Great Way to Find Popular Keywords for Your Blog or Other Published Content

One reason I love my blog is that when I'm sitting alone and I find something really cool that I’m excited about and want to share, with my friends...now I can. One reason I love Twitter is that I can tell people I just found something really cool about [fill in cool thing here] so go look at my blog.

So what did I find?

I found this great tool for bloggers and others with published web content on Google called the Keyword Tool which is perfect for people like me who wonder about tagging blogs and other published items. Sometimes I kind of just put whatever thoughts come to mind but I wonder are these the words people would really use to find me??? Well wonder no more! You can use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas AND you can get data about how often those words have been searched last month and on average. How cool is that?

Thoughtshot of my mind…ugh, does this mean I should go back to my old posts to find the right keyword?

Here's how it works:

First you put in the url of your blog if you want keywords for your whole blog or the url for a particular post if you want keywords for one post.

Then you select “Get Keyword Ideas” and it analyzes your site.

Then Wah lah!!!..You get this cool chart with keyword categories and data about search volume. Here is what I selected from the keyword suggestions for this post: keyword tool, keyword generator, keyword suggestion tool, keyword generator, keyword finder, blog traffic, promoting blog, blog tools.

Now this tool was actually made to go hand in hand with those people who want to use Google to advertise and hence come up to the top of Google on the right-hand column under sponsored links and by default we benefit too. Here are some of Google’s tips for using the tool.

What are some advanced tips for using the Keyword Tool?

The Keyword Tool is a great way to find new keywords for your ad campaigns. For example, if you run a budget hotel, the Keyword Tool can suggest helpful related keywords like "hotel discounts" or "motels." Adding these alternate terms to your ad group keyword lists can help you find new customers that you might otherwise have missed.

The Keyword Tool is especially helpful in three situations:

• When you first create a new ad group
• When your current keywords are performing poorly and you need to find better options
• When you have one keyword that really works well and want to find more like it

Remember that the Keyword Tool works best with short keywords of one or two words in length. "Budget hotel" will get better results than "inexpensive place for lodging while on a trip." That's because if your keyword includes many words, the Keyword Tool may have a hard time determining the most important words and delivering the appropriate alternatives.

Ready for some advanced tips? Try using the Keyword Tool to:

• Find keywords based on your site content. Instead of entering your own keywords, try using the Website Content option. It lets you enter the URL of your business website, or of any site related to your business. The AdWords system will then scan your page and then suggest relevant keywords. (This feature is available only in some languages.) Don't hesitate to enter the URLs of related sites, or even of your competitors' sites, to learn what keywords they might be advertising on themselves.
• Create new, separate ad groups with similar keywords. We recommend creating several ad groups in each campaign, each with a small, narrowly-focused set of similar keywords. Use the Keyword Tool to discover relevant keywords, then divide them into lists of 5 to 20 similar terms. See examples of ad groups promoting a single product or service and multiple products or services.
• Identify negative keywords. The Keyword Tool can show you off-topic keywords that users may be thinking about. Suppose you sell cut flowers and you give the Keyword Tool the keyword "flowers." It may suggest the related term "gardens," and you may want to add that term to your ad group as a negative keyword. That will keep your ad from showing on searches for "flower gardens" or similar terms. This helps make sure only interested customers see your ads.
• Find synonyms - or not. The Use synonyms box in the Descriptive words or phrases option is always checked by default. (This means it might suggest "bed and breakfast" as a synonym for the keyword "hotel.") If you uncheck the box, the tool will suggest only keywords that contain at least one of the terms that you entered.
• Specify a language and location. If you're using the Keyword Tool while signed in to your account, you may see an option to tailor results to a particular location and language. If you happen to be targeting Spanish speakers who live in France, make sure you set the Keyword Tool to that language and location.
• Start broad and then get specific. Try broad terms like "flowers" in the Keyword Tool first. Then try specific terms like "red roses" or "miniature cactus."

The Keyword Tool also makes it easy to add keywords to your ad group if you're already signed in to your account. Just click 'add' next to the appropriate results. If you're not signed in to your account and you're using the standalone Keyword Tool, you can just copy the keywords to a separate document, then paste them into your ad group once you're signed in.

Ponderings
When I find things like this I always wonder are others thinking, "are you just finding this???" or are they thinking, "Oh wow. That's cool." I hope others have found this useful. I’m excited to test the tool out for this post. IIf you have some great ideas, tips or experiences with keywords, tagging please share.