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Google Keyword Planner can be used to identify the volume of traffic on your potential keywords. This is a tool that provides keyword ideas and traffic estimates to help you build a Google Search Network campaign.
So what is the right answer?
The answer is: The amount of traffic potential keywords you might get
Nowadays, you have a lot of great tools for keyword research. However, the Google Keyword Planner tool is arguably the best of the bunch — and it’s free!
Of course, you could spend a lot of money on premium competitors like SEMrush or KWFinder, but that’s not necessary. In this blog, we’ll see why the Google Keyword Planner tool-free service is the right choice, as we explore its main features, and show you how to get the best out of it.
The first choice you need to make with this tool is how you will use it. You can do either of the following:
We’ll explore each option in detail to learn how to improve your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign.
When you use the Google Keyword Planner tool to find new keywords, you enter a keyword, and then the software generates a list of hundreds of related keywords for you to consider. Alongside the keywords, you will see a range of crucial performance metrics, including:
When you enter a term in the search bar of the Google Keyword Planner tool, it will search the Google database for related terms. The Google artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm generates a list that consists of close variations, synonyms, and plural versions of the initial keyword.
This metric is the total number of user searches for that specific keyword in the previous 12 months. As such, we can take a high search volume to be a good sign that this keyword has a lot of potential for attracting traffic. That being said, you should keep relevance in mind, as high search volume will mean little if all the traffic it attracts is irrelevant and uninterested in the products or services you offer.
A self-explanatory metric, the CPC rate in Google Keywords Planner is the price you will pay for single conversion if this keyword triggers your ad — and the subsequent click.
With this, you can view the average number of monthly searches performed for a keyword (and its close variants). Furthermore, you can filter by location and Search Network to analyze monthly search data specific to your target area.
This value ranges from a low of 0 to a high of 1. Keyword Planner uses the Competition Value to rank the competition on each keyword, so a higher value lets us know that the keyword is more competitive, and therefore, it will be harder to rank with it.
The Top Page Bidding Price is the cost to advertisers to get your ad at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). This metric depends on other factors like competition and the number of bids, as well as your ad’s relevance and Quality Score.
By using the Google Keyword Planner tool, you can customize the targeting settings to refine the results to be more specific to your domain. This will generate more relevant, effective keywords for you to use in your campaign.
Consider customizing these settings:
Your audience may only be in one city, or you may be running a PPC campaign targeting specific countries or regions. By editing the location settings, you can hone in on the right geographical locations, and exclude others to ensure your budget use is optimized.
By adjusting the language setting, you can get new ideas relevant to the language of your target audience.
With Keyword Planner, you can select the network in which you do your data research. For example, you can select “Google” if you only want to receive ideas from Google Search Console, or you can choose “Google and search partners” to get ideas from all search partner sites, like Google Maps.
If you want to keep your research current, try using the date customization feature to study search trends within defined periods. This will offer you keyword performance insights for specific times of the year.
This is particularly useful for determining seasonal trends, so you can find valuable keywords to target your audience during peak times, such as on Black Friday or Christmas.
To take this one step further, you can use Google Trends to understand the keyword performance patterns in more detail.
Ideally, you’ll want to bid on keywords that show potential for a good return on investment (ROI). By using filters, you can understand more about the likelihood of keywords delivering the goods for your campaign.
In the Google Keyword Planner tool, navigate above the keywords list table and click the Filter icon. You can then select whichever filters you want, such as:
The more filters you add, the more refined your keyword lists will become. Ultimately, this allows you to identify keywords that are increasingly relevant for your content and audience.
Search behaviors differ among users. By breaking down your keywords, you can analyze user search behavior to see the following:
These insights help you discover keywords that can work well in your campaign, depending on which location your audience is in or what device they are using.
Google Keyword Planner is beneficial for statistical analysis, as it helps you make projections about how specific keywords will impact your ad copy. This guides your decision-making in regards to PPC advertising.
You can view the “Historical Metrics” tab in the Google Keyword Planner tool to see the previous search volume trends for any keyword.
The tool uses the past data to make projections about the future, giving you values for:
Data insights like these are valuable to marketers and advertisers when planning a PPC campaign, especially if you have a limited budget.
Here are a few tips to be mindful of when you are analyzing historical data in the Google Keyword Planner tool:
The search volume statistics are rounded figures. So, if you are looking at keywords in several locations, keep that in perspective as not to overestimate the potential of a keyword.
This data is a useful guide, but it is by no means a constant. Consumer interests and market trends can change rapidly, from one season to the next, if not sooner. Therefore, keywords that show high search volume one month are not guaranteed to continue attracting the masses any more than a low search volume keyword is always doomed to fail.
Forecasted impressions help you gauge future performance by taking several factors into account, including your budget, bids, and historical data. This gives them an edge on search volume statistics. Also, while your forecasted impressions will consider the match types you have selected, by comparison, search volume data only accounts for Exact Match Type keywords.
These statistics are a useful guide when it comes to making keyword bids. The data gives you information about keyword bids from the past 30 days, showing you the bids that result in an ad being displayed at the top of the first page in SERPs.
While you should consider other factors like Quality Score and competition, the Bid Range statistics in Google Keyword Planner are helpful metrics to make your bidding decisions a little easier.
With everything discussed so far, it’s clear that advertisers have a lot to gain from using Google Keyword Planner. To get more specific, here are six benefits of using it:
One of the primary uses of Google Keyword Planner is to analyze search volume statistics, which lets you know about the potential of keywords for your PPC campaign. You can segment keywords based on search volume during different times or different devices. This will give you the information you need to select the best keywords.
