Use Google’s keyword planner to optimize your website

Use Google’s keyword planner to optimize your website

 January 9, 2018

Many real estate professionals invest time and money in Google Adwords without ever considering their organic marketing strategy, and often times, the very same strategies used for Google advertising campaigns can be used to increase organic traffic. It all starts with keyword targeting. If you know what search phrases you want to rank for, you can tailor your content to rank for those phrases. But how do you know what search phrase is best? The Google Adwords keyword planner makes it easy.

What is the Google Adwords Keyword Planner?

Google has a massive store of data generated by searchers. It knows what people are looking for and what words they use to find different sites. The keywords you know aren’t your only options. Keyword Planner puts the power of all that data to use, reporting search volume for individual search terms so you can see which precise search terms are being used the most in your unique market. This tool also suggests new keyword ideas based on a phrase, website, or category of your choosing. After seeing a few keyword ideas you hadn’t thought of, you may have new ideas for blog posts, videos, and other content to help drive organic traffic to your website.

How to use the Keyword Planner

  1. Login or Sign Up for an AdWords account – the Keyword Planner is only accessible via the AdWords interface. If you don’t have an AdWords account, you will have to create one, but the account is free, and the setup process is quick and easy.
  2. Navigate to the keyword planner tool  – Click “Tools” (wrench icon), then “Keyword Planner”
  3. Search for new keywords using phrase, website, or category – Consider entering your competitor’s website to see what phrases they are ranking for, or enter a phrase or category of your own to get a list of suggested keywords in return. The estimated competition and average bid metrics for keywords can give you helpful insights into the value of each term
  4. Get search volume and data trends – use this option to see monthly search volume (approximate number of searches per month) for any keyword you enter. You may be surprised to find that people in your market tend to search for “homes for sale” more than “real estate” or vice versa.
  5. Identify the best keyword opportunities – the ideal keywords for your website are those with fair search volume and low competition. Decide which is the most important keyword to target with your homepage and which secondary keywords you might target with landing pages and blog posts.

Once you have identified the best keywords for your website, creating content to target those keywords is easy! Consider the expectations of someone searching for each term, and try your best to create a page that would meet those expectations – whether that is a blog post, a saved search page, or some other type of landing page.

The Keyword Planner is just another tool in your arsenal to get in front of the buyers and sellers you want to work with. Use it for your AdWords campaigns as it’s intended, or get creative and use it to help optimize your website for organic search traffic.


Kevin Ashley

By Kevin Ashley

Kevin is a Web Developer and Marketing Expert for iHOUSEweb. He has a degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and he specializes in front end web development, web advertising, and web analytics. Kevin works closely with real estate agents all over the US, and he helps to communicate their needs to the team of Software Engineers at iHOUSEweb.