Is Google Keyword Planner Free? Essential Knowledge for PPC Advertising

Keyword research is crucial to find out what your audience is searching for and what you need to rank for those search terms. Google Ads Keyword Planner has everything you need to perform efficient keyword research, but is Google Keyword Planner free?

Absolutely! You don’t have to spend a dime on this tool. It is 100% free to use; all you need is a Google account. You can use this keyword tool to discover new keyword ideas relevant to your business and analyze them.

Also, there is an alternative keyword research tool you will later find out about in this article. First, let’s see how to make use of Google Keyword Planner for free.

How to Use Google Keyword Planner For Free

For an existing user of Google Ads:

• Step 1: First, log in to your Google Ads account. Click “Tools and settings” in the toolbar at the top navigation of the Google Ads interface.
  
• Step 2: Click the “Keyword Planner” option displayed under the “Planner” section.
  
• Step 3: Now, you have to choose an option based on your need. Keyword Planner provides you with two options: “Discover New Keywords” and “Get search volume and forecasts.”
  

These two tools can generate thousands of possible keywords for PPC and search engine optimization (SEO) keyword research.

If you don’t have a Google Ads account and want to access this tool without providing your credit card details, you can! In the steps below, you will see how to access Google Keyword Planner without an Ad account.

 

For a New Google Ads User:

You must have heard the good news–you can access Google Keyword Planner without any cost. You can use it free of any charge if you have a Google account. If you’re new to Google Ads, follow the steps below.

When you log in to Google Ads for the first time, you’ll see a screen that looks like this:

Google asks you to set up a campaign. You might interpret it as, ‘Sorry, buddy, but to get started, you need to hand over some cash.’ Don’t worry. The following steps will help you access Google Keyword Planner without running a campaign.

• Step 1: When the “What’s your main advertising goal?” question appears, don’t choose any of the three options. Instead, click the blue text “Switch to Expert Mode,” as shown below.
  

If you’re unable to see the blue text, expand your browser window to its full size. The “Switch to Expert Mode” option does not appear in small browser window sizes.

• Step 2: On the next screen, you must select your campaign goals. Ignore the options, and select “Create an account without a campaign.”
  
• Step 3: Next, click on “Submit.”
  

You have set up your account successfully. If you follow the steps correctly, you should see a picture like this:

Go on, and “Explore your account.” Click the toolbar in the top navigation section. If you can’t find it (which usually means you are in smart mode), click your profile and “Switch to Expert Mode.”

You should now see the toolbar in the top corner of the Google Ads interface. Select the icon; you will find the “Keyword Planner” under the “Planning” section.

Google Keyword Planner for SEO Keyword Research

Google Keyword Planner offers two options to get started. Let’s show you how to use these tools to get the most effective keywords for your campaign:

• Discover New Keywords – With this, you can find keyword ideas that will help you reach your target audience who will be interested in the products or services you offer.
• Get Search Volume and Forecast – It helps you know the search volume and historical metrics for your keywords. It also gives forecasts for how well they might perform in the future.

Discover New Keywords

Are you looking for new keyword ideas? Simply “enter words, phrases, or a URL related to your business” and watch Google show you several keyword suggestions.

Note: The information you enter at this point will determine to a large extent what you’ll get. It works in two ways:

• Enter Keywords – Type in words that describe your business, and search.
  

You’ll see several keyword ideas, and each has the following data:

•  Average monthly searches.
•  Competition
•  Top of the page bid (low range).
•  Top of the page bid (high range).

It’s not restricted to single word searches. You can discover keyword suggestions for your business by “searching key phrases.” You can search up to ten seed keywords or key phrases per search.

• Enter URL/Website – You can also find keyword ideas by typing in a URL. Although this is specifically for Ads users, you can discover some strong keyword ideas by searching your website’s homepage or blog post.

Get search volume and forecasts

Suppose you have a list of keywords whose metrics you want to find out. You should start here. All you need do is copy and paste your list into the search field and click “Get Started.” You’ll see the forecast section.

You won’t find keyword suggestions. Instead, you’ll see a table showing the number of clicks and impressions you can get if you choose to run ads for your keywords on Google Ads in the next 30 days (This data analysis is designed for Google Ads advertisers). It also shows the estimated costs, cost-per-click (CPC), and clickthrough rate (CTR).

To find out detailed info based on records, click on the “Historical Metrics” tab. You will find the average monthly search volumes for your chosen keywords over 12 months. These search ranges are the same as those shown by the “Find new keywords” option.

Google planner shows the average search range, rather than specific numbers. This is why most pay-per-click (PPC) managers are cautious when using this keyword research tool. For example, in the picture below, Google Keyword Planner shows the average monthly search volume for “blue jeans” ranges from 10K-100K:

What Is “Forecast” About?

• Best performance analysis for your chosen keywords based on your estimated
• To change the forecast metric, click “conversions” or “clicks.”
• To change the max. CPC of keywords, click on the amount.
• To check the chart of your estimated performance analysis, hit the dropdown arrow.
• Estimates per keyword based on the max. CPC.
• To view estimates changes for each keyword, edit the amount in the “Max. CPC” column
• Ad groups where your chosen keywords will be listed in a new campaign
• The date range for your forecast.
• To change the time limit of your forecast, go to the top of the page and click the date range.

Extra Options –

• To add new keywords, click the plus button. However, you can go back and add keywords from the “Keyword ideas” page.
• You can download the Ad forecast, just hit the download button.
• To share your keyword research data with others, click the three dots close to the download button and select “Edit sharing.”

How to Find Keyword Search Volume with Google Ads

To know the estimated monthly searches of a keyword in Google Ads Keyword Planner, follow the following steps:

• Step 1: Choose the “Get search volume and forecasts” option that shows when you click the keyword planner.
  
• Step 2: Type in the keyword whose estimated search volume you want to see. Put the keyword in square brackets “[ ].” For multiple keywords, enter and separate them with commas. Then, click the “Get started” button.
  
• Step 3: Click the drop-down arrow in the right corner.
  
• Step 4: Set the max. CPC to the highest value as possible. To do this, click the graph on the right-hand side.
  
• Step 5: “Impressions” is the number of times your ad is shown in search result pages or other Google Network platforms. The photo below shows the estimated number of impressions the seed keyword will receive within 30 days if the ad goes live.
  

The high-value CPC you set will ensure a close result (impressions) to the estimated monthly search volume for that keyword. This method is a bit stretched and requires several steps before knowing search volumes of keywords.

Advantages of Google Keyword Planner

The Google Ads research tool has several advantages. These include:

• Free Usage – Google keyword planner is 100% free to use. There’s no need to add your credit card details.
• Keyword Ideas – The keyword research tool gives several suggestions up to a few thousand for chosen keywords related to your business.
• Cost Estimation – It shows the average cost you’ll spend on an ad if you want to appear in searches for such keywords.
• Monthly Search Volumes – Google keyword planner shows you the average monthly search volumes of a chosen keyword showing its relevance.
• Keyword Organization – It organizes and fits your chosen keywords into various categories related to your brand.
• Well-targeted Campaigns – With this keyword research tool, you can create well-targeted campaigns based on strong keyword findings-that will appeal to your audience-during thorough keyword research.

Note: A series of factors will determine how effective keyword researching, targeting, and ad campaigning will be. Although Google Keyword planner provides useful insights for businesses, factors like your budget, product, and buyer persona will influence how successful your campaigns will be.

Is There Any Alternative Tool For Keyword Research?

Over time, several tools have been developed to help step up your keyword research game. With features to ensure proper targeting based on your customers’ interest. So, yes! It doesn’t always have to be Google Ads Keyword Planner.

There are various alternative keyword research tools available, although the majority are paid. However, a few keyword tools like PPCexpo Keyword Planner offer marketers a free version of the tool with limited credits.

What is PPCexpo Keyword Planner?

Keyword research involves finding and analyzing keywords that are useful for your business. Keyword research’s primary goal is to discover the keywords your audience is searching for and what it costs to rank for these keywords to reach a larger number of searchers.

The PPCexpo Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool that provides relevant and valuable keyword opportunities to generate high traffic and conversion. Strong keywords can define the value of a chosen keyword by considering some factors. These include:

• Search Volume – This tells you the number of people searching for information on the keyword.
• CPC – This is specifically for PPC keywords. It gives an estimate of how much it will cost to rank for the chosen keyword.
• Similarity % – This compares keyword ideas. It checks the intent of the searchers’ queries and how relevant related keywords are to the chosen keyword that was queried.

These factors vary for different keywords. Due to this reason, it becomes hard at times to know the best keyword investment for your business. PPCexpo Keyword Planner assesses the opportunities of these keywords efficiently.

It helps marketers looking to build valuable keyword lists to discover the right keywords they need to target for their businesses. This keyword research tool makes it easy to find and analyze the best keyword ideas.

