Google Keyword Tool Has formally Been Replaced By Keyword Planner

The Google Keyword Tool, used by SEO professionals the world over, has publicly been retired. While the sentiments about this change have been mixed, there are positive and negative aspects to being required to use the Keyword Planner instead of the Keyword Tool.

Google themselves explains that the Keyword Tool no longer being accessible is a result of the Keyword Planner having the joint functionality of the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator. They have even added new functionality. Here are the other key positives and negatives of this change.

Positives Of The Keyword Planner

The Keyword Planner allows local SEO and SEM professionals to get keyword search quantity data at city level with better geographic segmentation and the skill to bundle geographic regions.
Users are able to upload up to 10,000 keywords from their own list to get concert data. Keyword Planner will show search volumes by ad group, landing page and any other classification set by the user.

Negatives Of The Keyword Planner

Unlike the Keyword Tool, the Keyword Planner forces users to login to an AdWords description in order to use it.
The Keyword Planner has no match type data for search volume, no device targeting, and no global vs. local monthly searches. At this time the choice to filter by closely related search terms is gone, but Google says it will be brought back in the coming weeks.
In regards to match types and device types being eliminated from search volume data, Google had this to say:

In common, you’ll notice that the average search volume data is advanced in Keyword Planner as compared to the exact match search volume data you got with Keyword Tool. That’s because we’ll show you the average number of searches for a keyword idea on all devices (desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and mobile phones). With Keyword Tool, we showed you average search volume for desktop and laptop computers by default.

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How to boost Conversions for Your top Performing Keywords

This post will sketch a six-step procedure to help you figure out which keywords are driving conversions, and actionable steps to develop the performance of your best and worst performing terms, so you can create even more conversions.

Step 1: Find Keywords that Convert

This tread assumes you have Google Analytics installed on your site and you have goal tracking set up.

There are a few ways to expose keywords that convert on your site. You can either make a custom report to isolate unique visits and goal completions by keyword. Or you can yourself drill down into your traffic sources and isolate goals as they correspond to keywords.

Step 2: Find equivalent URLs

You also want to determine which pages on your site are powerful these keyword conversions. So the next step is to click on "secondary dimension," and select Traffic Sources>Landing Page from the drop down menu.

Step 3: Find Out Where Those Keywords Rank

Now that you have your list of the top converting keywords for your site, you want to determine where they rank.

Again, the aim here is to get these keywords to work even harder for you, which means getting those terms to rank higher improve their visibility. So you need to determine current SERP position.

As for rank tracking, my preferred tools are:

• Link Assistant

• Microsite Masters

Step 4: Create Your Keyword Conversion Report

Once you have keyword rankings, you can explode that info to your spreadsheet along with your list of keywords, corresponding URLs, and conversion rates. Keep visits in the mix as well, since it's another helpful data point, and keyword demand can help you prioritize.

What we naturally find during this process are keywords that exchange, but aren't ranking as high as they could be. This presents some really great opportunities because if you can develop SERP visibility for some or all of your top converting keywords, you can exponentially grow conversions.

You can prioritize your hard work in a number of ways as well and determine whether to focus on:

• The highest ranking terms.

• The highest converting terms.

• The highest traffic terms.

Step 5: Focus on Improving Rankings for Those Keywords

Next steps are to improve the rankings for your top converting keywords. This means working on both on-site and off-site SEO tactics, which include:

• On-page SEO: 

• Beefing up content

• Internal linking

• Inbound linking 

• Social signals

Step 6: Iterate Across Your Site

OK, so you've unearthed your top converting keywords. You've mapped those keywords to corresponding URLs. You know where they rank. And you're working to develop those rankings to grow conversions  even more.

The next step, it's time to influence that proprietary intelligence that you acquired during this process and apply it to keywords that are underperforming on your site.

Keyword Research Tips to improve Your Online Traffic

Are you having a hard time finding out which keywords to target for your SEO and PPC campaigns?

Let me show you 5 Keyword Research Tips that will end your Keyword research problems.

