You don’t have to go out to your nearest computer store and purchase any software. Most of what you need is available on the Internet for free or a small fee. If they offer a free trial, try it. At least, you will learn how the process works and if that particular software works for you.

Here are a few software tools for finding appropriate keywords for your website. Most of these are free tools, but some offer more features for a paid subscription.

1. Market Samurai – Although Market Samurai is NOT a free tool, it does offer a FREE trial.  It has been more than worth the investment I paid a couple of years ago.  You could easily start with zero keywords, and Market Samurai will definitely provide the very best for your industry and niche. Some of the main Market Samurai features include Keyword Research, SEO Competition and Rank Tracker. It has so many features that it’ll take some time to learn it all, but luckily, Market Samurai provides an extensive video library to help you get on track.

2. Wordtracker – There is no way that you could possibly think of all the different combinations of words that are used to find results in your niche. That is where software like Wordtracker comes in handy. Using the list of possible keywords you have compiled, choose a keyword to enter into the program. The software will return all possible combinations (according to your search parameters) and the number of searches for each. You may even notice a few that you havenít thought of before. You can even compare results by search engine.

3. Wordstream – If you want to let the software pick the keywords for you, here are a few tools that you can use. Wordstream returns keyword suggestions that work well for content and pay-per-click ads. You can also manage your keywords. You will be able to pick form the best words and phrases for your niche.

4. Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing) – This keyword tool is brought to you by Yahoo. It is now called Yahoo! Search Marketing. Using this search engine, the tool returns results for a variety of keywords and how many searches are done for them. You can choose to keep or discard the ones that have too many search results and opt to exploit the keywords that have not been overdone.

5. Keyword Discovery – This tool will return the best keyword results from one keyword that you enter. It pulls information from over 100 search engines to compile a focused list.

Another great source for not only keywords in profitable areas, but tons of other research as well is Affiliate Niche Packs. For those wanting to start affiliate sites without spending tons of time researching keywords, niches, and everything else that goes into setting up a site, these packs will do it for you.

It all starts with keywords. If you pick the right ones, you can definitely find a profitable website. Using these tools can help you narrow your search even further than the list you came up with. Which ones will be winners? You’ll have to test them and see.

Website stats can tell you different things, but here are just a few things that your website stats can tell you:

1. You can find out what keywords your visitors are using to search for you, your product and/or service.
2. You can find out which page or blog posts is getting the most rave and traffic.
3. You can learn what your visitors like and dislike
4. You can find out what countries your visitors are from
5. You can find out how many new visitors you have received
6. You can set goals to track sales and conversions and measure your site engagement goals against: threshold levels that you can define

Here are five website statistics’ tools.  Some of them I use for my websites and clients’ websites, and others that I’ve heard about:

Google Analytics: I used Google Analytics even before I began creating websites.  It’s easy enough for anybody to use and understand.
Google’s definition is “The enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.  Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way.”

Woopra: When I went to WordCamp Dallas in June, I learned about Woopra.  What impressed me the most about Woopra is the ability to have everything that Google has and the ability to see “real-time” stats.   I also appreciate the clean interface
Woopra’s definition: The world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application. We deliver the richest library of visitor statistics in the industry through our innovative desktop application. But Woopra is more than simply statistics.

AWStats: A free powerful and featureful tool that generates advanced web, streaming, ftp or mail server statistics, graphically. This log analyzer works as a CGI or from command line and shows you all possible information your log contains, in few graphical web pages.

eLogic: Tracks and monitors the activities of your website.  Provides stat counters, basic web stats and small business web analytics services to help you stay on top of your game.

W3Counter:  Free, hosted website analytics solution foree, hosted website analytics solution for answering the key questions about your website: who’s your audience, how they find your site, and what interests them.

Just like any other part of your business, it’s important to create goals, test, track and measure your website activity so that you’ll know what’s working and what’s not.