Google has a keyword research tool of its own. To find it, click on the "Tools" link in the green strip at the top of your screen. Now you have two choices: If you've already got a full web site up and you don't want to start completely from scratch in guessing at all the keywords that are there, click on the "Site-Related Keywords" tab and simply enter the web address for one or several pages on your site. Google will search the site and come up with your keyword list for you.

Option two is for you, if you want to connect to people with keywords that aren't obvious to your site. To use this tool, select "Keyword Variations" and enter one of your main keywords. You won't just get variation to that keyword, if you check the little box on the right labeled, "Use Synonyms", Google will also give you a list of suggestions that are related to your topic. The result that you get from Google will be just what you would expect form a world-class search engine. Good stuff!

Some of the results you'll find immediately relevant; others you won't have use for. But Google gives you plenty more still helping your Google AdWords management. They won't give you the explicit numbers of searches for these terms on their system, but they will show you the relative amount of traffic they generate. To see this, click on the "Show columns" dropdown menu and select "Keyword popularity".

Along with the amount of competitors vying for each keyword shown in the partly shaded rectangle, you will also get the relative amount of searches that each term gets.

Yet another clever feature is "Global search volume trends," a month-by-month graphic of the average searches your term gets.

This is very helpful in managing your Google Adwords, and very clever! You can get alternatives that Overture can't give, and info on your competitors that you won't receive from other free services. And they don't charge any extra fees for the services.

AS FOR WORDTRACKER

If you were to look for all the variations searched for "learn German" using Overture, then you would get a list where each of the terms would include those two words.

1,371 learn to speak german

916 learn german free

598 learn german online free

383 learn to speak german for free

108 learn to speak german online

100 german language learn online

73 learn swiss german

71 learn german software

69 learn german cd

Won't there be people interested in learning German use other phrases?

Undeniably there are. Phrases like "study German" and "study in German" come to my mind (and probably someone else's too.) There is probably somebody just on a whim that will type in "learn Deutsch" or how about "sprechen sie Deutsch".

How will we know what other keyword possibilities are out there? Wordtracker's Wide Search is the answer.

For example, perhaps you are looking for keywords for "cell phones". These are varieties that you would find suggested at Wordtracker.

mobile phone

nokia

cellphone

cellular phone

ringtones

wireless

sony ericsson

samsung

sanyo

motorola

bluetooth

accessories

The terms you get from Wordtracker can open up new market that might never have considered, all you have to do is let loose your imagination. You might be like others looking at the keyword list and decide that selling the accessories for Nokia phones is more profitable than selling the phones themselves. This kind of unexpected revelation is only one of many. Doing the research helps bring these to light. Keep your eyes open!

Wordtracker is not designed to give you click costs or profitability estimates. It's made to alert you to all of the possible directions you can take with your keywords. It does this by

showing you all the variations people have typed in over the last 60 days, and

advising you of the number of searches each term has had by Dogpile and Metacrawler.

Other than plurals and singulars, other variations in spelling are not included. Phrases like "cell", cell phone" and "cellular" will have to be done in separate tasks.