Although the new introduction of monthly search volume from Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool may not be ground breaking news for most.

For those of us involved in online marketing or keyword research, there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel about the speculation of monthly keyword search volume when it pertains to traffic-bearing synonyms and related search phrases.

What used to take hours to glean, extract, cross-reference and evaluate when it came to competitive keywords, can now be done in a just a few minutes and exported to CSV (comma separated values) for analysis in Excel when compiling your weekly wish list of keywords for new content creation.

Like any worthwhile venture, it requires due diligence to minimize risk. The Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool is a prime example of data coming straight from the horses mouth (considering their search engine accounts for nearly 70% or more of all searches conducted in the US).
But aside from looking at the numbers, what can you do to leverage this tool and make good use from the data it provides.

Here are a 3 SEO tips you can use to unleash the power of keyword research.

1) If you have a (CMS) content management system that allows you to easily implement new categories / sub folders and scale content (add new pages), then by using this tool, it will provide you with some great keywords to use in the folder / category names.

After that, use secondary phrases (from the same research) gleaned from the same list and integrate them tactfully into optimized blog posts, articles or internal links to create relevance for organic search.

Most websites that rank for competitive phrases typically have dozens, hundreds or thousands of pages focused on their most pivotal keywords either throughout the content, the site architecture, the titles and tags or the way the content is internally linked.

SEO is all about layering, so it takes diversification, effort and energy over time (through constant revision) to attain competitive search engine placement, but knowing which keywords are worth the pursuit is the first component to starting your SEO campaign.

2) To determine which keywords your site already has an affinity with SEO Digger a very useful and free SEO Tool. Then you can use the main phrases as the broad search phrases in the Google Keyword research tool to find hidden gems through SEO gap analysis.

3) When your stumped for keywords, try using a broad / general search term in Google, then look at the related searches located in the footer (if you have enabled blended search). After all , Google knows better than you or I which keywords beget other high traffic semantic key phrases when it comes to search engines. So, trust them and realize that related searches are pure relevance and likely phrases to optimize.

So what are you waiting for, the only difference in a site that gets 1000 visitors a month and 1,000,000 visitors a month is how many keywords are driving traffic and exposure to their content. You can apply the same context to your competition as well by reverse engineering their keywords using tip #2 and then running the top ranking phrases they rank for through the monthly search volume tool as well.

Then you will have a clear target with keywords and search volumes validated by (a) their high ranking position (b) the fact they have built enough links to show up in SEO Digger (why would they build links to keyword that do not convert) and (c) the fact that Google is showing you monthly search volume with those phrases.

Here is the follow up post taking it one step further and showing you how to use this SEO tool for even more in depth optimization purposes.

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3. Hittail Long Tail Search Engine Monitoring Tool is a Hit for SEO
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5. Google SEO Tips: Matt Cutts & Eric Enge Interview