Hey everyone. I'm a noob, so this is probably not super interesting to those more experienced. Since I just figured it out though, I thought I'd share for the other newbies on the board.

The Google Keyword Tool has proven very useful to me, but even moreso now that I figured out the Advanced Options. You can enter your niche or site topic keyword, it doesn't matter if it's really broad or not. Then, in advanced settings, set it up so Local or Global (or both) are set to search for terms that have X,XXX to X,XXX searches monthly (more than X,XXX and less than X,XXX). You can also set it to "low competition". Once the initial search happens, you can uncheck "Broad" on the left and check "Exact" instead. This will give you a good picture of what kinds of keywords you might explore further.

This is useful for two reasons: One, you can find niche markets this way for targeted websites. Second, if you already have a website, it'll give you ideas for what you want to write your content about.

Anyway, hope this helps someone - I spent a lot of wasted time on the GKT because I didn't realize advanced options were available for narrowing my searches.