Keyword research is an important step in the search engine optimization process. Google’s Keyword Planner will help you choose the right keywords that will increase the visibility of your content and grab the attention of more users.
Set Up an AdWords Account
Google's Keyword Planning tool is an excellent resource but Google doesn't make it easy to use. The keyword planner is part of Google's AdWords platform, so you'll need an AdWords account to use it. Don't worry — we won’t use AdWords to create ads. Instead, we'll use the platform to help us choose the right keywords only.
- Go to https://adwords.google.com/ and click "start now."
- Click “Skip the guided setup."
- Enter your Google account information. You can use the same email address you use to log into Google Analytics to sign up with AdWords.
How to Use Keyword Planner
The Keyword Planner homepage has three components:
1) Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category
The first component will help you find keywords for a new topic or expand the keyword list for an existing topic.
You can get ideas three ways:
- Enter information about your product or service
- Provide Google with your actual landing page and allow it to view that landing page and make some recommendations
- Search by a category, choosing from the drop down menus
When you click “Get Ideas” in the bottom left hand corner Google will provide you with a graph with the average monthly searches for the keyword ideas it created.
2) Get search volume data and trends
This is great if you want to do research on a list of keywords already have. This option can provide helpful insight when you are doing organic research and coming up with content that you want to create. You can enter the keywords manually or upload them as a CSV file to get an idea of how popular those keywords have been.
3) Multiply keyword lists to get new keywords
You can use the Multiply keyword lists option to multiply two or more lists together to generate all sorts of new keywords. You can begin to plan out your keywords here and receive historical statistics or traffic forecasts for the new list of combined keywords.
This is one way to start thinking about your keywords and really begin to hone in on the keywords you want to add to make your content pop.