The updated Google Keyword Tool is probably the best starting point for SEO. If you are just beginning your keyword research you can use it to find the most popular terms and how many searches are performed on your initial set of keywords. For adwords it gets better as you can either do keyword research or enter the url of the proposed landing page. Here the Google system analyses your page and lists all the keywords it thinks suitable – nicely arranged in groups. You can enter any term you do not want the system to consider. The Google system is very fast and very accurate but like all computers it can be very stupid, so be careful. For example, I asked it to examine a page devoted to the `In the Pink` campaign at Breast Cancer Care. It insisted on giving terms related to the band Pink Floyd ! So I used the Filter Option so that all terms relating to `floyd` were excluded.

In the `Choose Columns to be displayed` field select `Show All`. To the left of this is the `Calculate estimates…` field. It is a good idea to leave this blank as you can then see the `Estimated Avg. CPC` for all the Keywords. The low cost ones with high search volume are what you are looking for – the hidden gems that can get you lots of visitors for little expense.

Note that the in the image above the columns have been sorted by`Approx Avg Search Volume`. This way you can quickly scan for high volume and low cost Keywords.