By Taylor Williams
Just like how dogs are a man’s best friend, Google Keyword Planner is a modern-day SEO copywriter’s trusty companion. In short, Google Keyword Planner is a tool that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals use to perform keyword research. This is the practice of discovering common and popular search terms that users enter into Google when looking for products and services online.
After researching these popular keywords, it is an SEO copywriter’s job to expertly use them on multiple web pages. By doing this, it helps ensure that a particular client’s website ranks highly on Google where their target audience is searching for their products and/or services. In other words, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) attracts more members of the public, converting them into potential leads, increasing sales.
The best part of it all? Google Keyword Planner is free to use, meaning there truly aren’t any barriers to spying on consumers’ search patterns, and in turn, attracting them to buy or use your products or services.
To help you learn more about the wonderful tool that is Google Keyword Planner, we’ve created a list of 10 top tips to consider when performing keyword research on this platform.
1. Always Search New Keywords Based On Location
Undoubtedly one of Google Keyword Planner’s best features is the ability to filter keyword research by location. This has tremendous benefits for your brand. By seeing what real people are searching for in your local community, you can tailor your keyword strategy accordingly. In other words, an SEO copywriter can use the exact words and combination of words that local people are commonly searching for to help attract them to your website.
When accessing Google Keyword Planner, simply click on the location pin icon and enter “Toronto”, “Ottawa”, “Montreal”, or any other town or city in the Great White North. Alternatively, you can search by country by simply entering “Canada”. To give you one real-life example right now, Torontonians are currently searching for a “Toronto law firm” 880 times a month.
2. Keep A Keen Eye On “Keywords You Provided” And “Keyword Ideas”
Lime Advertising’s SEO copywriters quickly grasp what your business specializes in before listing down all the generic keywords and terms people would use to find a business like yours. For instance, if your company produces specialty chocolate, “specialty chocolate” is your primary keyword. It currently achieves 50 average monthly searches in Canada. These are “keywords you provided”.
By entering “specialty chocolate” into Google Keyword Planner, the tool automatically generates its own “keyword ideas” too. These are always worth paying special attention to because these keyword ideas might actually carry higher search volumes than the original keywords you provided. For instance, after entering “specialty chocolate”, one of the keyword ideas generated is “specialty chocolate near me”, a keyword that carries 70 average monthly searches in Canada.
3. Carefully Consider The Number Of Average Monthly Searches Per Keyword
We’ve already alluded to search volumes and the number of times Canadians are searching for particular keywords each month. This is one of the most crucial insights when using Google Keyword Planner. “Average monthly searches” are placed right next to the keywords on the dashboard.
Generally, SEO copywriters should always consider picking keywords and terms that are highly searched. If a keyword has a three-figure search volume, this is perfect. By choosing the most popularly searched keywords, you stand the best possible chance of driving lots of traffic to your website. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t ignore low volume keywords entirely, but we’ll get to that later in point 9.
4. Determine Whether A Keyword Is Trending Up Or Down Under “Three-Month Change”
Some SEO agencies ignore the “three-month change” feature but at Lime Advertising, we don’t. Placed next to “average monthly searches” on the dashboard, “three-month change” indicates how much more or less a particular word has been searched for over a 90-day period.
This is important because such keywords can have a big impact on your website’s performance. Right now, “bed bug exterminator Ottawa” has 90 average monthly searches in Canada. Not only that but searches for “bed bug exterminator Ottawa” have increased by 40% over the past three months.
Compare this to “bed bug removal Ottawa” that receives just 10 average monthly searches (with 0% change in three months) and you can appreciate just how important choosing the right keywords and phrases is when you want to drive more traffic to your website.
5. Determine Whether A Keyword Is Trending Up Or Down Under “YoY Change”
In the same way that you can view “three-month change” to review a particular keyword’s performance over a 90-day period, you can also review “YoY change” too, short for year-over-year.
This is a very valuable insight because an SEO copywriter can quickly determine whether a particular keyword is still in-trend and robust enough to continue driving traffic to your website. Right now, the term “home inspection” carries 6,600 average monthly searches in Canada but “home inspection” searches have declined 33% between 2021 and 2022.
