The search volumes has changed

The Keyword Planner Tool has changed with a great impact especially for those who use this tool for SEO activities. After the changes in late June with the aggregation of the search volume of similar keywords (singular and plural, keywords written with space or without, and acronyms) now seems that, for some users (without an active campaign or with low monthly budget) the data are not only aggregated but even more generic, showing results like this:

As we can see from this screenshot, now the average “monthly search volume” is  no longer expressed with a figure, but through a range. It was also introduced an “Average monthly searches for any ideas”.

What might be the consequences for SEO?

Why Keyword Planner are so important?

So, Google has changed a resource that many SEOs have been relying upon for years to discover how much search traffic different words and phrases attracted from searchers each month. It’s been an important tool in content creation and SEO planning for many sites that were hoping to potentially rank well in Google. The Keywords Planning Tool, indeed, is designed to provide advertisers with the research tips, ideas and traffic estimates of the most wanted keywords to create successful advertising campaigns. But knowing the performance of a list of keywords and the level of their competitiveness is crucial also for the SEO activity: those data help to identify the users habit online and better understand the market.

What if you don’t have an Adwords account with a high montly budget?

Without accurate data it’s impossible developing an effective Search Engine Optimization. So you need an alternative to the Google tool.

Needs must when the devil drives

Those who, unfortunately, does not have the possibility to use an associated account with an active advertising campaign need a solution. Fortunately there are alternatives to Google Keyword Planner to find suggestions for keywords and the search volume:

SEMRush: provides data on search traffic from 26 different countries giving users the keyword suggestions platform, search volume, estimated cpc and more.

Keyword Explorer by Moz: is able to return estimations on the most relevant keywords for SEO.

Ahref: is a powerful keyword research tool that provides keyword suggestions, as well as the search volume for all types of correspondence. For those who perform the keyword research analysis to do SEO, Ahrefs has a metric of difficulty keyword score, which recently has been declared to be a little more accurate than other tools that offer similar functionality.

Do you have other tools to suggest? Let me now.