HOW TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR KEYWORD IDEAS FOR FREE!
Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that is used by many businesses to check which words and phrases are being typed into Google in order to find which businesses are offering goods and services. It is generally used by those who are considering an Ad Words campaign but is a viable tool for anyone with a website. If we know which words are being used for searches, then we can use those words on our websites to get our website seen on the right search pages.
Simple process, right?
Well not as simple as it used to be.
GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER – A USEFUL KEYWORD TOOL
You see, once upon a time, you could put a subject, product or a website into the keyword planner tool and you would be given lists of keywords and phrases relevant to your search criteria along with how many people per month are using those search terms in a certain geographical area. Useful stuff. From the data given we could use a selection of these keywords and search terms to include broad spectrum words to attract a larger volume of traffic to websites along with more niche phrases and long tailed keywords for specificity and relevance in order to cater for the intent of the viewer.
However, researching on Google Keyword Planner nowadays does not yield that same level of information as before.
KEYWORD RESEARCH – GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER & SEARCHVOLUME.IO
The example below shows some of the results for the search term ‘web design’ using Google Keyword Planner.
Whilst the data is useful in that it shows not just the specific keyword but also similar keywords in the ‘keyword ideas’ section, you will see that the Avg. monthly searches column gives an estimate which is broad at best. This data did used to be included once upon a time and it would be hugely beneficial to be able to get this data back again.
Good news – it is possible to regain this data for up to 800 keywords (at the time of writing which is 17th March 2020) using a website called searchvolume.io
Although the Pro account is a paid for product, the free tool is quite adequate to gain data for your own website. The way to do this is quite simple:
1. When you have conducted a search on a specific keyword, industry or website, click DOWNLOAD KEYWORD IDEAS in the top right corner of the screen.
2. This will download your data as an Excel spreadsheet. Open this and highlight all of the keywords in column A
3. Go to searchvolume.io and paste your keywords directly into the search box. DON’T FORGET to ensure that you amend the location box to your home country.
4. If you scroll down, you will now see all of the keywords with their respective monthly searches. These can be downloaded as a CSV file to save or you can look at them on the site itself.
You now have a comprehensive list of words of keywords and phrases that you know are being used for Google searches in your location every month. You will now be able to place these keywords within the content of your website, page titles and meta details.
Something to note from a previous article that I have written: the average number of words that people put into the Google search bar is 5. So do include those longer keywords and phrases as this is more likely what Google will latch onto when it comes to considering a searchers’ intent when they are searching.
In conclusion, Google Keyword Planner is a great tool to help you find good keywords and phrases to include in your website content and when used with searchvolume.io becomes even more fit for purpose.
For more information about keywords and how to add to your website you can read my article SEO Strategy – a guide to your free online resources.
The best thing about this process, of course, is that it is free!
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