This isn’t to say you should scrap every mention of “home inspection” across your website(s) but the “YoY change” feature enables SEO copywriters to proactively swap out down-trending keywords for in-trend ones whenever opportunities present themselves. The key is retaining a combination of enough high-ranking keywords and in-trend keywords, something the Lime Advertising team specializes in.
6. Carefully Assess How Competitive A Particular Keyword Is Under “Competition”
Beside “YoY change” in the Google Keyword Planner dashboard is “Competition”, another field worth paying special attention to. “Competition” denotes how much or little your competitors are using a particular keyword on their own website.
Keywords are ranked either “High”, “Medium” or “Low”. As you’d suspect, “High” means lots of other companies are using the keyword you were considering. “Low” means few other companies are using the same keyword as you. Low competition keywords present a big opportunity. If they have a high search volume too, you’re laughing. An SEO copywriter should consider using as many of these keywords as possible on your website because you stand an even greater chance of Google crawling your website and ranking you on Page 1 or 2 with consumers rarely venturing to Page 3 and beyond.
Don’t ignore the high competition keywords though. These are the most common or generic words like “Toronto pest control”, “Hamilton home inspection” or “Vancouver law firm” – the words most closely associated with your product or service. Lime Advertising’s SEO copywriters follow industry best practice by using the perfect combination of high competition keywords to drive traffic, and medium and low competition keywords to further help your business stand out online.
7. Search For As Many As 10 Keywords In One Go
Some businesses are fortunate enough to be searchable by many different keywords and phrases. Take pest control for example. “Pest removal”, “pest control” and “exterminator” are just three suffixes that can be added to “ant”, “mouse” or “spider” to create a positively overflowing list of SEO keywords.
With Google Keyword Planner, you can enter as many as 10 keywords in one go before analyzing their average monthly search volumes, three-month change, YoY change, and competition. In short, the more keywords you enter into Google Keyword Planner, the more “keyword ideas” will be generated as we discussed in point 2 earlier.
8. Steal And Improve Upon Your Competitors’ Keywords Using The “Start With A Website” Feature
You know how we mentioned “keywords you provided” in point 2, the words researched by an SEO copywriter themselves to accurately describe your products and/or services?
Well, this isn’t the only way to perform keyword research. The “Start With A Website” feature on Google Keyword Planner allows particular businesses (and our SEO copywriters) to simply enter the URL of a similar rival business before Google Keyword Planner automatically generates a list of the keywords already being used on that business’s website.
By spying on the competition in this manner, you can not only use (steal!) the high-ranking keywords that your rivals are using to attract your desired target audience, but our SEO copywriters can also see what high-ranking words they aren’t using too. This presents a key opportunity to outrank your competition in the modern-day battlefield that is the Google rankings.
9. Don’t Give Up On Keywords Just Because Of A Low Search Volume
An SEO copywriter should never give up on or discard keywords just because they carry a low search volume. Firstly, a business may belong to a niche industry where there simply aren’t huge volumes of searches for their product(s) and/or service(s). For instance, “solar energy storage system” only carries 10 average monthly searches in Canada right now.
However, that particular keyword might be 100% accurate and totally relevant for an energy solutions company to attract, capture and engage that small percentage of interested searchers. Lime Advertising’s SEO copywriters always assess search intent and search motivation on an individual client-by-client basis.
10. Sort Average Monthly Searches And Other Fields From High To Low
Generally, SEO copywriters are most interested in the high-ranking keywords that are going to bring the most traffic to your website. A handy way to quickly locate these terms in the Google Keyword Planner dashboard is sorting them from high to low.
By clicking once on the “average monthly searches” column, keywords will be automatically sorted from highest searched to lowest searched. It’s worth noting that the “three-month change”, “YoY change” and “Competition” fields can also be ranked from high to low in the same manner.
We Conquer Local Search Engine Optimization, So You Don’t Have To
Running a business is incredibly challenging and time-consuming. Between fulfilling your products or services, to recruitment, to managing your reputation, it isn’t any wonder that there’s no time left to rank on Page 1 on Google. That’s where Lime Advertising can help you. We perform Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on new or existing websites so you can prepare for more leads, more customers, and more sales.
If you have any questions, call Lime Advertising at 416-340-0654 or email info@limeadvertising.com today. We look forward to receiving your enquiry.