1. Swipe your Competitor’s Keyword Research

Why not let your “established” and “authority” competitors do the keyword research for you?

You can ethically “swipe” your competitor’s keywords by using these Google’s Free Keyword Tool.

Use Google Keyword Tool

Here’s what you need to do.

List at least 5 top competitors that are ranking in the top results for your targeted terms or niche.

Let me use “Keyword Research Tips” as an example of a keyword/keyword theme that I would like to target.

I will then Paste the Top 5 URLs that are ranking for this term in Google Keyword Tool’s Website Box

Change your location and language based on your targeted demographic. Choose Global and English if you are targeting a worldwide audience.

Choose exact match or phrase match as keyword match types. I prefer to use phrase matches because it can help me find “hidden long tail keywords” later on.

The great thing about this strategy is that you’ll immediately see the search volumes for the keywords you’ve chosen.

Select keywords that you think will be relevant to your niche and group them together to create tightly themed set of keywords.

2. Find hidden long tail keywords in the phrase-match/exact match difference

This strategy can help you uncover hidden long tail keywords that might be less competitive than most keywords.

The secret here is the difference between Phrase Match and Exact Match Search volumes.

Google Keyword Tool usually shows the Phrase match and Exact match search volumes, but they seldom release related long tail keywords to target for your SEO and PPC campaigns.

Basically, you’ll need to find the phrase match and exact match search volume of a particular keyword.

If there’s a huge difference between the search volumes, then you have a winning keyword.

Try to find the “missing long tail keywords” through Google instant searches or try some PPC advertising to drive some impressions and clicks which will help you identify these “hidden keyword opportunities”.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

 SEO Tools (in Google Global Search)

“seo tools” (phrase match) = 90,500

[seo tools] (exact match) = 33,100

“SEO Tools” Phrase Match/Exact Match Difference = 57,400

SEO Services (in Google Global Search)

“seo services” (phrase match) = 246,000

[seo services] (exact match) = 49,500

“SEO Services” Phrase Match/Exact Match Difference = 196,500

Obviously the bigger opportunity lies in optimizing for the term “SEO Services” since it has 196,500 hidden long tail keywords.

These hidden long tail keywords includes:

“seo services canada”

“seo services toronto”

and more

The idea here is to find keywords that have huge differences between the search volumes of the phrase and exact match and create content around those keywords.

3. Blog on upcoming events and product launches

Monitor competitor product releases, industry updates and industry news.

If you can rank and optimize for keywords that are not being searched today, but will be highly searched in the future, then you’re in a great position to generate tons of traffic for that search term.

Here are just a few examples:

Date Based Searches

Black Friday 2013

Boxing Day 2013

Product launches

[Product name] launch

[Product name] review

[Product name] information

Basically, this strategy relies on anticipating keywords that will be highly searched in the future. These keywords are easier to rank in the search engines because no one is still optimizing for these terms.

4. Add geo-targeted search terms to your Keywords for Local Search

If you are promoting a local business, or you offer products and services to a local demographic, adding geo-location keywords for search can help you rank a lot faster than regular keywords.

Here’s another example.

If you want to optimize for “Seo Services” it might take you several months, or even years to outrank your competition.

Instead try adding geo locations to your keywords:

 “Seo services Canada”

“Seo services Toronto”

These keywords might have less search volumes, but they are highly targeted and more likely to convert than the Fat Head keywords.

5. Mine your existing Google Analytics Data for Long Tail Keywords that you might have missed

Do you know that you can find tons of keyword research data from your existing Google Analytics data? Of course this will only work for old websites with some organic or paid search traffic before. Using Google Analytics Regular Filters you can create a list of long tail keywords.

You can filter keywords with 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or more keywords in the search phrase. This will help you find content ideas, keywords opportunities that you might want to include in your next blog post.

 I’ve created a Google Analytics Dashboard to help you find these keywords quickly. Make sure you’re signed in to Google Analytics and Click here to Copy my SEO Dashboard. And there you have it, 5 Unconventional Keyword Research Tips that can help solve your Keyword research problems.