How to Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner for SEO

Whether traffic is coming from AdWords or another source, it is important to analyze the way visitors are using your site. Once the source of your traffic is discovered, what path it takes, and how it interacts with your site, your campaign can be optimized and your conversions increased.

For example, if you have a high bounce rate, you can analyze those reasons for the bounce rate and have updates suggested to your site so visitors can stay on your pages longer and search for more content.

It doesn’t matter what your profession is or what you know about google adwords keyword planner, most of your time will be spent using the Google Keyword Planner. This guide will help you use the tool, learn how to find low-competition, and find high-volume keywords that you can use for your SEO campaigns.

Tools

To use this tool you will need a Google AdWords account. When you have that set up you can log into Google Adwords where you will be on the Google AdWords home page. Once you’re there, click the tools and analysis button then click Keyword Planner.

The tool shows you three options. To do a good keyword research you want to click on search for keyword and ad group ideas. This is where you’ll have some options.

The first box is where you enter words related to your business or products. If you were selling wireless headphones, you might put wireless headphones, electronics, or things like that. The goal to google adwords keyword planner is to generate the most amount of keyword ideas.

You could also put your landing page (or home page) for people to land on in search once they search for that keyword. There are many different options here, but you won’t have to do anything with them. For most people, they default exactly how you’d want them.

Geo-Targeting

With geo-targeting, you can target a specific country, a specific language or a specific search engine. There are other search engines that are within the Google network such as AOL.

You can personalize your search and omit keywords that don’t have a cost per click that are above or below certain price points. You could also filter out any keywords that don’t have a minimum monthly search threshold.

Another option is to hide keywords that you already have in your AdWords account or that you find relevant or will show up. But if you’re targeting Americans searching in English on Google then keep it all as is.

Keyword Input

It’s time to add a keyword like a backlink. Once you’ve placed a keyword or multiple keywords, hit the keyword ideas button. This should bring you to the actual google adwords keyword planner tool.

First, you will want to click on keyword ideas. The default should be ad group ideas which is not ideal for doing keyword research. So, switch on over to keyword ideas.

Next, you will want to make sure that they keyword volume is set to exact match. What that means is that the average monthly searches that are shown here will reflect what people search for exactly.

Google’s default is to set keywords to broad matches. A keyword (we’ll use backlinks) showing an average of 720 monthly searches, includes people searching how to get backlinks, where to get backlinks, etc.

Setting it to exact ensures that the search volume you’re seeing is only for people who search for the word backlink, with nothing before or after. This is very important to remember.

To enable this setting, click on the little pencil icon and set add keywords as exact match. Then click OK to make sure every match type is set to exact from now on. This feature can dramatically change the search volume for certain keywords.

More Useful Information

If you hover over the keyword tool, you can view the monthly searches over the last year. This is called the trend. In general, if you’re going to be targeting a keyword and setting up your SEO in that keyword, be mindful of trends. Trends must go in the right direction of your content and the positive results you want to achieve.

If you’re noticing dips in the search volume for your keyword, then this might not be the best keyword. There will always be fluctuations in your data here, but over a 12 months, you will want consistency.

Keyword Competition

You should take a look at the competition. This is not a search engine competition but a competition for people advertising through AdWords. Doing so will provide you with helpful insights.

If the competition is high, that can be an indicator of how easy a keyword is going to convert and monetize.

Backlinks

Backlinks: wondering what that term really means? It is an informational keyword for someone who doesn’t know much about SEO. And for that reason, the competition is relatively low.

So if you were to rank on this keyword, it may not convert because people landing on your page may be beginners. If you were selling backlink packages or services then these are not the type of people who will invest your service.

This is more of an AdWords competition than a SEO competition. Keep keyword competition in mind when it comes to advertisers. You can get similar indicators by observing the average costs per links.

The more people willing to pay for a click, does not mean that it is a better keyword. A keyword competition is a better indicator of how well that traffic will convert. This is a good piece of data to pay attention to.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console shows you keywords that your site may already be ranking for. Sort out the results by average position and searching for batches of first page, second page, etc to see different types of suggestions that are already relevant to your site.

The Google Adwords Keyword Planner Wrap-Up

When using the google adwords keyword planner, the most the important thing is to know how to use this tool. Remember to set your searches to exact match to ensure that’s the search volume you will receive when you ultimately rank that page. And that’s all there is!