How Will We Do Keyword Research Now?

For years, Google provided marketers with its keyword research tools, free of charge. Search Engine Optimization specialist, Caroline, Melberg, has been recommending the Google Keyword Research Tool for years as a great place to start your keyword research. In the past, Google Adwords users could use the Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool while logged into their accounts. Everyone else could use the external tool, without needing to be logged-in.  This fall, however, Google replaced the tool with another tool called Keyword Planner.

To use Keyword Planner, you have to be logged into your Google AdWords account. That means, if you don’t have a Google AdWords account, you’ll need to get one, or you simply won’t have access to the tool.  This is a big change for Google and one that signals their intent to migrate a lot of their “free” products to integrate with their “paid” products, such as AdWords.

But that’s not the only thing different about the planning tool. There are some other features that Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool had that Keyword Planner doesn’t. And the new tool has features the old tool didn’t, one of the most notable being data based on all searches from all devices (the old tool only gave you data from laptops and desktops).

Online, things change – rapidly.  And sometimes drastically. That doesn’t spell the end of the world, or the end of gathering great keyword data to help inform your marketing decisions online. As with everything else in business, we all must learn to use new tools to stay relevant. There’s no better time to start than right now to keep your keyword research and your strategic SEO program effective and updated.

Published on: December 16, 2013