SpyFu is an awesome tool which will show you some great details about a particular set of keywords. I use SpyFu when picking a niche website topic, or when I am trying to figure out what types of competition I will face if I create a website about a specific topic. SpyFu does have a monthly subscription cost for the full features, but the free version can be accessed by visiting the website, providing limited results, but just enough to get a good understanding on wether or not the niche you are thinking about will be profitable. Here’s what Spyfu will tell you when you search for a set of keywords, in a nutshell:

What the average CPC (Cost per click) of a keyword is
How many advertisers are currently advertising using that keyword
The ranking difficulty for the keyword
What keywords are worthless and should be avoided

How to use Spyfu.com

When you’re at the homepage, there is a search bar at the top, asking you to enter your competitors site domain name. Don’t put in a domain name. Instead, type in the keywords you want to check. Here is an example of a results page for the keywords “cat toys”:

So, in the results page, there’s a lot to look at. The important details to look at is the number of Monthly Searches (local), and also the Cost Per Click. The monthly searches for this keyword is actually pretty decent, but looking at the Cost Per Click, it doesn’t look like there is much profit to be made from a cat toys niche website. Even worse, the Ranking Difficulty is 52, which means it’s moderately difficult, also not so good if you are trying to reach the front page of Google for this particular set of keywords.

Let’s take a look at some of the more finer details of using SpyFu with this video below: