11. You can use this free tool to
discover new keywords
related to your business and
see estimates of the searches
they receive and the cost to
target them.
25. In order to use the Google
Keyword Planner, youNEED to
have a Google Ads account.
26. If you don’t have an Adwords account
already, you can set one up in a few
minutes:
27. (Just follow the prompts, enter some
information about you and your business, and
you’re in. Note: You don’t have to run an active
campaign to use the Keyword Planner. But do
need to at least set up a Google Adwords
campaign).
28. Next, login to your Google Adwords
account. Click on the wrench icon in the
toolbar at the top of the page.
32. And now I’m going to show you how to use
these two tools to help you create a
massive list of keywords for
your campaigns.
33. 1. Discover New Keywords
Like the name suggests, this tool is
ideal for finding new keywords.
34. As you can see, the field above this
tool says: “Enter products or services
closely related to your business”.
35. Quick Note: The value you get from
the Keyword Planner is largely based
on the information that you enter
here. So you want to be VERY strategic
about what you enter into this field.
36. So to help you get the most out of this
tool, I’ll break down each of the two main
options.
37. “Start With Keywords”: These words and
phrases that describe your business (for
example, “weight loss” or “coffee”). This
allows you to access Google’s internal
database of keywords for different
industries.
38. Pro Tip: You can enter multiple
keywords into this field. Just put
a comma after each keyword
and press enter. For example, if
you run an ecommerce site that
sells cookies, you’d want to
enter terms like “gluten free
desserts” and “low carb
cookies” here.
39. “Start With a Website”: This is
designed for Adwords users. But you
can sometimes find a few solid
keywords here using your site’s
homepage… or an article from your sit
40. Once you’ve entered your information into
one (or all three) of the fields, click “Get
Results”.
41. Next, you’ll see the Keywords Results Page.
I’ll show you how to use that part of the
Keyword Planner later in the guide.
42. For now, let’s dive into the second tool in
the GKP: search volume and forecasts.
43. 2. Get search volume and forecasts for
your keywords
44. This feature is only really useful if you
already have a long list of keywords… and
just want to check their search volume. In
other words, this tool won’t help you
generate new keyword ideas.
45. To use it, copy and paste a list of keywords
into the search field, and hit “Get Started”.
46. You’ll also see the same Keywords Results
Page you see when you use the “Find new
keywords” tool.
47. The only difference is that a) you only get
data on the keywords you entered and b)
Google will predict how many clicks and
impressions you’ll get from the keywords
you entered:
48. No matter which tool you ultimately used,
you end up in the same place: The
Keywords Result page.
49. And now it’s time for me to do a deep dive
into how that page works… and how to get
the most out of it.
50. Now it’s time to filter the list of keywords
down to a smaller list of terms that are
best for you.
51. Both the tools I just described will take you
to the “Keywords Results Page”, which
looks like this:
57. “Locations” and “Language” are
automatically set to target English-
speaking people in the United States. If
that’s your target audience (in most cases
it will be), you can leave these options as-
is.
58. But let’s say you’re based in Germany.
You’d want to change the Location to
“Germany” and choose “German” as the
language.
59. “Search networks”
This is whether or not you
want to advertise only on
Google… or Google and their
“search partners”. Search
partner sites include other
search engines and Google
properties (like YouTube).
66. Let’s say that you just launched a new line
of blue t-shirts. In that case you’d want to
make sure the keyword “blue t-shirt”
appears in all of the keywords that the
Keyword Planner suggests to you.
67. Exclude Keywords in My Account
This excludes keywords
that you’re already
bidding on in Adwords.
69. Avg. Monthly Searches
This is helpful for filtering out
keywords with lots of search
volume (after all, these terms tend
to be really competitive). You may
also want to filter out keywords
that don’t get that many searches.
78. So the “Competition” score here ONLY
refers to Adwords competition (not how
competitive the keyword is to rank for in
Google’s organic search results). So I
recommend leaving this blank.
79. Ad Impression Share
Again, this setting only
applies to Adwords. So for
the sake of SEO, we can
ignore this filter.
80. Top of Page Bid
This is how much you’d expect
to pay for your ad to appear at
the top of the page for that
keyword.
82. Top of Page Bid is a proxy indicator
of commercial intent. So if you only want
to target keywords that potential buyers
search for, you can set this to a certain
dollar amount.
83. As you can see, there are two options
“high range” and “low range”.
84. I personally set the “low range” to a few
dollars. That way, I can filter out keywords
without any commercial intent.
85. Organic Impression Share
This is how often your site appears in
the organic results for each keyword.
(Note: to use this feature you’ll need
to connect your Google Search
Console Account to Google Adwords).
86. Organic Average Position
Where you rank (on average)
for each keyword in Google
organic. Again, you’ll need to
connect to the GSC for this to
work.
95. Keyword (by relevance)
This is the list of keywords
that Google considers most
relevant to the keyword or
URL you typed into it.
96. Avg. monthly searches
Pretty self-explanatory.
However, keep in mind
that this is range…and
not a super-accurate
indicator of search
volume.
97. (I’ll show you how to get more accurate
search volume data in a minute).
98. Pro Tip
Watch out for seasonal keywords.
That’s because seasonal keywords (like
“Halloween costumes”) may get 50,000
searches in October and 100 searches
in May. But the GKP will say that the
term gets “10,000 searches per month”,
which is kind of misleading.
99. Competition
Like I mentioned earlier, “Competition” in the
Google Keyword Planner has nothing to do with
SEO. Instead, “Competition” is simply the
number of advertisers that are bidding on that
keyword. But it IS useful to see if a keyword has
any commercial intent (after all, the more people
bid on a keyword, the more potential there is for
them to become a lead or customer).
100. Top of Page Bid
This is another great way to
size keyword’s monetization
potential. The higher bid
here, the more lucrative the
traffic tends to be.