Main Features of PPCexpo Keyword Planner

PPCexpo Keyword Planner has a few key features that improve keyword research. These include:

1. Keyword Planning – This tool can discover and analyze thousands of keywords for your business. These keyword ideas can be used for content creation, SEO, or PPC marketing. Making use of relevant keywords, your audience is searching for will make your content or ad valuable.

2. Search Volume Analysis – When you type in a search term, it shows the number of active monthly searches for that keyword or keyphrase. For example, To know the average monthly searches for “skincare,” enter the keyword in the Google search box. The PPCexpo Keyword Planner Chrome extension will show data for the keyword in a sidebar next to Google search results.

3. Keyword Suggestions – When you search a keyword, not only do you get the number of average monthly searches for the term, you also get relevant search terms related to that keyword. Keyword ideas help improve your PPC strategy and ad campaigns for marketing success.

4. Cost Per Click (CPC) – PPCexpo Keyword Planner shows you the estimated CPC for a chosen keyword. The CPC is the amount marketers are charged when you click their ad once. It’s like paying every time a visitor reaches your landing page because when they click, they get transported to your site, and that’s traffic for you.

5. Keyword Relevancy – The keyword research tool consists of the “Similarity %” metric. This indicates how valuable a chosen keyword is and also provides insight into user search intention. To have a winning PPC campaign, you need to target relevant keywords for your business. The similarity % evaluates the relevance of a keyword suggestion and the seed keyword. For example, if you search for “skincare,” this tool displays a list of keyword suggestions and the relevance of each one to the seed keyword “skincare.”

6. Languages & Locations – For campaigns involving various languages and locations, click “Settings” to explore geo-specific keywords. Up to 46 different languages and 15 locations, keyword data are made available. You can use these features to create a well-targeted campaign for your business.

Click the “Settings” icon, and change the keyword data based on language or location preference from the dropdown menu.

If you set results to default, you will get up to 20 records at once.

Note: If you don’t have a key and your free trial is not working, you can make a request by hitting the “Click here for key” option.

7. Charts for Keyword Comparison – PPCexpo Keyword Planner provides visualization for keyword comparison. This shows the similarities between keywords, volume difference, and CPC factor. Usually, keywords with high search volume and low CPC are highlighted in green- they are the best for running campaigns.

8. Filters — There is a filter section through which you can easily sort out what results you want to see. You can easily put the values or through slider, you can change the values for search volume, CPC and similarity.

9. Keyword Data Export – This keyword research tool offers an option to export keyword research analysis wherever you want to save for later or other purposes. Just click the “Export” button at the bottom right, and download data as a .CSV file to be used in Excel.

This is what the results look like:

Advantages Of PPCexpo Keyword Planner

PPCexpo Keyword Planner is an adequate alternative to Google Search Keyword Planner. Here are the best benefits of using this keyword planner tool:

• It is Time-saving – Keyword research can be a nerve-racking and time-consuming but necessary task. However, PPCexpo Keyword Planner makes this an easy, fast, and stress-free process by using filters to shorten the exact results.
• It is Easy to Handle – The keyword tool is easy to operate. You won’t have to go through the struggle with unnecessary metrics in keyword analysis and multi-tabs (it only shows the most relevant keywords).
• It Provides Relevant and Valuable Keywords – PPCexpo Keyword Planner provides the value analysis of each keyword. It shows you the search data to evaluate and choose the best keyword for your business.
• It Gives High-Value Traffic – It’s not just about traffic, but the right traffic. Unlock superior keywords that produce high-value traffic in less time with the PPCexpo Keyword Planner.
• It Improves SEO and PPC Strategy – By focusing on keyword relevance, The “Similarity %” between keywords, showing their relevance, helps marketers with keyword selections. This results in a well-targeted and cost-saving PPC campaign. It improves the overall performance of paid and organic searches. In this way, it creates conversions, reduces wasted ad budget by using the most relevant keywords, and improves the SEO and PPC strategy.

Be a smart, strategic, and SEO-tastic marketer for your business. To get access to PPCexpo Keyword Planner, visit here.

Wrap Up

As a marketer or advertiser who knows the importance of keyword research, you should build your marketing strategy around keyword planning. Google Ads Keyword Planner is not only efficient for discovering business-related and valuable keywords, but it is also free to use as well.

PPCexpo Keyword Planner compiles the most relevant keyword ideas and evaluates them at once. Its ease of use and time-saving features make it a better alternative than other keyword research tools on the market.