The Google keyword planner is a necessary tool for acquiring keyword ideas based on the search volumes of millions of Google’s users around the globe.
Using appropriate keywords is one of the key points of website optimization, which has the potential of bringing thousands of users to your webpage.
Even though the tool is pretty simple to use, in order to maximize your research results, it is necessary to get to know it better and constantly figure out new, creative ways on how to make it work for you.
Getting Started
In order to access the Google Keyword Planner, all you have to do is create a Gmail account. If you already have one, you already have your Google Adwords account.
As shown in the picture above, you should click on “Tools” and simply choose the Keyword Planner from the drop down menu.
On the following page, you will clearly see 3 boxes, each standing for separate ways to search for appropriate keywords.
Every method uses different parameters, so it’s quite important to actually see which metric you’re planning to chase.
Coming Up With The Keyword Ideas
You can get keyword suggestions by entering a word in the first box. Here, you will get numerous suggestions from Google and a lot of valuable information related to the word you entered.
However, there are better ways of getting different keyword ideas. Even though the tool was designed to help you get keywords for your own needs, using higher authority websites, and especially the ones that Google trusts – Wikipedia, for example – will offer you a wide array of keywords that will help you optimize your website better.
Wikipedia is not the only source you could use, of course. If you want to get quality keywords from your niche, a good way to go is to inspect your competitor’s website.
This will give you more detailed info about what you should focus on. Even though the tool was not meant for this process, creative SEO experts are using it every day to get the most optimal keyword ideas.
Going More In Depth
Getting the suggested keywords is not the end of your journey. There are several things that you should do in order to optimize the best keywords for your own needs. This is where the keyword planner filters come in.
There are four different parameters you can play with to achieve this. These are: monthly searches, suggested bid, Ad impression share and the level of competition.
Now, if you want keywords that could bring in more money, you could filter out the ones with higher bids, combined with higher search volumes. If you want to attract more traffic, you could lower the bid value and increase the search volume.
An important factor can be the level of competition. This is the part where you should be especially creative in order to find the keywords that will give you the best results.
Analyzing The Available Data
This is an important factor which requires the use of additional tools. The most important thing that you should know is that search volumes are rounded up numbers.
This is very important because two different terms may come under the same search volume – 201k per month for instance – but they actually differ by 15-20k searches a month. In the long run, this is a lot of traffic.
So, it is very important to check every result you get. This phenomenon occurs due to Google’s traffic bucket.
Their algorithm has a preset number of searches and it rounds up numbers which are near that value.
So, for example, if you keyword is presented having 201k searches a month, this number may actually be 190k and the other keyword that is also in the 201k range may have 215k monthly searches. This is 25k a month, which creates huge traffic differences during the period of one year.
These are some ways of finding the best keyword ideas that will offer a perfect amount of traffic for your website. Getting to know your Google Keyword Planner may take some time, but it offers a lot of data that is necessary for a healthy business strategy.
The best way to check if you are utilizing the right keywords is to use software like HubSpot, to get numerous analytics. All in all, utilizing the Google Keyword Planner tool is the key point in strategic planning and using it professionally will lead you to ultimate success.
The author is highly qualified and writes blog posts weekly.
