Storybase is a Keyword Research Tool but that description doesn’t even come close to describing the full range of features that it offers.

Whilst it is true that Storybase does indeed have a strong keyword planning element it really comes into its own as a content marketing resource that helps website owners, content writers and marketers to shape their content to meet the needs of their audience.

That said, Storybase is not an easy product to describe so lets take a look at what they say about themselves and what they do; “StoryBase is your companion in the struggle to create more relevant, shareable content. In its most basic form, StoryBase serves as an easy-to-use resource which creates simple insights out of complex data. StoryBase focuses on the insights that truly matter, freeing you from the graphs and numbers that demand too much of your time.”

Does that make it clearer? Well, perhaps a little. So how does this keyword research tool differ from those more straightforward keyword planning tools?

Storybase say that their biggest differentiating feature is their “Questions” capability:

As you can see from the above example, a simple search for “cats” produces a list of questions that people frequently ask online about cats. “Why do cats purr?” is the most commonly asked question so anyone in that niche would be wise to have some content on their website that addresses that issue – produce content that people are actively searching for.

The keyword research space is a crowded one and for many there’s no need to look any further than Google’s free of charge and excellent Keyword Planner – available to anyone who opens an AdWords account. I certainly cut my teeth on that product and so did many other marketers of my acquaintance. I suppose it’s a bit like learning to play an instrument but never really learning how to read music – you can go so far but eventually you will hit a brick wall. Google tells you a lot but it doesn’t tell you everything. Plus, of course, it’s all geared towards their AdWords ppc platform – fair enough – but the keyword lists you get from Google’s Keyword Planner are limited in scope and, quite frankly, a lot is withheld.

Even when you decide to branch out and get yourself a different keyword research tool, one that isn’t so tightly aligned to Google AdWords, you may still get caught out. Why, because many keyword planning tools still use the Google tool as the source for their keywords. True, some of them, Market Samurai for example, do add a lot of additional analysis to the list that google provides but you are, in effect, paying to get a list of keywords that google would have given you for free.

So, back to StoryBase. Where do they stand on all of this? Well, here’s how they put it; StoryBase gives you access to a gigantic keyword database, with more than 5 billion keywords in Danish, English, German and Swedish—and over 100 million questions, as well as wide-ranging demographic data.” There’s a very extensive longtail keyword finder as well and that’s something you don’t really get with Google’s tool because long phrases carry very little search traffic and therefore little revenue opportunity for paid ads. Don’t let that put you off though – what Google considers to be low traffic levels can still be quite specific and well worth pursuing. Although StoryBase refers to longtail keywords it actually calls them phrases most of the time. It explains this distinction by pointing out that the phrases it provides are based on their search data and other sources.

I haven’t done a full StoryBase review yet but it is scheduled in for the near future. I consider myself to be a serious keyord researcher – it is an essential part of almost all online content -based and ppc marketing – so I want the best tools available and, I’m already pretty sure, that I want this one!

As to cost? well there is a 7 day free trial, (bit mean!) and I certainly encourage you to take that. If you do devide you want to subscribe then your starting point is $29/month which is not too bad – it’s a bit of a hike to the next level though with a price tag of $99/month.