In my last blog post, I touched on what to consider before building out your new keyword list in Google Adwords. It is now time to discuss some great, free tools to help you find high quality keywords.
Let’s begin!
Google Keyword Planner
If you're kicking off your first Adwords campaign, Google Keyword Planner is a great place to start. The tool is made by Google, tied into the Adwords platform, and provides great metrics to back up why you should or shouldn't add certain keywords to your campaign/ad groups.
Of course, in order to use this tool you will have to sign up for AdWords, but you can access the tool without creating any campaigns.
How to use (for quick use in an existing campaign/ad group):
Click on the campaign you want to add new keywords to
Click on the ad group you want to add new keywords to
Click on the + Keywords button highlighted in red
Utilize the Keyword Planner bank of suggested ideas to the right
Click “Add” to add in a suggested Keyword Planner keyword
Once finished, click save and the keywords you selected from the Keyword Planner tool will be added to your ad group
How to use (getting more granular with the tool):
Click on the “Keywords” tab
Click on the + Keywords button highlighted in red
Click on the “Keyword Planner” link - highlighted in blue
Fill out the keyword and ad group ideas section
Review the proposed ad group and keyword ideas
Pros:
Allows you to get very granular with your targeting
Provides suggested bid amounts, what the competition on the keyword is like, the average amount of monthly searches done for the keyword, a breakdown of the keyword searched by device and more
Can be used to find ad group and keyword ideas
The tool is integrated into the Adwords account which makes it very user friendly
Cons:
Doesn’t highlight (real-time) trending keywords
Übersuggest
This is a more organized way of capturing Google Suggestion terms.
Übersuggest uses Google suggests to collect keyword suggestions relating to web, news, images, and more. This tools allows for plenty of high quality keywords to be easily discovered, collected, and implemented into your Adwords campaigns.
How to use:
Enter a term in the search box
Übersuggest takes your base term, adds a letter or a digit in front of it, and extracts suggestions for it
Click on each keyword to get further suggestions based on that term
Add each keyword to your basket by clicking on the plus sign on its left
Click on the “Get Button” on the left hand side of your screen
Copy all keywords in your basket
Paste them into your Adwords account
Pros:
Can generate suggestions from regular web searches or from search verticals like shopping, news, or video
Utilizes Google suggestions
The interface is user friendly
It feels like you’re shopping for keywords; click the plus button on all keywords you want, the “Get Button” makes it easy to copy and paste all wanted keywords into Adwords
Cons:
Doesn’t provide search metrics (keyword popularity, KPIs, bid suggestions, etc.)
Google Trends
Google Trends can be utilized for building out your Adwords campaign in a few different ways. The tool can be used to find new, relevant keywords and can also be helpful when declaring if a certain set of keywords that you’ve collected would be relevant for the type of campaign you plan on running.
For example, If I wanted to see that “coffee grinders” would be a relevant keyword for my campaign targeting Australia, I would come to Google Trends to see if that is the case.
How to use:
Enter your keyword(s)
Specify your search targeting dropdown settings (location, date, categories, etc.)
Review the data
Pros:
Can compare multiple keywords data side by side
Related searches can be used for new, relevant keyword ideas
Can easily see regional/city interest (popularity)
Will help assist with your locations targeting within the Google Adwords platform
Can view trend changes over time
May help explain a future flux in keyword performance
Cons:
Provides limited search metrics
No user friendly way to export new keyword ideas
Wikipedia
You might not even think of this as a keyword tool, but Wikipedia is an obvious yet overlooked tool for conducting keyword research. But think about it: Wikipedia provides a wide variety of keywords within a single niche article. It can do the work for you, so you can just pluck relevant keywords with little to no effort.
How to use:
Google search your term with “Wikipedia” at the end
Look In the SERP (search engine results position) for the most relevant possible keywords.
View the full Wikipedia article and scan for new keyword ideas
Pros:
Utilize the Content and Reference links for other keyword ideas
Wikipedia articles are providing pre-packed relevant keywords
Get links to other relevant sources that might open your eyes to new ad group and keyword ideas
Cons:
Wikipedia isn’t a keyword search tool so it’s missing a lot of metrics that other tools have included (search volume, competition level, etc.)
No user friendly way to export new keyword ideas
In the end, creativity is key when researching keywords. Think up as many ideas as possible to generate a list of solid keywords using the tools you find the most helpful. There is no black and white way to complete keyword research, but using the tools above will definitely give you a great start.
Let us know any tools we missed in the comments below!
