In today’s connected world, there are few things more important than having the right impact online. To attract as many potential customers and leads as possible, you need more than a great website or online store. You also need a solid place in the search results.
Getting to grips with SEO is challenging when algorithms and consumer trends are constantly changing. However, tools like Google’s keyword planner can push companies in the right direction.
Today, we’ll introduce five ways to use the Google keyword planner to transform your SEO strategy and strengthen your online visibility.
1. Finding Lucrative Keywords
Perhaps the most obvious way to use Google keyword planner is to discover keyword ranking opportunities.
Most business leaders and marketing professionals know that they need to optimize for the right keywords to find customers via search.
Even as the search engine algorithms continue to evolve, keywords remain an essential part of both SEO and PPC.
Google keyword planner (formerly the Google Keyword app) helps businesses track down terms and phrases they may not have considered before. All you need to do is enter a “seed” term into the search bar in the keyword planner. Google will then deliver some high-performing keyword suggestions.
For every keyword suggestion you get from Google keyword planner, you also get other valuable information, including competition levels, low and high-range bid, and more. You can use up to ten seed keywords at a time to strengthen your search.
2. Explore Search Volume and Forecast
One of the reasons why Google keyword planner is a particularly popular tool for SEO is that it goes beyond giving basic suggestions. When you get a list from this service, you can dive deeper into the background of each keyword, determining which are difficult to rank for, which are too expensive, and so on.
To see the metrics of your keywords, type a word into the search bar, and click Get Started. This should take you to the Forecasts section of the service.
Here, you don’t get any keyword suggestions. What you’ll see instead is how many clicks and impressions you might expect if you ran an ad for your keyword on Google Ads (PPC).
Google also shows you estimated costs, click-through rates, and cost per click. Obviously, while this data aims to support PPC advertisers first-and-foremost, it’s great for SEO too. Looking at the historical metrics tab will show you which terms deliver the best results long-term.
3. Conducting Competitor Research
To excel in any industry, you need to understand both your customers and your competitors. Understanding your customers is a long-term process that requires constant surveys, polls, and analytics. Learning about your competition can be a little easier – if you have the right tools.
Google keyword planner is a fantastic solution for competitor research. The service works by giving you keyword suggestions based on a seed work, or an URL. This means that you can put the URL of a competing company into the generator and see which words they’re ranking for.
Grab an URL from a competing company and choose the “Entire Site” option to see which terms are generating the most organic traffic for that company. This allows you to discover terms that you might not have tried to rank for before.
At the same time, you might find that your competitors are missing out on some terms and phrases that you’ve already found. This is a chance for you to get ahead of the curve, or appeal to a niche that your competition can’t touch.
4. Building Audience Insights
As mentioned above, you need to know as much as possible about your audience – as well as your competitors. Learning about your audience often means speaking to your sales team, listening to your clients when they leave reviews, and assessing crucial metrics.
However, research with a tool like Google keyword planner can also help you speak your customer’s language.
It’s easy to get caught up in your own language as a business owner. You forget that certain professional terms and phrases might not be as familiar to your audience as they are to you. Google’s keyword recommendations show you what your audience is searching for.
By entering a basic keyword or “seed term”, you get a list of suggestions or questions that people are actually entering on Google.
You can even build on what you learn with external tools like Answer the Public. The more you learn how to speak your audience’s language, the easier it will be to connect with potential leads and customers. – Read more
