If you are familiar with my blog and my reviews you should already know that Jonathan Leger is one of very few internet marketing “gurus” I trust and he is on my “Guru Trust” list. Jon has proven time and time again that he knows what are the problems internet marketers are facing and more importantly, he proved that he can create tools and services that help those specific problems.

Among his great creations you will find The Best Spinner, Instant Article Wizard, 1-Way Links, WebComp Analyst and Article Builder.

For these reasons I was pretty excited when Jon announced a new tool he is working on along with Josh Spaulding that will address a very big problem many of us have, keyword research, and I really wanted to see what he will come up with and if it is going to be as good as some of his other tools.

Keyword Canine Overview

So What Is Keyword Canine?

In short, Keyword Canine is a niche discovery, competition analysis, backlink generation and analysis tool.

When Jon and Josh thought about this tool they wanted it to help internet marketers with the 3 main steps needed to rank in Google:

1. Identify keywords that have value (traffic + advertiser value).
2. Analyze the competition (to make sure it’s not too difficult).
3. Get links to your site.

Keyword Canine is meant to help you find profitable niches (keywords), show you the competition you are up against and help you get links to get a head start.

In Depth Look

Keyword Canine is an online tool which is quite different than other keyword research tools. The fact that it is an online tool means it is easy to access from anywhere and more importantly, it works fast.

There are 5 main features to Keyword Canine:

Analyze

As you can see in the above screenshot, within Analyze you will  be able to do 3 things:

1. Analyze Keywords – This tool will analyze the specific set of keywords you provide and give you a full analysis of the search engine results. Click here to see an example of the report his feature will produce.
2. Analyze Related Keywords – This tool will find related terms for the keywords you provide and give you the competition analysis for those terms. Click here to see an example of the report his feature will produce.
3. Site Explorer – This will create a simple backlinks report on a specific URL. Click here to see an example of the report his feature will produce.

Niches

The niche discovery tool is the feature I was most excited about when I first heard about Keyword Canine. Here is how this feature is described by Jon:

Our exclusive Niche Finder feature allows you to quickly and easily browse through the latest keywords KC has found. You can also filter the last 30 days of keywords by CPC, search volume, avg. PR and more to quickly find HOT niches to target! And once a keyword is in our database for 31 days, it is no longer available in the niche finder, so you know the keywords have limited exposure!

Click here is an example of what you will see inside the niche discovery tool.

The information provided for you in the Niches section is a list of keywords on various niches that Keyword Canine “sniffed” out of the past 30 days. As you can see in the above screenshot, it shows you the difficulty level, the keyword, number of results, average PR of the top 10 sites for that keyword in Google, average SiteLinks, Low SiteLinks, number of local and global exact match searches, AdWords advertiser competition and CPC:

By clicking on any keyword you will get to see the complete analysis report for that keyword which would look exactly the same as the report shown above under the analysis feature of Keyword Canine. Click here for an example of the keyword analysis report for the first keyword shown.

The niche discovery tool currently covers niches and keywords on Google US, UK, Germany and France. The filtering functionality is pretty great and allows to filter the keywords so it will be easier to find what you are looking for:

Click here to watch the tutorial video that explains everything about the niche discovery tool.

Reports

This is where you URL backlinks reports will be stored for 30 days. You can enter an URL and it will generate a report (usually within a minute or so but it mainly depends on how many links the URL you are checking has). You can view the backlinks report or download it in CSV or TSV file formats for further processing and research.

Click here to see a screenshot of the reports page and you can also click here to watch the tutorial video that will show you everything you need to know about creating reports.

Boost

The SiteBoost service is a free link building service available to each Keyword Canine user based on a credit system and each credit is redeemable toward one “Boost” which consists of 100 directory submissions that do not require a reciprocal link in return and you will also get a report for all links created.

Click here to see a screenshot of the Boost Page and you can click here to see the tutorial video that explains everything about this new feature.

Tutorials

As it sounds, this is a tutorial section which has video tutorials on the various features of Keyword Canine and it is designed to help you learn how to make the most of this tool.

There are currently 4 videos about the features of Keyword Canine and one more video that shows a technique you can use to find AdSense and affiliate niches. I’m sure that more videos will be added as time goes by. Jon is well known for his awesome ongoing support of his products and tools so I wouldn’t worry about that.

Click here to see a screenshot of the Tutorials page.

What Was Added From The Initial Launch

This is was the first question I asked Josh since I wanted to know what is new to Keyword Canine and here are the main new addition he mentioned:

• We’ve added A LOT of new data points. In the backlink reports you can now see the class C IP percentage for your backlink (what percentage of them are on unique class C IP’s.
• We’ve added the number of .EDU and .GOV backlinks in the reports along with other data points.
• We’ve added “Boosts” which are basically free backlinks for all subscribers.
• We’ve added a “Site Explorer” which is basically a lighter, MUCH fast version of the backlink reports.
• We’ve added Google trend maps to the keyword analysis page.
• We’ve added export options to the keyword analyzer and backlink reports.
• We’ve added social signal info to the analysis page which shows how many Facebook likes, tweets and G+’s the top 10 competitors have.
• We’ve added anchor text breakdowns to the backlink reports that show how many of which keywords your backlinks have and also the same for the top 10 competitors in the analysis page.

Additional Keyword Canine Features

On top of the main features I covered, Keyword Canine also has an API that allows you to analyze keywords and get back all of the data that appears on the Analysis results page except for the domain name availability and additional keyword suggestions.

Keyword Canine also has a support forum that will help you find out everything you need about the tool, get your questions answered and suggest new features to be included. For any problems you have you can also contact Jon’s helpdesk.

So, Has Leger Done it Again?

I must say that it seems like he did. The improvements and added features from the initial launch are another proof of how great Jon work process is with every new tool and product he creates.

He is constantly working to make it better by adding great new features with the soul purpose of making the tool better and easier to use for its users.

The niche discovery tool is pretty great except for the fact that all the keywords are visible to all other Keyword Canine members but here is a little tip of you, focus on the Germany and France keywords since most others won’t bother with them (big mistake).

The backlinks reports have been intensely overhauled showing much more information and as far as I know, the backlinks report Keyword Canine produces are the best at this price point and if I’m wrong be sure to let me know of by commenting below.

Bottom Line

Bottom line is that Keyword Canine does cover all the 3 steps you need to cover in order to rank in Google but don’t think that it is the only tool you need. The boost feature is a nice addition but will probably won’t be enough to get you top rankings (unless you find a really easy to rank keyword).

It’s Not a Keyword Research Tool

Keyword Canine is not a keyword research tool. It is a niche discovery, competition analysis, backlink generation and analysis tool. It does provide you with keywords via its Niches feature but it isn’t really a keyword research since the keywords are provided for you (no research is done on your part).

For building small niche sites and leveraging the power of EMD’s I will recommend you give Long Tail Pro a try as it really can really save tons of time thanks to the ability to search for more than one see keyword at a time and the EMD filter feature it has. You can also read all about it on my Long Tail Pro Review.

Thanks.

To your success (and mine ),