Wordze Review
Review by Copyblogger Associate Editor Jonathan Morrow.
I’m not supposed to like Wordze, but I do.
Competing against favorites like Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery, Wordze is the underdog of the keyword research industry. Search the web for information and you’ll find lots of glowing reviews, but few of them are from respected search engine optimization experts.
Why?
Well, because Wordze doesn’t really do anything new. The interface is just a little easier to navigate, the tools are well explained, and the interlinking between tools makes it easy to sort, save, and find your data. It’s the type of product that’s just 5% better… but it’s an important 5%.
Let me show you why.
A Simple, Easy to Use Interface
Click image for larger view
The above is a screenshot of the Wordze member home page. It’s a simple collection of all of the tools at your disposal, along with a short description of what each one does. Click on the image for a closer look.
The pages for individual tools also include plenty of instructions for how to use them:
Unlike some of the other keyword research tools, I was never confused on how to use them.
Wordze Dig Tool
The Wordze Dig Tool shows you related terms for a keyword. For instance:
All of the major keyword research tools have a similar tool, but in my experience, Wordze’s has a knack for finding phrases that the others miss. You have to shuffle through some irrelevant results, but if you’re looking for a huge collection of related terms, Wordze does the best job.
Data Sources
If you are structuring a website strategy around your keyword research, it’s essential that you have accurate data. So, the first question lots of people ask is, “Where does Wordze get its search data from?”
According to their website, they get data from “niche portal sites, including metacrawlers and ISPs” from both the USA and the UK. Overall, that’s pretty vague, which is one thing Wordze has been criticized for.
After using all of the tools though, I can testify that it seems to be just as accurate as Wordtracker and almost as thorough as Keyword Discovery. You might lose some data on extremely uncommon keywords, but that’s usually only important if you’re doing PPC campaigns.
Help with Keyword Optimization
Wordze has also been criticized because they don’t offer a detailed guide on how to use their tools to optimize your keywords. To use the tools effectively, you’ll need a basic idea of how keyword research works, as well as how to leverage the data.
But is that really a problem?
The web is overflowing with information on how to optimize your keywords for SEO, PPC campaigns, and blogging. Do a few searches in Google, and you can learn as much as you want about how to optimize your website with the data from Wordze.
Pricing
The monthly subscription for Wordze is a little bit cheaper than its competitors:
- Keyword Discovery – $69/month
- Wordtracker – $59/month
- Wordze – $45/month
And that’s after raising the price. To gain market share, Wordze started the price at $25 a month, raised to $35 a month, and then just recently raised again $45 a month.
Still, it’s the cheapest monthly subscription plan for now. Rumor has it that prices may be increasing again, but as far as I know, you can lock in your price at the current $45 a month figure by signing up now.
Should You Subscribe?
It depends.
If you’re thinking about putting together an extensive PPC advertising campaign, then a tool like Keyword Discovery might suit you better. Also, if you’re looking for extensive documentation and walk-throughs on exactly how to use keyword research tools to optimize your site, then perhaps Wordtracker is the solution for you.
For everyone else, Wordze is a pretty good choice. In my opinion, the Dig tool is indispensable for bloggers. If you’re new to keyword research but you understand the general idea, I think you’ll also find that Wordze has the shortest learning curve to accomplish what you need to get done.
The bottom line? You should experiment.
All of the keyword research tools we recommend provide the same basic functionality. To figure out which one you like the most, subscribe for a month and play around with it. If you’re concerned about paying the full monthly fee, you can subscribe to a one-day trial for $7.95.
Either way, it’s a small risk to take to check out one of the leading keyword research tools on the market. Click here to subscribe now.
