One thing I always teach my clients is that not only is it important to build out a keyword list, but to build a keyword list that is going to drive qualified traffic to your website. After doing extensive keyword research, any good SEO will testify that you will often find keywords that you thought would be a top priority aren’t, and keywords that you didn’t even think of are the ones you need to focus on.
One of the tools that has become indispensable to my belt for keyword research, is the Google keyword tools. They’re free, easy to use, and at least somewhat reliable data since it’s straight from the source.
Sktool
The first of the two tools Google offers is the Search-based Keyword Tool. This tools offers two primary functions, keyword generation based off of a domain and keyword generation based off of other words/phrases. Both of these are useful for different things.
Domain Keyword Generation
In the first use of the tool, you input your domain and it gives you a list of likely relevant keywords based off the content from your site.
Other than basic keyword research when you’re starting a campaign, one extremely useful application of this tool, is to export the data to .csv, and import it into a ranking tool like the one SEOBook offers to get a snapshot of how a website performs. This obviously isn’t the most accurate portrayal of a website’s performance, but it’s something I often refer to over the phone when trying to asses competition, link prospects, or how difficult a potential client campaign may be.
Word/Phrase Keyword Generation
The other use of this tool is sourcing keyword ideas from a current list of keywords and/or phrases that you already have.
This use of the tool is common and good for basic keyword research, especially when applied to longer tail keyterms. Use your analytics to find straggling phrases you rank for in conjunction with a keyword tool like this to beef up your SEO and long-tail rankings!
The last feature that has a lot of uses that gets overlooked, is the top keywords in all categories tool. This is a great way to see what types of searches are most popular in the top categories. This has endless use, for example, you could use this as a research tool to get ideas for new affiliate campaigns.
Adwords Keyword Tool
The second, and in my opinion, more popular keyword tool that Google offers, is the Adwords keyword tool. This is a tool that I use all the time. Like the search-based keyword tool, the Adwords keyword tool also offers keyword generation based off of website content and off of words/phrases, but the most important and defining factor about this tool is the search volume data that it gives.
Keywords are grouped in to related phrases and reported volume is given for “Global Monthly” (or monthly average) and “Local Search Volume: [month previous]” (or average volume for the previous month). You’ll note that the sktool also had volume data, but keyword data for the sktool correlates to specific domains, and volume numbers aren’t given as global averages as they are on the Adwords tool.
Volume data is obviously very valuable for any keyword research and SEO campaign. Often I have found keywords that I thought to be secondary and less important to show higher volume numbers than keywords I assumed should be more important. Of course, understanding that search volume is only a part of what makes a keyword valuable is what makes a good SEO 
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Another good use I make of the AdWords Keyword tool – like the Search Keyword tool, it allows you to plug in your URL and will generate likely keywords from the page. I use this AFTER I’ve done my research, and written out my page, just to reassure myself that what Google thinks this page is about is the same thing that I think this page is about. If not, I still have work to do. I believe it helps me keep my Quality Scores up in AdWords.