1.3.1. Google AdWords (External) Keyword selection tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Provide a full list of specific keywords you've researched so far, set the region and language in which you'd like to compete, and request a list of suggested keywords. By checking the 'Use synonyms' box the results will be extended with additional phrases, data that usually originates from advertisers, and seen relevant to your chosen words.

Most of the time the list will include all keywords and phrases that are even mildly related, and provide a mixture of various areas and intended uses. Note that the result page rarely constitutes a theme as a whole, and it is essential for you to be able to tell which of the keywords is actually related to your website's content and purpose.

Search volume is shown for the last month as a comparative measure, not in exact numbers of queries, which will be useful to determine which of the keywords is queried more often than the other. Note that unlike Trends, the threshold for the number of queries to appear on the list is relatively low, meaning a few dozen searches will have the term included at the bottom, while the full green gauge could mean anything from 200.000 to 2.000.000 queries a month.

Competition means advertiser competition, in other words the number of advertisers and obviously, the related prices per click in the AdWords program. These too are provided in order for you to compare them to one another, and provide but generic insight ( unless of course you already are advertising in AdWords ), and are useful to determine the presence of business activity in a sector. The prices for advertising with a keyword are also varying greatly based on popularity and possible ROI figures. They are only comparative within the same theme.

The short, more generic queries often show a lot more search volume, yet less competition, however you shouldn't assume that this means easy ranking for a widely used keyword. Search volume often indicates competition in organic search more fierce than among advertisers. Academic, informational and news websites usually top the result pages as link popularity is usually proportionately necessary to penetrate such a market. Also, high advertiser competition doesn't always mean the same hardships for non-commercial websites targeting a phrase in an area where their commercial counterparts have a hard time accumulating links. Such a newcomer may do much better for generic queries, but as soon as it would add commercial content, this leeway would of course be negated.

High search volume combined with at least minimum advertiser competition usually means the 'needed trust' threshold set very high. In order to appear on the results pages a website would need more trust ( a parameter that is meant to battle spam, scheming, phishing and other unwanted material ). This means that any newcomer to the scene will experience a prolonged time of not being able to rank for 1,2,3 word searches unless it accumulated link popularity from trusted resources, such as the authorities on topic, regional or international media, or other editorial websites ( - widely known as the 'sandbox effect' ). Very high competition with at least mild search volumes means the same, except that relevancy is even more closely monitored, and as such, appearing in the organic results is even harder. Commercial sites have less of a tendency to be referred to by links, unless they provide unique services or products, which makes them even harder to market in an already crammed league.

Don't forget, these metrics should be used to prioritize your own list, and considering the ideas AdWords suggests as related. Extend your primary set with the keywords you perceive as relevant, and sort them by the metrics to create a more refined set of targeted phrases. Don't limit your selection to the few that seem to perform best.


1.3.2.: Google Trends
http://www.google.com/trends

This tool allows you to compare up to five keywords or phrases, based on their search volume and their presence in news reports throughout the years. The displayed data is graphic, and just as AdWords, Trends doesn't show exact numbers either. A big difference between the Keyword Tool and Trends is that while the former will allow you to pinpoint markets and keywords of search volumes in the macro levels, Trends will only display data properly for those phrases that are in fact, popular. If your query features a keyword at the first position that falls below the minimum required searches to be shown, you will get an error message.

Use trends to compare keywords that are similar in popularity according to AdWords. You may experience the biggest gaps between their search volumes when looking for differences among the most popular phrases.

Enter up to five phrases at a time, separated by commas, and modify the order of the keywords on your list if you feel one is significantly more widely used than the other.

Make sure to check where the popularity originates from, as Trends also shows which geographic locations send the most of these queries, often resulting in realizing that while the keyword is popular, it is used in a context, in a meaning or in an area that is completely unrelated to what you are marketing.

In case none of your phrases are used often enough to show on the graph, you can use a more generic word as the first of the five phrases, and look for the search volume bars on the bottom right to indicate at least the languages in which people have been looking for them.

