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I bet you didn’t even know that Google has its very own keyword planner built right into the Google Ads platform?
What’s even better is that you can get access to it completely for free!
Google’s keyword planner has been one of my go-to tools for SEO on Youtube and for my blog. I have talked about it several times before on my youtube channel.
It’s even a part of my secret SEO strategy for growing my channel.
However, the more I mentioned it, the more I realized that most people do not even know that it exists!
I constantly get questions about how to sign up, how to get access, and how to use it for free.
This is why I made this video tutorial and why I am writing this guide for you right now.
So if you want to learn how to use Google keywords planner for free, then keep reading.
What is Google Keywords Planner?
Google has so many products and platforms that it is not surprising that this one seems to slip through the cracks.
Google Keywords Planner (GKP) is Google’s very own online SEO tool that anybody with a Google Ads account can use.
WAIT! Don’t run.
No money is needed. I will show you in a minute how you can get access without a campaign or spending a dime.
To be honest, Google did a very good job of hiding this tool in their Google Ads platform.
Most of the people that use the keywords tools are digital marketers and affiliate marketers. GKP is a completely free SEO tool that google provides to allow you to research keywords.
You can get information like:
- search volume
- competition
- paid bid prices
These are the basics of any SEO tool.
If you need more information about SEO and how to better understand the SEO lingo, then I suggest you read my full SEO for Beginners guide to learn more.
How To Use Google Keywords Planner For Free: Step-by-step Guide
Now on to the good stuff!
I am going to show you, in 5 easy steps, how you can sign up and get access to GKP without having to pay anything at all.
Step 1:
Head over to the Google Keywords Planner and create an account.
If you do not already have an account, then you will need to create a new one.
I will walk you through how to do that.
Step 2:
Enter all of your information and verify it.
Make sure you choose a strong password that you will remember as well.
For the sake of this guide, I will be using a temporary email address that I own.
You will need to then verify that you are the owner by entering a code that Google will send you.
After this, you will need to enter a valid phone number and verify that as well.
Step 3:
Once you have verified all of your information, you will come to a page where you are able to create a campaign.
You are NOT going to create a campaign.
You will need to head to the bottom of the page and click on “Switch to Expert Mode”
Step 4:
Here you will come to a screen where you will be asked to choose what kind of campaign you want to start.
Again, don’t create a campaign.
Instead of choosing an option, look at the bottom and choose “Create an Account without a campaign.”
Step 5:
You may be asked to enter some billing information that is nothing more than your country and which currency you will be using.
Once you do that, click on Tools and choose Planning.
There you should find Keyword Planner.
And that is it! Congratulations, you now have a free SEO tool at your disposal.
How Do You Find Low Competition Keywords?
Now that you have this tool, you are probably wondering: How will I use it?
The first thing you are going to want to do is choose Discover New Keywords. Then you will see that Google automatically detects the country that you are in and the language.
If your target audience is not in your country, you will need to change that to get results for that specific country.
Then you can enter the keyword that you want to research.
For the sake of this example, I chose “keyword research.”
Here you will see all the results based on how they performed the last 12 months. You can change this if you want to as well.
What you are going to want to focus on is the search volume and competition. If you have read my SEO guide, then you already know what these terms mean and why they are important.
You want to find low competition keywords that have good search volume. I typically aim for 100-1K and above.
It’s really easy to do on the GKP platform.
How to Use Google Keywords Planner for Youtube
Most YouTubers don’t realize this, but keyword research tools can be used for Youtube as well. Pairing Google keywords planner with Youtube SEO tools like Tubebuddy and VidIQ is going to make a world of difference in your channel.
I used both GKP and Tubebuddy together to rank, not only on Youtube but also on Google. And that was when I had less than 50 subscribers.
All you do is use GKP to find a good keyword that you would like to make a video about.
Then you can take that keyword and enter it into Tubebuddy or VidIQ to get a keyword score.
From there, depending on the score you get, you can play around with different titles and phrases until you find something that works for you.
Doing this will help you get organic search traffic from both platforms.
I always like to put my money where my mouth is so here is a screenshot of my Youtube Analytics so you can see what my top traffic sources are.
As you can see, the methods that I talk about on my channel and in this article work.
One thing you do have to remember is that SEO can take time.
It is fully possible to rank the same day if you do your SEO right but, just like with any online platform, the traffic may take a few weeks to build.
Is Google Keyword Planner Worth Using?
Yes, 1000%.
This is a goldmine of information that is priceless for any online content creator.
The number one goal of any online venture is to gain traffic. That is what everyone is working towards. And if you know anything about traffic, you know that the best kind of traffic is organic search traffic.
Google is the biggest search engine with over 3 billion searches every month.
This is where you want to focus your efforts if you are looking to grow online.
So when this major search engine is able to let you get in on its own stats, then where else would you want to look?
Final Thoughts
The tool is not perfect, but it is still one of the most valuable and straightforward SEO tools that you can use.
I do not know if my channel would have grown as fast as it did, had I not used Google Keywords planner in my SEO process.
I have used tools like Ahrefs, and semRush and these are great for making the research easy and quick.
However, they also are a little expensive.
So as a beginner, you are most likely going to want to save your money until you see some growth. Having a tool like GKP will be a great way to give you the SEO boost you need to start building a long-lasting presence online.
