A look at the Pros and Cons of the Google Keyword Planner and other options for keyword data

By: Raymond Hackney

Ebrandz takes a look at the pros and cons of the new Google Keyword Planner and some other competing services to be used for keyword data.

 

Moz.com also did a good article last month about the pros and cons of using the Google Keyword Planner.

From the article:

While far from a perfect tool (seriously skewed toward
"commercial intent," not always inclusive of trend data, difficult to
drill down into local terms), the Google Keyword Tool was one of the
best keyword research tools available. The keyword volume numbers were
more trustworthy than other keyword tools, simply because they came
right from the source—who better to know what kind of search volume
keywords get than Google itself?

With Google's recent announcement that their free Keyword Tool has gone away, replaced with their integrated PPC tool the Keyword Planner, a cry has gone up from SEOs: "What do we do now?"

Google Keyword Planner pros and cons

With the advent of the Keyword Planner, Google is making a
strong statement that they'll continue to focus on supporting PPC
advertisers rather than organic search marketers. To that end, the
Keyword Planner is heavily focused on PPC ads; you even have to sign up
for an AdWords account to use it (although you don't have to enter any
payment information, and would only end up paying for the tool if you
created and launched an ad). That said, the tool definitely retains some
SEO utility.

Read the pros and cons here