PPC, or pay per click, advertising campaigns allows you to create ad that will display on the search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. However, to understand the compitition we are going to look at these same campaigns and doing keyword research. The reason that this is so effective for keyword research is that through a PPC ad campaign you can get actual statistics of the impressions, click through rates, and keywords being used to actually bring sales to your website. White Hat SEO can take months to get to the top of a niche for your list of keywords. A PPC campaign gives you results faster. Creating multiple campaign gives you an idea about CTR.
Test PPC campaign will help you to know your keywords click ratio. Your keyword might show compition in Google Keyword Tool but that might not have CTR. Therefore test PPC campaign will give you results in lesser time. Key phrases or long keywords are often missed by Google Keywords Tool. These long keywords are key SEO keywords for target market.
In short, the data you receive from your PPC ad campaign will give you a legitimate report of what customers are actually searching for to get to your website instead of just what you think or hope they may be looking for within your niche market. Remember most keyword tools give only approximations. A PPC ad campaign is like a reality check.
The truth of the matter is that it is very important to go beyond standard keyword research if you want to create a profitable SEO campaign. Yes, much of your SEO campaign has to do with building authority, ranking for multiple terms, getting the best back links, but with right keyword research you can improve on the most important metric: ROI.