Mediaboss Marketing

Search engine marketers are more than familiar with the Google Keyword Planner, one of the newer elements to Google AdWords. But if youre a content marketer, you may not have investigated this tool and that could be a huge mistake. Although Google no longer reveals which keywords direct traffic to your site from a search query, the Keyword Planner tool offers powerful insight into which keywords are popular and pertinent to your brand. These keywords can become launching points for your content, providing value to your audience and traffic to your site.

Need help getting started? Heres how to make the Google Keyword Planner your secret weapon:

You can only access the Keyword Planner through an AdWords account. Once youve created yours, you can find the Keyword Planner tool under the Tools and Analysis tab in the navigation bar.

If your brand is using SEO to help boost your online visibility (and if youre not, you should be), you should already have a list of terms and keywords people are using when searching for information about your industry, brand, and products or services. These should be the keywords you use in your content marketing strategy to complement your SEO efforts.

However, if you need more terms, or havent done any other keyword research, the Keyword Planner is here to help. Look for the new keyword or ad group ideas function. Then, type in your seed keyword; this is the most common word that is associated with your brands purpose. For example, a software company would use the keyword security software as their seed keyword. Additional filters on the tab, such as selecting your brand category, will help the tool return the most relevant results.

The search for new keyword or ad group ideas function also includes targeting capabilities to help you fine-tune your keyword search.

The Keyword Planner will generate a list of related keywords for you to sift through. Choose the terms most relevant to your brand to create content around. For example, the software company above might get a list of keywords that include encryption, data protection and information security. Encryption might make a good content topic you could write a blog post on the most important elements to consider when buying encryption software, or the ten attributes you need to pay attention to when deploying a new encryption software system in an organization. Those post ideas provide value to customers that content generated from the broadsecurity software keyword alone wouldnt.

Use the Keyword Planner to establish a starting keyword and draw out an entire roadmap for your content.

While Google will no longer show you direct traffic results, you can see which keywords generate high levels of search traffic. In the Keyword Planner, go to the get search volume section, and either manually type in or upload a list of keywords you have identified as relevant to your brand. The Keyword Planner will then show you the average amount of monthly searches for that term, as well as an estimate of the level of competition that keyword receives.

The most ideal result is a keyword that has both a high number of searches and a low amount of competition, but these terms are few and far between. Most likely, youll have to make a decision based upon your goals; while a term with a low competition might be easier to get results for, that low competition usually means that there are less searches for the keyword. Conversely, a high competition keyword often has a much higher average number of searches than a low competition keyword, but your content will be vying against a large number of other content producers within those searches results pages. Youll have to decide which method is best for your brand and the audience you are trying to reach.

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SEO 101: Google Keyword Planner, A Content Marketers Secret Weapon by @@alexanderkesler