Doing Keyword Research with Google Suggest - Getting Keyword Suggestions with Google Suggest

If you want to use Google Suggest, whether to find new keywords to target or negative ones for your PPC campaign, you need to be careful and systematic. Start by signing out of your Google account. Next, set up your favorite way to take notes. I like to use plain old paper and pen, but text editors work fine. Now pick one of the major keywords you're targeting, and s-l-o-w-l-y type it into Google's search engine text box, one letter at a time.

As you type, make sure you watch and notice all of the suggestions that Google makes. They will change with each keystroke. Note that some will disappear and others will take their place. The ones that come up for the fewest keystrokes are  probably the most competitive, so if you're looking for positive keywords to target, they may not be your best choices.

Every time you see a keyword that looks promising, write it down. Repeat this process with several variations of your keyword. You should have a reasonably-sized list by the time you're done.

How do you know these keywords will be worth your time to target? That's where the Google AdWords tool comes in. If you used a text editor and typed in one keyword per line, you can copy and paste the whole list into Google AdWords at once. Soric suggests that you click the “filter my results” link  and choose “Don't show ideas for new keywords. I only want to see data about the keywords I entered.”

Obviously, if these keywords came from Google Suggest, there is some kind of search volume associated with them. Still, you want to be able to compare them so you can prioritize. Also, it's worth noting that keywords may be seasonal or just happen to be popular at the moment in time you chose to check them out. If you're thinking about targeting new keywords, you probably want to make sure they have staying power. Before you do anything else with a promising keyword, then, go over to Google Insights to check out its performance over time.

That's really all there is to it. With a little bit of time and patience, you can turn up a bunch of solid keywords. You know they're solid, because Google wouldn't have suggested them otherwise. Good keyword research doesn't get much easier than this. Good luck!