'how to', 'how can i' keywords

are these money keywords or not?

[hairycoo]

Are these keywords used by DIY type of users looking for general info or are they used by shoppers as well?

My gut feeling tells me it's the former and I'd use them as a negative but I'd love to hear from more experienced people.

[mincklerstraat]

Problem with google here is that using how to in a query without double quotes is you get this message:

The following words are very common and were not included in your search: how to

example:
[google.com...]

There used to be a page on some seo site, might even have been here at the searchengineworld.com branch of WebmasterWorld, that topped 'how to' in the SE's and gave the example of 'how to' as 'unexpected' extra keywords you could optimize for. I'm not finding it with "how to" in double quotes, so it's probably been removed or replaced with a different example text.

Adsense, of course, is a somewhat different game than SEO, and it's possible that 'how to' will still get you placed, even though queries for 'how to' remove this phrase from the query.

[hairycoo]

Thanks for the answer. What I'm really interested is if people using 'how to' to formulate their query are likely to be shoppers or just looking for info.

I suppose they could be shoppers at the beginning of the shopping cycle but this product is also a DIY so they might want info how to do it themselves.

Just not sure if I should put such words in my campaign.

[bcc1234]

It works great if you sell info products.

[Syzygy]

Just not sure if I should put such words in my campaign.

You could always give it a try...

Stating the blatantly obvious though, I would be more inclined to target the rest of the question:

How can I rewire my home...
How to convert a loft

ad nauseum

Incorporating a solution to the question within the body copy would also prove attractive to me:

Loft conversion
Want to improve your home?
Find out how from the experts
www.diy-disasters.com

All IMHO of course...

Syzygy