July 16, 2008
Finding out what keywords are being used on any search engine at any given time has proven to be sometimes troublesome for SEOs using free tools online. But now, back by popular demand, the Google Adwords keyword research tool has something more to offer than a lame green bar — actual volume numbers.
So for those who are unfamiliar with what I’m referring to, Google Adwords a while ago decided to drop search volume amounts for its keyword terms where you only had a secondary indicator of how popular the phrase was by the amount of competitors bidding. For instance if I wanted to see how often the term “gourmet chocolate” was searched for, all I knew was there was a green indicator bar under Advertiser Competition that was completely full of green (as appossed to a bar that was an empty box meaning there was little to no competition). And it gave you only only the estimated cost per click.
It left all of us scratching our heads and saying where the h*ll is an actual search volume number. I can’t work with this, it’s like saying “how big is a bag,” it was all relative.
But now there are real quantitative numbers to measure with. So any PPCer or SEO can accurately gauge what they or their client is up against with. And to top it off they have the average month volume and annual search average amounts per term– very nice.
And I know, for all of you …in the know, I’m a little late with this, but I wanted to spread the word to those yet to stumble up it. Anyway, again it’s great to see Google came to their senses and provided yet another awesome free tool. With all that Ad revenue they pull in, I suppose they can throw us a bone from time to time.