San Francisco — If you are engaged with SEO or are operating a PPC advertising campaign, then chances are you have certainly used Google’s external keyword tool, you may discover that you are now diverted to the new keyword tool, which has been evaluating a new feature in its Keyword Tool that is designed to help people “get more relevant search traffic estimates for their keywords”.
Announced on the Inside AdWords blog last week by crew member Katrina Kurnit, the recent updates to the Keyword Tool (currently in Beta), claims to deliver a whole “new, streamlined way for you to identify additional keywords and add them to your account,” which indicates that choosing which keywords to run in an AdWords PPC campaign should be simpler than before.
Here are screen captures of the new and old tool:
Earlier, there were only 2 options, the normal Keyword Tool and the Search-Based Keyword Tool. This second alternative actually looked at your site and suggested search terms that it thought was applicable. Previously the “search based” tool provided insights based on search traffic relevant to a sites landing page, whilst the old Keyword Tool only generated possible keywords based on the content of the URL, words or phrases entered into it.
Google Keyword Tool (External New)
Google Keyword Tool (External OLD)
While this newly updated tool empowers users to search by words, phrases, websites or in some cases, categories to see both types of information in a central location. Currently in the beta launch phase, Google states that it will roll it out over the next few months. Although users will still be able to switch back and forth during this transition period, the company says that the new tool will provide “more relevant traffic estimates”.
“In the meantime as you get accustomed to the updated version, we will continually improve it and add functionality that we hope you will find useful,” says Kurnit. “Over the next few days, we are adding a new feature to the tool that will help you get more relevant search traffic estimates for your keywords.”
Kurnit mentioned that some of the changes to the tool is related with the removal of some columns that could have been useful in the past to a PPC Agency; Estimated average CPC, estimated CTR, estimated Ad position, estimated impressions, estimated clicks and estimated cost.
Kurnit said: “While you would not be able to access these columns in the updated version, you will still be able to see much of this information in the context of an ad group.”
The updated Keyword Tool is meant to simplifying this process by including both of these techniques in one easy-to-use interface. Google says that the old Keyword Tool will still be present, but at some point Google are looking to retire it from active service.