Here’s an overview of how to get set up with AdWords so that you can determine the right keywords for whatever campaign you choose to deploy:

For starters, this requires an AdWords account to gain access to Google AdWords’ Keyword Tool. So, if you don’t have one, now is the time to register. Setting up an AdWords account is free and only takes a few minutes to set up and validate via email.

To start your keyword research, go to www.nichewatch.com and enter your keyword.

This site shows the top 20 sites in Google for any given keyword, plus other metrics like the number of pages indexed, the number of backlinks, and other search engine optimization data.

Keep this page open so you can refer back to it.

Open a new browser window for your AdWords account. Go to the main campaign management page.

Near the top of the page there’s a link called “Tools.” Click on that link and go to “Keyword Tool.”

Select the Site-Related Keywords tab. Copy one of the URLs listed in NicheWatch, and paste it into the URL field, then hit “Get Keywords.”

Google will check the site and display the related keywords on the page URL entered!

Add the keywords you want to the selected keywords list on the right (in the blue box) by clicking on the “Add” links.

Continue to copy and paste URLs into the URL field until you have a keyword list you are satisfied with. This isn’t your final list yet, so select as many keywords related to your site as you want. Save the final set of keywords to a text file or CSV, one keyword per line.

Next, you must find out which of your new keywords are, in fact, high-paying keywords.

So check Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool again to see the bid prices. There are a number of paid tools on the market that find related keywords and give you the top AdSense bids automatically and quickly.

But for those of us that don’t have the budget for these tools, you can search manually for free. We recommend using AdWords when researching AdSense bids, because using other systems like Yahoo! Search (Overture) won’t produce the same bid results.

Bids can vary significantly between AdWords and Overture.

Inside the AdWords’ Keyword Tool, click on the Keyword Variations tab. In the box, enter the keywords you already saved in the text file, one per line. For even more keywords, check the box that says “Use Synonyms.”

Next, click on “Get More Keywords,” and you will be taken to a results page.

You should have a good list of keywords in the results. Delete any keywords that are not related to your topic, in this case “macrobiotic diet.”

Go to the pull-down menu, select “Cost and Ad Position Estimates.”

This is important: where it says ” Calculate Estimates using Max CPC,” enter a high dollar amount like $100.00.

Click on the results, and Google will give you back the highest bids for position 1-3.

A number of steps are involved in doing keyword research. But AdWords helps make those steps easy.