Introduction: Why It’s Important to Do Keyword Research
Any successful SEO or PPC campaign starts with keyword research. Without understanding your audience’s search terms, you’re essentially aiming blindly. Google Keyword Planner is a free tool from Google Ads that helps you find keyword ideas, search volume, and competition data. It’s one of the most reliable tools for this job. If you want your content to rank and convert, you should learn how to use Google Keyword Planner. This is true whether you’re a blogger, a marketer, or a small business owner.
What is the Google Keyword Planner?
Google Ads gives you Google Keyword Planner for free. It’s mostly for advertisers, but it’s also a great tool for finding SEO keywords. It lets you: Get ideas for keywords based on a product, website, or topic.
See how many searches there are each month
Look at how much competition there is for keywords.
Estimate the cost per click (CPC) for paid ads.
How to Get to Google Keyword Planner
To get started with Google Keyword Planner:
Set up a Google Ads account (you don’t have to run an ad).
Sign in at ads.google.com.
Click the wrench icon that says “Tools & Settings.”
Choose Keyword Planner from the “Planning” menu.
How to Use Google Keyword Planner to Find Keywords
1. Click on “Find New Keywords
You can type in a topic, phrase, or website with this choice. Google will then generate a list of related keyword suggestions.
Tip: Begin with general words like “digital marketing” and then get more specific.
2. Sort by date, language, and location
Make sure you’re going after the right people before you start analyzing. Set your Place (for example, the U.S., Pakistan) Language (English, Urdu, etc.)
Usually, March is the best time to look for tops for looking at trends.
3. Look at the results
For each keyword, you’ll see: Average number of searches per month
How much competition there is (low, medium, high)
The top of the page bid includes both low and high ranges.
This helps you figure out if a keyword is Worth going after (high volume, low competition)
Too pricey or competitive
Good for paid ads (high CPC)
4. Use filters to make it smaller
Use filters like
Don’t use brand names.
More than 1000 searches
Low Competition
This helps you find long-tail keywords that aren’t as competitive and are easier to rank for.
5. Put keywords into groups based on their theme.
Once you have a list, put them into groups based on their topics or goals. For instance:
“Tips for beginners on SEO”
“best free tools for SEO.”
“How to get a better ranking on Google”
This structure helps you make a content strategy based on groups of keywords.
Tips for Getting Better Results
To get a lot of different ideas, use more than one seed keyword.
Enter your competitors’ URLs into the tool to spy on them.
Before you make a final decision, use Google Trends to see how keywords are changing.
You can download your list as a .CSV file for future use.
Why Google Keyword Planner Will Still Be Useful in 2025
Ahrefs and SEMrush are two premium tools that have a lot of advanced features. Google Keyword Planner is still a good, free tool. It gets information straight from Google’s search engine, which makes it very accurate for targeting ads and finding organic keywords.
It’s especially useful for:
New owners of websites
Businesses in the area
Independent contractors and consultants
Marketers who care about their budgets
Last Thoughts: Include Google Keyword Planner in Your Plan
Using Google Keyword Planner to do keyword research is a smart and cheap way to find keywords that will have a big impact. This tool gives you real data straight from Google, whether you’re writing blog posts, enhancing web pages for goods, or planning PPC ads.
Using it regularly and filtering results wisely will help you find useful keyword opportunities that can bring in targeted traffic and boost conversions.