Home » Keyword research » How to use Keyword Planner for SEO in the “Old” Way [Works in 2019]

How to use Keyword Planner for SEO in the “Old” Way [Works in 2019]

Palla Sridhar

Did you observe the new interface of “Keyword Planner” in 2018?

It is different from the old keyword tool.

Wah! Regular users may not like it.

It has less options compared to “legacy” keyword planner.

Even though you have new interface, you can still use the old one.

At the below of the page, there is  a way to get to the “previous version” of Keyword Planner.

Keyword Planner is like the “holy grail” to get keyword ideas. Most of the paid and free tools extract data from this Google tool which is mainly for advertisers. But bloggers and publishers can also utilize this tool to extract enough data to target their content.

Earlier to 2018, Keyword Planner Exact Match data can be used to find how many searches are done for the “exact” query. There were basically 3 types – Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match. It was possible to obtain that information like this –

• Broad Match: Windows 10 Update Issues
• Phrase Match: “Windows 10 Update Issues”
• Exact Match: [Windows 10 Update Issues]

But in 2019, these option seem to have been removed.

How to Use Google Keyword Planner 2019

Click here – Google Keyword Planner

You need to have a Google account subscribed to Adwords account to use this service. The basic screen will look similar to this.

There are 4 options.

1. Search for new keyword and ad group ideas.
2. Get search volume for a list of keywords or group them into ad groups.
3. Get traffic forecasts for a list of keywords
4. Multiply keyword lists to get new keyword ideas.

You can get multiply keyword lists to do better research. There are different ways to get new keyword ideas. This old keyword tool is a substitute for many premium SEO tools which are paid. You get “Ad group ideas” and “Keyword ideas” in two different tabs.

To improve your search engine rankings, you can target these keyword in your content campaign. The previous version of Keyword Planner tool had many options to find the right data required. You can get cpc data, competition and exact search volume with ease.

First Option of Keyword Planner

Under the first option, you can enter the basic keyword “seo tools” and click on “Get Ideas” button. This is just an example primary keyword we are going to use to show how it works. You can do similar semantic search with other keywords in the same fashion.

Under “Keyword ideas” tab, you can see all the related keyword data. For this primary keyword, the following is the data obtained.

1. monthly searches – 22,200
2. Competition – Medium
3. Suggested bid – $5.66

This data is mostly useful for advertisers, but can be put to use by beginners, content writers and bloggers. This data is given for broadly related keywords. If you want to target exact match keywords you have to do further analysis and using more sophisticated and pro tools.

Coming to our example of primary keyword of “seo tools”, if you rank well for this keyword, you will have good search engine traffic. Also you can generate good adsense revenue, as observed from the above data. But to rank well for this keyword, you have to write more articles on the same domain targeting the semantic keyword or entities that are mentioned below.

Some of them are –

1. small seo tools
2. seo tools free
3. seo tool
4. free seo tools
5. best seo tools
6. smart seo tools
7. best seo tool.

Etc.

But there is a catch. Google doesn’t provide the exact semantic data using this tool. These related keywords are scattered widely and are less likely to be useful in our seo campaign. But these provide an idea on how to target your next articles if you are targeting the primary keyword.

# Bonus tips to get LSI data from keyword planner

But there are some small tricks to get better ideas on a basic front.

Tip #1

For example if you want more closely related ideas of your primary keyword, you just have to customize your search. Navigate to the following on the left hand side of the data. Customize your search > Keyword options. Click the pencil icon and toggle the option that says “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” to make it on.

Now click on “Get ideas”.

This time the related keywords data is different.

For example, this time we get keywords like

1. free seo tools
2. best seo tools
3. seo tools online
4. blackhat seo tools
5. seo monitoring tools
6. web seo tools

etc.

Tip #2

Find out the first web page ranking for the primary keyword “seo tools”.  For example for google.com database, the #1 ranking page for this keyword is –

http://tools.seobook.com/.

