How to Use Google Keyword Planner

When it comes to search engine optimization, keywords can make or break your results. Fortunately, there are many tools available for finding keywords. Google Keyword Planner is one of them. Google Keyword Planner is a simple tool that can help you find keywords to make your website more visible to your target audience. All you need is a Gmail account, which you can use to set up a Google Ads account. After you have set up an account, visit this link.

What Do You Plan to Do with Google Keywords?

If your current goal is to find keywords that you can place organically in your content, select Discover New Keywords. This functionality will show all the popular search terms used by your target audiences and customers, along with some key metrics. On the other hand, if you are already using a keyword strategy, then you can gain some insights and numbers into it by clicking on Get Search Volume and Forecasts.

Examples – Searching Keywords for Different Businesses

Suppose you manage a firm that provides cybersecurity services in the US. You can select Discover New Keywords to identify the best possible keywords for your website.

Once again, there are two options. Choose start with keywords if you want to see what your target audience searches in their search engines.
First, there is an option to type any product or service sold or offered by your business. Similarly, if you have international clients, then you can modify your language and location.

You can also search for multiple keywords at once. But for this example, let’s begin with a basic search. We are going to search for “web application firewall”. It is a common cybersecurity service that is sought by businesses to protect their websites. At this point, you might be tempted to simply enter “firewall” as it is usually called in conversational circles. Avoid using one-word keywords and stick tolong-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are less competitive than short-tail keywords, which means they have a higher chance of conversion.

Now, you will see a lot of results, sorted in terms of relevance. You can observe different columns and a long list of related keywords. The average monthly searches column is one of the most important metrics as it shows how many times a keyword is searched every month.

Similarly, Competition indicates how your competitors are bidding for these keywords. If you have just created a website, then it will be harder to attract an audience for high-competition keywords. Therefore, a better strategy is to click on the Competition columnso it can show all the terms in descending order. Now, you can check all the low-competition keywords.

Several of these low-competition keywords don’t offer much value, but with a little scrolling, you can find hidden gems. With little time, you can use these underrated keywords to gain a strong presence on SERPs (search engine result pages). If you change your keyword to “web application firewall service”, then you will find a lower number of keywords, but they are more specific. Doing this for all your services and products can help you find new opportunities. For instance, if you sell fur coats, then you can specify one of your coat types: chinchilla fur coat.

You can check how some keywords have more search volume than your expectations.

How to Check the Exact Keyword Volume in Google Keyword Planner

You might be curious how Google only shows “average monthly searches”. This can be confusing when you have two keywords with the ranges “100-1K”. What if one of them is searched 101 times while the other is searched 999 times? This makes both of them a lot different in value, right? A few years ago, Google Keyword Planner did show exact searches but it was removed. However, there is a hack that is used by experienced SEO experts. For instance, you offer plumbing services in the US. You searched for “plumbing services US” and decided to rank for the keyword: American Plumbing Company. Next, click on it, choose Exact Match, click on Add Keywords, and then click on Keywords on the left pane. Then, type the biggest number for max CPC. As a result, you will be suggested the max CPC value—use it.

You can see that there are 84 impressions .i.e. the highest possible queries for this keyword in the upcoming month. This can help you to adjust your keyword strategy.

Final Thoughts

If you have followed all these steps, then you can easily do some basic keyword research. However, for better business returns, you will have to dive deeper into keyword strategies. For this purpose, keep following our blog series. Contact us if you are looking to create a powerful keyword strategy.

Google Keyword Planner for Beginners