With the updated Google AdWords (currently Google Ads) interface, it’s no surprise Google launched a new Keyword Planner following the same design standards. I took a closer look at the tool and found a couple of features both for SEO and PPC efforts you should try!

In case you are not familiar with the tool at all, I recommend going through our quick Keyword Planner guide.

The new UI itself is a big step ahead. The material design looks way better than the old version.

Old Keyword Planner:

Historical search volumes

Now let’s talk about the new features. For me, the major improvement is the historical data retention of search volumes. The new Keyword Planner enables us to see alot more than search volumes from last 12 months.

We can select our own time frame, pick one of the presets and get historical data even from 2014 (depending on the keyword)!

Mobile search volumes

Another handy feature is the main search volumes chart now includes the mobile search volume share. You had to change the type of charts in the old version to see this.

In my opinion, it’s understandable as Google recently started shifting to mobile-first indexing. On the other hand, I wouldn’t expect the number of mobile searches in a free tool that is widely used by SEOs.

After a year-and-a-half of testing, Google mobile-first indexing is beginning. This is where we index what’s on a mobile-version of a page rather than the desktop version. Rollout will be slow; we always will use desktop if no mobile version. Blog post https://t.co/pIY8OrkrBf

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 26, 2018

New metrics

The new Keyword Planner comes with 2 new metrics which improves the planning of your AdWords campaigns in the “Keyword ideas” by adding organic insights:

• Organic impressions share
• Organic average position

They are both available if you link the Search Console (Webmaster tools) with your Adwords account if you rank for the keywords and there is enough data to display.

Immediate forecasts

The new interface lets us instantly see the forecasts in the “Plan overview” without setting a bid as it used to be in the old version. We just need to enter our main seed keyword and/or select from the keyword ideas and click on the “Plan overview”.

The forecast includes all the usual numbers, devices and locations breakdowns on a single page so we don’t need to switch between tabs anymore.

Conclusion

The Google Keyword Planner is a free tool widely used by SEOs (not only PPC specialists). Altogether with Google Trends, we can get solid information without spending a dollar.

Well, I almost forgot to mention it’s not that free as it appears on the first sight. To see the exact (still clustered) search volumes, you have to spend enough money in AdWords.

On top of that, Google will deactivate AdWords accounts with no spending in last 15 months. Though you can reactivate it anytime, it will be disabled again if you don’t spend any money within 3 months of reactivation.

The new Keyword Planner looks nice! When I compare it with the old version, I’m not having a hard time to visit and use the tool at last. In case you do, this a quick guide by Google.

What’s your opinion?

Do you like the new design? Do you use Google Keyword Planner as your primary keyword research tool or fancy specialized tools such as KWFinder?