Click over to:

http://www.google.com/sktool/

Click ‘Sign in’ and sign in to your AdWords account.  (Screen shots below show a random site I’m not associated with.)

You’ll see your existing sites listed in the pulldown next to Website. Pick the one you want to start with and click ‘Find keywords’. If you’re just starting out with AdWords, your site may not be in the pulldown, so just type it into the Website box. Next, SKTool searches Google’s databases, looking at these things:

• Your existing AdWords campaigns
• Google’s knowledge of what phrases are on your pages
• How often those phrases are searched for
• What typical bids are for each keyword

Immediately, you will see a list of perhaps hundreds of phrases that are NOT in your AdWords campaign already, sorted by ‘Monthly searches’. I’ll have a tool available for bulk loading next week, but for now you’re stuck with manual entry.

If you don’t see a lot of phrases on your site, you probably have a Search Engine Optimization problem.

You’ll also see:

• How many others advertise on the phrase (the Competition column).
• A suggested bid to get in the top three ads for this phrase.
• The title of your web page where Google finds this phrase.

Next, look through the phrases for ones that really match what you’re selling. Look for phrases with low Competition and high Monthly Searches. Those are the most likely to be pay dirt for you. If you know the typical bids for your marketplace, you can also sort by Suggested bid and see which are cheaper than your usual rate.

At this point, you can manually add these phrases if you have appropriate ad groups, or set up new groups and campaigns as appropriate.

Have you started using SKTool yet?  Noticed any neat tricks or have any topics I should cover?  I’d love to hear your thoughts!