Google’s Adwords keyword tool is one of the most popular free online tools to use for your SEO keyword research.

Designed for use with PPC campaigns, the Adwords keyword tool is a popular choice for anyone interested in choosing optimal keyword phrases for their website’s SEO tags.

When you visit the Adwords page, you’ll enter the keywords or phrases you’re considering for your post or page.

After completing the word verification and clicking the search button, you’re first presented with the level of keyword competition and global and local monthly searches for the exact phrases you entered in the box at the top of the page.

(Click image to enlarge)

Competition and Monthly Searches

Competition will be labeled: High, Medium or Low. Local Monthly Searches are actually country-wide, so it’s generally recommended to refer to that column when making your keyword decisions.

Other Suggested Keyword Phrases

In the section beneath the exact phrase keyword results, the Adwords Keyword tool provides you with several dozen other keyword phrase options. This list may give you better ideas that are more targeted than the few keyword phrases you originally tested.

(Click image to enlarge)

Choosing the Best Keyword Phrase

There is not one “right” way to decide what keyword phrase is best. A lot comes down to how you feel about going for high vs low competition phrases, and how targeted your overall website content is. For example, high competition means that keyword phrase is a popular one, but that also means it’s going to be more difficult to rank well on that particular phrase. Also, if your website has very focused content, you may find that selecting a very specific keyword phrase that draws only 1,000 local monthly searches is wisest in order to use other, more popular keyword phrases for future posts on the same topic.

What’s your favorite way to perform SEO keyword research?