Now copy this URL. Now click on “Modify Search” in Keyword Planner and in the pop-up, under landing page, paste this URL and click on “Get Ideas” at the bottom. (Note: You may need to scroll to get this button, this time).

You will get better relevant keywords this time.

For example I got,

1. free seo tools
2. seo tools free
3. seo tools link
4. cracked seo tools
5. seo tools keywords

and many more.  Some of them overlap with the earlier research, but you will get some better and new keyword opportunities.

Second Option of Keyword Planner

You can also get search volume data for broad match, phrase match, exact match of your keywords. You just have to click “Modify Search” and select the second option. Then enter your primary keyword, like in the below image. But there is a glitch in Keyword planner provided by Google. The tools provides the same data for all match type. So it’s somewhat useless.

So you can use the second option to find semantically related keywords. For example, when you enter the term “seo tools” in Google, you will related keywords at the bottom. I gathered all those keywords and entered in the second option.

This will give the same exact data, for these related keywords, as in the first option. For example, I found a gold nugget keyword of “small seo tools” using this approach. It’s traffic is high, competition is low and suggested bid is high.

You can also upload a file containing a set of keywords. The file should be either a CSV, TSV or text file.

Third option of Keyword Planner

Using the third option, for the same set of earlier related keywords, you can get forecasts. To do this, just copy the data entered in second option and paste in the search box of third option. Then click on the button that says “Get forecasts”.

For this you also need to enter the bid amount and daily budget. Then you will get different data like max. cpc (already entered by you), clicks, impressions, cost, CTR, AVG cpc, avg. postion. For example in my case, I found that “seo tools” has 1.57 clicks, 1,356.57 impressions, $0.11 cost with 0.1% CTR, $0.07 avg cpc and 4.63 as average position for a bid of $0.1 and daily budget of $10.

#Bonus Tip.  Here you can also find search volume data for different matches (broad match, phrase match, exact match) of the same keyword.

Enter the bid amount and daily amount to large values like $150 and $25000. Then click on “Get detailed forecasts”. Click on the “Keyword” tab. click on Match types and select “Exact Match” or “Phrase Match” to get that relevant data. You can see most of your ads will rank for #1 position. Now you take “Impressions” data and multiply by 30 to get monthly search volume.

Using this approach I found that, “best seo tools” and “google seo tools” are generating enough search volume after “seo tools” for exact match search.

To be sure that this trick of keyword research works, I tested with exact match search for “seo tools”. Using the first option, I found that “seo tools” is generating 22,200 of monthly search volume. Using the current trick, I found that it is around 25000. So at least you get a rough idea of what is happening.

For the same keyword above and for broad match, I found the following info.

For phrase match search, I found the following data.

Fourth Option of Keyword Planner

Using the fourth option, you can find further sematic keyword ideas by entering two sets of keyword lists. For example I have taken two primary keywords, “seo tools” and “keyword research”. Then I entered them in Google and found the search related terms at the bottom. Now I entered one of them in one list and another in second list.

Then there are two different options.  1. Get forecasts 2. Get Search volume.

This will list the different combinations with each keyword in one list and other keywords in the second list. If they have enough search volume, than that data is shown. Otherwise, the same information in second and third options is shown with “zero” data for other fields.

My Inference: I found that information found this way was not much relevant. As most of the times it showed up “zero” data.

# Bonus Tip: You can also find some related keywords for second list using Google Instant search feature or Auto-Suggest method without pressing enter. Using this trick to get long tail keywords, I found a gold nugget keyword like “small seo tools plagiarism checker” which has low completion and good suggested bid. But all the combinations may not have data.

Conclusion

Keyword Planner has replaced the old Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool. If this free seo tool with the above options if properly utilized can work wonders for on-site content optimization. Just like in any vertical, if you want to reap benefits with your content, you have to put proper hard-work in keyword research. With this free tool, it gives beginner bloggers  an edge over brands to rank high in Google.

Are you able to find sem keywords with this free tool? Is this keyword analysis useful for your blogging purpose? Can this be useful as a keywords suggestion tool? If so please share this article on social circles and with your friends!