As already mentioned, the bidding price depends on keyword competition and the number of bids. Focusing on more expensive keywords can quickly drain your budget. Instead, you can evaluate bidding prices to pick budget-friendly keywords that still have a high search volume.
During certain times of the year, you may have different PPC goals. For example, you may want to drive summer sales of your swimwear line or increase brand awareness of your skiwear store ahead of the winter rush. By keeping a close watch on seasonal trends analytics, you can improve your targeting, and drive more relevant users to your website (and physical store locations).
Higher competition drives bidding prices up, and even if you have no problem affording these competitive keywords, there is no guarantee you will rank for them. The Google Keyword Planner tool makes it easy to find alternatives to competitive keywords, which still have good traffic but a relatively low competition level. Keep this in mind to tap into the potential of promising keywords before they get too competitive.
Aside from discovering new keywords for your campaign, the Keyword Planner is also useful when it comes to evaluating the past performance of keywords. By studying metrics like clickthrough rate (CTR), eligible impressions, and Ad position, you can assess keywords and determine whether they have shown much promise in the past. This facilitates better judgment for keyword selection in the future, which brings us to the next benefit.
You can use Keyword Planner’s future performance projections to gain actionable insight on the expected performance of your Ad copy if you use any specific keyword. These projections will guide your decision-making, helping you optimize your campaign for a higher return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Google doesn’t remain idle for long — if ever. Since its initial release, the Google Keyword Planner tool has gone through multiple iterations to offer marketers more ways of enhancing their campaigns. Some of the most significant updates include:
These areas have been overhauled to include some exciting updates that open up new opportunities for people in PPC advertising.
When you are in the Keyword Planner interface, you can navigate to the Keyword Ideas tab, and then hover the mouse cursor above the “Average Monthly Searches” chart for individual keywords. This will allow you to view a drilled-down analysis of that keyword’s monthly trends in a bar chart.
For brands that place great emphasis on seasonal trends, these deep insights are vital, as it can provide the information needed to stay agile and reactive in a competitive market space.
Let’s say you have a travel agency that sells package deals to Mediterranean villas. By using this data, you can jump on emerging trends at the right time, and schedule your ads to maximize click traffic and user engagement.
The new Grouped Ideas option in the menu will display a cluster of user search queries that are related to your ad campaign. These keywords are grouped by theme, and you can select an entire group or a select choice of keywords to add them to your PPC campaign.
Using this feature will help you understand more about user intent, as you can discover keywords that you may otherwise miss in your normal research process. Ultimately, this will help you refine your audience targeting to align your campaign with what people are searching for online.
You already know the impact that competition has on bidding prices, and the usability of keywords. Once-powerful keywords can eventually become low-performers as the competition negates the ROI to the point they aren’t worth having in your campaign anymore.
The original Competition Value column had a limited range of 0 to 1, which left much to the imagination. Google has since introduced a new feature called “Competition (Indexed Value)” that you can choose to add to your columns list.
This index score ranges from a low of 1 to a high of 100, offering a much more detailed analysis of how the competition is affecting a keyword’s usability and potential for ranking your ads.
Here are a couple of important things to know about the competition index value:
While a high value indicates that this keyword is very relevant to your niche, it’s better to focus on keywords that have a lower score. This detailed metric gives you more insight to make better choices in regards to competitive keywords.
What if you have low search volume keywords in a Competitive Niche?
In some cases, the keywords in your niche will all have a low search volume with a high competition score. This may happen when a niche topic with a small audience has become too popular among advertisers, as more companies discovered the potential of a very specialist market.
If you find yourself in this position, you should try targeting long-tail keywords. The longer and more specific the terms, the more precise your targeting becomes. You can also experiment with broad match types to attract more brand awareness.
Another option is to increase your keyword bidding prices so that you will outrank competitors on these low-search volume terms.
In the end, it’s best to remember that search volume and competition are secondary values. What really matters is how relevant a keyword is to your audience, and to what you offer. Aim for quality traffic rather than quantity.
Another recent addition to the Google Keyword Planner tool is the Daily Budgeting Suggestions feature, which is displayed whenever you add new keywords to your campaign. These suggestions are dependent on your max. CPC (cost per click) bid, and the forecasted cost.
There aren’t many marketers who can throw money away carefree, and the very nature of PPC advertising means that incurring some wasted spend is almost inevitable. Smart advertisers will work hard to monitor their campaigns, continually optimizing aspects to keep waste to a minimum.
With these Daily Budgeting Suggestions, newcomers and experienced advertisers like will benefit as they can take the recommendations on board to improve optimization when making changes in their account.
When you consider all the statistical data, the tools, tabs, and tricks you could learn about the Google Keyword Planner tool, it is easy to be overwhelmed. In theory, you could be in PPC advertising for years before you truly master every facet and feature of this program.
However, what it comes down to is this:
Google Keyword Planner improves your level of keyword discovery.
Without a professional tool like this, advertisers may choose keywords by personal bias or by targeting terms they see on a competing website. It’s an easy (and lazy) option that is unlikely to generate any sizeable returns.
When you get serious about advertising, you’ll know that keyword research is a critical aspect of any campaign. With Google Keyword Planner, you unearth the raw potential of data-driven marketing. It takes a little more time, patience, and careful data analysis, but the results are infinitely better.
You can use this tool to discover the best keywords for any campaign, in any season. From new keywords that are better aligned with user intent to terms that your competitors don’t know about yet.
It’s not easy to always know what your audience wants. With Google Keyword Planner, you give your business a better chance of getting it right.
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