Tom Lindmeier’s Blog @ MarketPlanB

Google touts it’s Search-based Keyword Tool as a great way to find new keywords for your ad campaigns. It does have a severe limitation because it only works with 1-3 word phrases and makes it difficult to discover long-tail phrases. But it’s still an effective way to find keywords you may have missed.

Google states that:

The Keyword Tool is especially helpful in three situations:

• When you first create a new ad group
• When your current keywords are performing poorly and you need to find better options
• When you have one keyword that really works well and want to find more like it

I also have found it to be an effective SEO keyword discovery tool. Many of my clients have a very limited paid search budget and prefer to SEO optimize high-cost keywords. This also means that they have limited paid search data and need to undergo a comprehensive keyword discovery process. The SbKT Tool provides a fast and inexpensive method for keyword discovery that leverages paid search data.