What is Google Keyword Planner?
Google Keyword Planner is a powerful and free keyword planning tool provided by Google through the Google Ads platform. Originally designed to help advertisers find suitable keywords for their ad campaigns, it has also become an invaluable resource for SEO professionals. With Google Keyword Planner, you can uncover key insights about how people search on Google, including search volumes and ad costs for specific keywords.
Despite its primary function for paid advertising, Google Keyword Planner serves as an essential tool for SEO keyword research, helping marketers build a solid foundation for driving organic search traffic to their websites. In this article, we will explore how to use Google Keyword Planner effectively to improve your SEO efforts.
Main Functions of Google Keyword Planner
- Discover New Keywords: Receive keyword suggestions related to your business, services, or website.
- Understand Monthly Search Volume: Analyze how often users search for your targeted keywords on Google.
- Determine Cost: Get insights into the average cost-per-click (CPC) for specific keywords in Google Ads.
- Organize Keywords: Group related keywords into categories that fit your SEO strategy.
- Create Campaigns: Utilize keyword research to launch new ad campaigns directly from the tool.
How to Use Google Keyword Planner: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
1. Registration and Login
To start using Google Keyword Planner, you must first sign up for a Google Ads account. If you haven’t already, go to the Google Ads website and register with basic details. After logging in, navigate to the “Tools” menu and select “Keyword Planner” to access the tool.
2. Discover New Keywords
Once you’re in the Keyword Planner, you’ll notice two main options: Discover new keywords and Get search volume and forecasts.
- Discover new keywords: Enter a keyword related to your business or a URL to get suggestions. You can further refine your results by selecting specific language and location filters.
- Search by URL: Input your website URL to receive keyword recommendations based on the content of your site. You can choose to scan the entire website or focus on individual pages.
After hitting “Get Results,” you’ll see a list of relevant keywords, along with data such as monthly search volume, competition, and potential CPC.
3. Optimize Your Keyword List
Once you have a list of keywords, it’s crucial to optimize it by filtering out irrelevant terms. You can use the “Add filter condition” option to narrow down the keywords based on specific criteria like search volume, competition, or match type. You can further refine results by using text matching or semantic matching techniques.
For SEO purposes, using semantic matching can help you find keywords that align with the intent behind user searches, not just the exact wording. To exclude irrelevant keywords, you can also apply filters such as negative keywords.
4. Get Search Volume and Forecast Data
If you already have a list of keywords and want to gather more insights, select “Get search volume and forecasts” to obtain precise search data. This feature also forecasts potential clicks and impressions for those keywords, helping you estimate traffic potential.
Google Keyword Planner for SEO: Practical Applications
1. Keyword Research and Discovery
- Accurate & Free Data: Since Google Keyword Planner pulls data directly from Google, it is more accurate than many third-party tools. Plus, it’s free, making it an excellent choice for businesses starting out.
- Find New Keywords: By entering core topics, you can uncover additional keywords you may not have thought of. This helps expand your keyword list and ensures your content reaches a wider audience.
- Discover Long-Tail Keywords: Long-tail keywords have lower search volumes but are often less competitive, which makes ranking easier. Google Keyword Planner can suggest long-tail variations to help drive more qualified traffic to your site.
2. Analyze Search Volume
Understanding the popularity of your target keywords is essential for successful SEO. Google Keyword Planner gives you the estimated monthly search volume for each keyword, allowing you to prioritize the most relevant terms.
For instance, if you’re writing content for a travel website, and the search volume for “best tourist destinations” far exceeds “niche travel spots,” you can focus on the more popular topic to maximize traffic.
3. Competition Analysis
- Understand competitors: By entering the URL of a competitor’s website or related page, Google Keyword Planner can analyze the keywords that competitors are targeting. This allows us to understand competitors’ optimization strategies and key keywords so that we can find our differentiated competitive advantages and develop more effective SEO plans.
- Determine the difficulty of keyword optimization: The tool will display the competition index of each keyword. Although this index is not completely equivalent to the difficulty of SEO optimization, it can be used as a reference. Keywords with high competition mean that more websites are competing for the ranking of this keyword, which makes optimization more difficult; while keywords with low competition are relatively easier to get a better ranking. We can choose appropriate keywords for optimization based on the strength and resources of our website.
4. Content Strategy Planning
- Determine the topic of the article: Based on the keywords and related information provided by Google Keyword Planner, we can determine the topic direction of the website content. Creating high-quality content related to popular keywords and user search intent can improve the visibility and attractiveness of the website in search engines, and increase user visits and stay time.
- Auxiliary keyword layout: After determining the keywords, they need to be reasonably placed in the title, Meta tags, text, image alt attributes, etc. of the web page to improve the relevance of the page and the keywords. Google Keyword Planner can help us determine which keywords are the focus and where they should be highlighted, thereby improving the SEO effect of the page.
Limitations of Google Keyword Planner
While Google Keyword Planner is a useful tool, it does have its limitations:
Data Accuracy:
If you have never placed an ad, the monthly search volume of a keyword you can see is just a range , not an exact number. And many keywords cannot provide corresponding indicator data because the search volume is too low. But it is more accurate than third-party tools . If you only look at the search volume of a single keyword, you must look at Google’s, not Semrush’s.
Google-Specific Data:
Based only on the Google platform: Google Keyword Planner only covers search data from Google search engines, and different search engine user groups and search behaviors may differ. For some specific target audiences or industries, if they prefer to use other search engines, relying solely on Google Keyword Planner data may ignore important keywords and search trends on other platforms.
Lack of in-depth competitor analysis: Although you can get some keyword information by entering the URL of a competitor’s website or related page, the planner cannot provide a comprehensive and in-depth competitor keyword analysis. For example, it cannot accurately analyze the ranking changes, usage frequency, advertising delivery strategies, etc. of competitor keywords, which has certain limitations for formulating targeted competitive strategies.
Lack of related search function: Although Google Keyword Planner has provided 11 data dimensions for optional queries, it is still not very convenient for keyword research in some cases.
For example, if you want to check the search volume of related keywords, Google Keyword Planner is more troublesome because it cannot query related searches like Ahrefs and Semrush.
Also, if you want to make a keyword mapping table or compare a large number of keywords, Ahrefs and Semrush are more suitable it. Not only can you compare the data between keywords, but you can also divide the search roots of keywords by topic.
Limited Competitor Analysis:
Google Keyword Planner was originally designed for Google advertising users, so it may be subject to some limitations and influences of the advertising system during use. For example, some functions may focus more on the needs of advertising but are not suitable for pure SEO research, which requires time and effort to screen and exclude irrelevant information.
Wrapping Up
Google Keyword Planner is an essential resource for any SEO strategy. Its ability to provide accurate keyword data directly from Google makes it a top choice for keyword research. While it has some limitations, such as its focus on Google Ads and general search volume ranges, the benefits it provides for free cannot be overlooked.
Using Google Keyword Planner, you can discover new keywords, analyze search trends, and plan your content confidently, ensuring your website is optimized for success. Whether you’re new to SEO or an experienced marketer, this tool can help you drive organic traffic and improve your website’s performance.
For a deeper dive into SEO strategies, check out our Google SEO operation guide—available for free!
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