Phrases used without quotes will reveal the trends for any query that begins with the given words, while if you put them in quotes, only instances in which people were looking for that exact phrase will show.

Comparing data across different industries, and matching the popularity of keywords to those you know to be popular and/or even know the approximate searches made in any given month, might provide a clue to the actual volumes as well. Also, while AdWords and most of the keyword suggestion tools will only show data for the last month, Trends might answer some questions on seasonal or annual changes in queries, allowing you to measure popularity for your content even if you're taking preemptive marketing measures to get ready for an upcoming peak, something that is not popular all year.

Use Google Trends to further finetune your priorities, and again, sort your related keywords in order of popularity. Make sure you check the area, and the language in which any given keyword performs well. Trends can not be used to suggest new phrases, it is only useful to compare the differences in popularity within the terminology.

The biggest of such - what the public and what experts on the topic use - are usually revealed very early.


1.3.3.: Google Hot Trends
http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

An extension of a Google Labs idea formerly known as Google Zeitgeist, Google Hot Trends will show a sample of 'searches with momentum' that were made within any single day ( you may set the date yourself, the default is always the current day ). The data shown gets refreshed several times during the 24 hour period. Click on any of these phrases to see how they made it to the top, for these are but simplified examples of the current most popular trends. The detailed page will show additional information on related searches taken into the equation, as well as their origins ( geographic location ), the time of day in which they peaked, related news and blog posts.

This tool is probably more fitting for those who are targeting an audience looking for news and entertainment.


1.3.4.: Yahoo! Search Marketing ( Self Serve )
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/choose.php

Similar to the External tool at AdWords, you may use the keyword suggestion tool of Yahoo! Search Marketing without actually signing up for the service. Just choose the Self Serve option, and name the geographic location you would like to target, the time zone in which the website would operate in ( this might be irrelevant for some ), fine tune the location(s) and you may continue to the keyword suggestions.

Yahoo! Search Marketing is the only tool that uses Yahoo! Search data - apart of the suggestions you would get from their search results pages. Similar to, albeit less functional than the free external tool of AdWords, you will be requested to input up to 50 initial keywords of your choice before the system would provide you with suggestions.

The appearing list will show both your selection and the related terms, provide an estimated number of searches made for the phrase, an average of many months, which can range from as low as about 10, to as high as 200.000+. Also, the tool will display an exclamation mark for those keywords it suggests to be a bit too high on search volume ( in other words: too generic ) to be effective for paid advertising. This message of course can mean completely different things in the creation of an informative, a commercial and an entertainment oriented website.

Further options and refining is available outside the program, including example ads for the keywords you chose. Most of them actual live listings of possible competitors.

Useful, similar in functionality to AdWords, free version somewhat limited in certain areas.
Checking it against the data from Google is advised.


Non Google / Yahoo! trends
( more or less in line with the two mainstream search engines,
sometimes providing additional insight )

1.3.5.: Overture Keyword Selection Tool
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Overture, while now a part of Yahoo! has its tool, the Keyword Selection ( or Inventory ) tool available for the public. While it sometimes becomes unaccessible, and is widely known to show skewed results for SEO sensitive areas, it is still useful to compare different subcategories of a theme, and to get additional ideas on how people would try to access the website you build.

Enter any keyword or phrase, and get a list of queries that include it in any way. The results of course are string based, thus if there is more than one meaning for the keyword, or more than a single sector using it, you will see mixed results from which you will need to pick the ones that are related to your content. Also, the string based queries would not recognize word order, neither make a difference between singular and plural versions. These should be double-checked in other tools for their differences in popularity as either or both could be widely used while the other being relatively unimportant. The shorter version of a keyphrase you enter, the more related results will be shown, so if you are unsure of what particular phrases to check, enter but a single word.

Unlike Google Trends, AdWords and Hot Trends, it shows the queries in exact numbers. Note that these are more like estimates than their actual popularity. Discounting obviously SEO-made mass queries and suspiciously long phrases is easy, but make sure to match up the data to other tools for even the short, widely used keywords as well.

