There's a different feel in the air at SMX West, the Search Marketing Expo, taking place at the Santa Clara Convention Center this week, than at most of the other tech conferences I attend like Web 2.0, TechCrunch 50, Supernova or Pop!Tech. Namely this: People aren't sharing. I've been enjoying the sessions as a member of the press. But it's as if these hundreds of marketing professionals, SEO gurus and webmeisters have individually decided not to blog about the sessions they're attending, instead choosing to scrupulously record notes and disseminate their findings only to the inner sanctum back at corporate HQ.

That, at any rate, is how I interpret the fact that 200 to 300 people attended Tuesday's session on SMX Boot Camp: Keyword Research Tools & Techniques — yet no one wrote about it on their blogs. Or maybe Twitter has made everyone lazy.

With that in mind, I'll provide a detailed synopsis of the excellent presentation given by Christine Churchill, founder and CEO of KeyRelevance. Because I believe that the community becomes richer as we become better informed about the tools at our disposal.

Keyword marketing

"Keywords are the bedrock of search marketing," Churchill told the audience. After all, she pointed out, we still live in a text-based world. How often do you type terms into a Google search box? Yes, exactly.

Why do keyword research? She listed several reasons:

• It's a fundamental step in search marketing.
• It's a way to correct bad keyword choices.
• You increase conversion by speaking the customer's language.
• You develop a list of relevant terms to target in SEO (search engine optimization), pay-per-click, blogs, images, videos, press releases and social media marketing. (Yes, you should add a descriptor to your images and videos and include a keyword in the headline of your press release.)
• You can glean competitive intelligence: see what the competition is doing.
• Keywords can provide insights for your site design and navigation.
• Knowing traffic potential helps plan budgeting (mostly for pay per click).
• You can discover new keyword opportunities.
• Consider going beyond well-known keywords. "There's a long tail for popular keyword searches, too."

Keyword sources

Churchill recommended creating a keyword list using diverse sources:

• online and traditional print magazines
• company and product reviews
• online thesauruses like thesaurus.reference.com
• talk to focus groups, customer interviews, support or sales personnel
• discussion forums, user-generated content and blogs
• analytics
• and this: look at keywords your competitors are buying in pay per click and in SEO.

Keyword research tools

Here are some of the leading research tools that social media marketers should keep top of mind:

• Google keyword tool
• Wordtracker (paid service)
• Trellian keyword discovery (paid service)
• Google Webmaster tools (it's a good way to find out how Google perceives your site
• Google Insights
• Google Trends (allows you to compare popular phrases — you can see which terms are popular by state or region, and you can even look back at specific date and see what was popular a year ago)
• Google's Search based keyword tool (free)
• Hitwise (a high-end competitive information tool)
• Keyword Discovery (searches multiple databases: global premium, historical global, international, news, shopping, eBay. By entering a key phrase, you can see questions related to the search term, which helps you come up with new content ideas.)

I'll work with my colleague Joanna Lord to provide a deeper look at these at a later date.

More search and data mining tools

• adCenter Labs (an advertising and data mining toolet from Microsoft)
• Clusty (a search engine that offers clustered search allowing users can see related terms)
• Quintura (it works by navigating by "clouds"; bold words are most related, good for brainstorming and broadening keyword buckets)
• Ask.com (provides keyword suggestions and shows related searches)
• Google Suggest (as you type in a phrase, Google offers keyword suggestions in real time)
• Yahoo! (Churchill says she likes Yahoo's keyword selection tool the best but didn't explain why)
• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool (learn which keywords you should be targeting to increase your website rankings and traffic)
• SEOBook's Permutation Tool (free)
• Microsoft's Ad Intelligence (a new plug-in for Excel 2007)
• Technorati (the blog search engine — type in a phrase and below posts it will show related tags)
• Flickr (explore popular tags on Flickr)
• Amazon's most popular tags

Best line of the morning, from Churchill: "Traffic alone isn't the goal. You want targeted traffic that resonates with your audience and will lead to greater sales of your products."

Interesting factoid: 80% of searches on the web are noncommercial, says Churchill. People conduct three kinds of searches:  navigational (I want to find your site), informational (what's in a Mai Tai?) and transactional (buying a product, subscribing to a service).

Competitive intelligence tools

• Hitwise
• comScore Marketer (find out what terms are working)
• Trillian's Competitive Inteligence
• Keyword difficulty tool
• Spyfu
• Keycompete (enter domain name and they'll show which domains are being bought)
• Compete
• Keyword Spy
• Keywords Analyzer

Some final tips from Churchill:

• Longer phrases often convert better
• Single words rarely perform well
• Look at popularity as traffic potential
• Review keyword competition
• Group keywords into buckets of related terms

Use keywords everywhere, Churchill implored: in blog posts, press releases, images, videos, podcasts, tags, social media and website metadata titles.

Keyword tips

Single keywords don't work well, she pointed out, so look for two- to three-word phrases. Also, don't embed keywords in graphics (a bit confusing, since we were told to add keywords to images).

JD Lasica is founder of Socialmedia.biz. We work with large companies and nonprofits on social media strategies and campaigns. See JD's business profile, contact him or leave a comment.