How many times have you hear the story of the lumberjack not stopping to sharpen his axe because he didn’t have the time? Well, no matter who you are or what you do, or whether your tools are physical or electronic, it will always be important to continually sharpen your tools.

So, how do you “sharpen” your keyword tools? Check for updates?

Well, sure, that’s important…especially with how fast technology advances! But, what I’m talking about is the methods and keyword tools you use to manage your keyword lists.

Let’s take a caucus right now. Once you’ve actually used the great keyword tools out there to build your list, which programs do you use to whittle that list clean of unwanted words and phrases?

Word? Excel? Notepad?

And how long does it take you per thousand to edit to your satisfaction?

Well, if you are using any one of these tools, here are a few tips to help speed things up a bit:

Make sure you sort your list several times. Sure, you can start by sorting alphabetically or by number of keywords in your phrase, but to get the most effectiveness from your keyword tool, the best method is to go through your list multiple times, each time sorting your list a different way. You will be surprised at how many phrases you missed even after the 3rd time through!

Slow down and be thorough: I know, I know…the last thing you want to do is go slowly. Not when you’re staring at a 20,000 word keyword list. But, you will save yourself a bunch of wasted time and money if you make sure your list is clean of all of the unwanted phrases.

Try to find the best keyword tool for your purpose: What are you going to be using your keyword list for? Will you be building network sites? Will you be engaging a massive PPC campaign? Will you be using the different groups to focus on different niches? Well, I think one of the best keyword tool for any of these purposes is Keyword Companion that will be launched on the market on June 26th. This tool effortlessly manages lists well over the tens of thousands, and helps you break up, keep track of, and organize the groups you’ve created from your list. I haven’t seen anything like it out there, and it sure beats using excel for hours and hours!

Once you’ve made sure to keep your keyword tool sharpened, the next move is to use your keywords and their groups wisely. Be sure to follow the latest SEO guidelines to help your sites bring in the most traffic they can, without angering the higher powers of the search engines.

We’ve all seen the importance of using the correct keywords escalate over the past couple years, and that foundation for your internet marketing doesn’t appear to have any chance of losing its weight any time soon.

So, it’s critical to have the correct keyword tool to manage the lists you’ve spent so much time and effort to create. No matter which tools you use, as long as you spend ample time using them to their best abilities, your keyword management and subsequent keyword groups will bring you the great results you.