What is the Google Keyword Tool?

The Google Keyword Tool is a free tool published by Google to allow you to perform Keyword Research – arguably the most important factor of any search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.

The Google keyword tool lets you find different keyword phrases based on a seed keyword, or keyword phrases, but more importantly, shows you the competition based on those keywords.

You do not have to have a Google account to use this tool, as Google provides an external website. Simply search for “External Google Keyword Tool” and you can start using it immediately.

Note, there are other keyword research tools out there, which do offer more advanced functions and make it somewhat easier to find good keyword phrases (after going through a mild learning curve). For anyone starting out, I would strongly suggest using the Google Keyword Tool to get accustomed to keyword phrase research and how it plays its part in SEO before spending on premium tools.

What Makes a Good Keyword?

There are 2 main factors you should consider when choosing keyword phrases, and the Google Keyword Tool can help in each of these:

Traffic – how much traffic does your chosen keyword phrase get each month? If you are targeting keyword phrases that get very limited searches, then youll likely get very limited traffic. On the other hand, a very high search rate is usually indicative of very high competition, making it hard to get ranked for.

The Google Keyword tool reports how many searches per month are conducted for each keyword phrase. I generally shoot for keywords that are in excess of 500 per month, 2,000 being more ideal.

Competition – too much competition and you will find it difficult it or close to impossible to rank high enough in the search engines to generate traffic from those keyword phrases.

The Google Keyword Tool also reports competition for each keyword or keyword phrase. I always aim for low-medium competition keywords phrases.

Using the Google Keyword Tool to “Spy” on your Competition!

The Google Keyword Tool has an updated function where you can actually see what keywords your competition is using! To do this, instead of inputting keywords, there is a space for “website”. You can enter the website address here and see what keywords your competition is getting ranked for!

This does not mean you can copy the competing website and expect to get the same ranking, sorry, if only it were that easy! But you can get a general idea for what content is used. If you did copy the content directly, Google would not give you any credit for it – Google stores one copy of original content and gives credit to the first web page it found it on – a good reason to write unique content!

Additional Features of the Google Keyword Tool

Here are some neat additional little features

– You can download your keywords into an excel spreadsheet and manipulate them
– You can search for keyword phrases based on location and language
– You can search for keyword phrases based on categories
– The keyword tool produces both local and global search volume
– Can now exclude certain terms from the keyword results

Google Keyword Tool Summary

First and foremost, this is a free tool. Free is good! Additionally the data is directly from Google, so while not always 100% accurate, its safe to say its the most accurate data we will get.

The Google Keyword Tool provides a relatively friendly user interface with a short learning curve. Despite demonstrating various premium keyword research tools, I always double check with the Google keyword Tool before committing to any keyword phrases.

I would suggest the Google Keyword Tool to anyone that runs a website and has even a slight interest in keyword research and SEO!

Stephanie is the co-webmaster of howtobeginawebsite.com – a site dedicated to helping you build a successful website!
For further information on the Google Keyword Tool, including a step-by-step, real world example, please see How to Begin a Websites page on Keyword Research using the Google Keyword Tool

Author: StephanieTully

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