you enter root keywords, and it spits back related ones. Yahoo!’s tool, on the other hand, presents you with a series of “test” keywords, which you then vote on—relevant or not?—and ultimately displays a list of relevant terms, refined based on your feedback. This seems to work well, and Yahoo! gets points here for a clever approach to an old problem. (Think Amazon’s option to train its recommendation engine.)

Yahoo Keywords in Canonical Form

Second, its recommended keywords come as they might commonly be searched, e.g., “order floral arrangement,” as well as, many times, an alternate version of the same, e.g., “arrangement floral order.” (Its interface calls this Canonical Form.) Other keyword research tools provide alternate keyword forms, but Yahoo!’s actually pairs the common keyword with the alternate, which could make your review easier.

All in all, Yahoo!’s Search Marketing Desktop is a welcome addition to the paid search marketer’s arsenal. Now let’s see what happens to it when the Bing-Yahoo! marriage is complete…

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