This tool can be inspirational, but relying on it is not advised.
The data is collected from search engines previously affiliated with Overture.
Use caution about the numbers displayed, they are known to be inflated by automatic queries to the system. Consider them pointers, variables that only work in this environment, and use only to compare one to another.


1.3.6.: WordTracker
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Similar in its looks and functionality to the tool at Overture, WordTracker will provide you with an estimate on the number of searches made globally ( on all major search engines combined ) within the next 24 hours. Their list will also show any phrase that includes the word you enter. The statistics are updated at least weekly and they provide the estimates based on 90 days worth of past queries. If you enter your [keyword], results will include any phrases that feature it, e.g.. [phrase keyword], [keywords in country] and so on. WordTracker is an independent marketing company that collects its data from search engines like Dogpile and MetaCrawler, and multiplies the numbers with their estimated market share ( in the US ).

In addition to their many related services, their free tool also can filter the results to clean the list of 'dubious' and 'offensive' queries.

A useful tool for marketing, but the numbers may be slightly skewed ( though far more accurate than Overture ), but again, the data does not originate from Google or Yahoo!, and should be used in combination with others.


1.3.7.: Keyword Discovery
http://keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

Similar to WordTracker and the Overture Keyword Selection Tool, Keyword Discovery uses yet another database of different sources for queries. Its free tool will provide a list similar to WordTracker that could be used to cross-match the popularity, especially for of low-profile keywords.


1.4.: Scale by generalization

Once you have a list of keywords both generic/highly popular, both specific but lower in search volume, it's necessary to think about the hierarchy of your content, in case you haven't done so. In case your publication/business has several sub-topics, and a generic theme that would be fitting to all, naturally the website should reflect this.

The most generic keywords that describe your theme should be used on the topmost pages, and perhaps even in the subsequent topics, just not as prominently. Indicating the generic theme along the specific keyphrases is good for the searchers, and generally speaking is sometimes the branding of the website itself. More specific, sub-topic related keyphrases might be used in the navigation, and of course given prominence on their designated pages.

For example, if the main theme is a generic area of consumer electronics, the homepage might use generic phrases - perhaps could give emphasis to the most popular products but, definitely shouldn't list all of the available merchandise should their number be inconvenient to browse, or even look at. Subsequent pages could be designated to each category and subcategory in which the page titles, descriptions and content would be more specific using the proper keywords. A navigation that also uses these words when pointing to the pages usually is a signal of relevancy. Excessive use of competitive words in the navigation on a single page is advised against.


2.: Generic tips on popularity, filtering, competition, natural language

Once you have your list of top keywords, perhaps even down to word order, a choice on plural or singular for each, you might make the common mistake of overly enthusiastic webmasters, copywriters, SEOs, and use nothing but those.

Which is very wrong, and not only in a moral sense, but because search engines are more than prepared for such tactics, and if they encounter an irregular density of keywords, lack of variation, or on the contrary, too many market-sensitive phrases all at once, your website won't rank well. Different rerankings ( see below ) would be applied which would make it end up at positions significantly lower than what you aimed for, sometimes hundreds of ranks into the mid-way of the SERPs ( Search Engine Result Pages ).

The proper way of utilizing the researched 'top list' is to emphasize its important sections.
But using natural language to do so.

This is of key importance in ranking websites. Use natural language, variations, different forms, even synonyms, as if you did without researching the top 3. But when it comes to the title, navigation, description, headlines etc. make sure you include the ones most appropiate. Not only the most popular terms, but also their natural variations, the keywords placed second and third in your list, and if you think the data might be wrong, and firmly believe that for example the seventh phrase on your list is just as important, make sure to include it as well.

Keyword research is to explore trends, and the way the public addresses a certain topic, and is not to replace the use of everyday, technical or descriptive language. Remember that this isn't only advice on ethics ( as in not to use incomprehensible titles, navigation or text which repeats itself, and is grammatically incorrect and aims only for search engine placement with disregard to users ), but also a warning that Google uses refined filtering for such broken context.

The list you've created is a priority list.
And a reminder on what to include if you really do wish to discuss the topic in detail.
It's not exclusive, but a generic guideline.