Are you thinking about investing in Google AdWords or creating content to increase organic traffic to your site?
If so, the first step is to choose the keywords related to your products or services using the Keyword Planner .
The AdWords Keyword Planner is a search tool that helps you find the right keywords to reach the right customers.
Here’s how to use the Keyword Planner in a practical way and understand how to choose the best words to run your campaigns or produce content to increase organic traffic to your site.
1. How to access the Keyword Planner
To use the Keyword Planner, you need to have an AdWords account.
Creating an account or logging into AdWords
Go to https://AdWords.google.com and, if you don’t have an account yet, click the “ Get started now ” button:
Then fill in your details, starting by email and website:
Then, you will be asked for name, password (with confirmation), date of birth, cell phone and location:
Read and agree to the terms of service:
Soon after, it will be necessary to create a campaign:
Unfortunately, today there is no longer the possibility to access the Keyword Planner without creating a campaign, skipping the guided configuration. That is, you need to create a campaign before accessing it.
Tip: just simulate the creation of a campaign, filling in the requested fields and at the end select the payment by bank slip. Thus, there will be no commitment to the creation of a campaign and payment without first performing an analysis of the keywords.
After finalizing and creating the ad, you will receive an email to confirm your registration with Google AdWords.
If you already have an account created, simply access Google AdWords and log in to the Access your account button .
Accessing the Keyword Planner
After accessing your AdWords account, click the 
icon in the Planning column, Keyword Planner option.
2. How to find keywords on Google Keyword Planner
To perform a query on the Keyword Planner, click on the first option, which allows you to find new keywords and see search volume data:
Think of words that your persona could search for if you wanted to find your product or service on Google and enter these suggestions in the “Your product or service” field.
Define the locations for which you want to query keywords to have a more accurate result with a segmentation field.
You can also include negative keywords to avoid showing words that are unrelated to your offer.
Then, just click on get ideas for the Planner to present the suggestions based on the average monthly searches over the last 12 months.
Check on the screen below how the result of a query for the words “ Digital Marketing ”, “ Inbound Marketing ” and “Digital Marketing tool” would look like:
Note that, in addition to the result for the suggested words, the Planner presents keyword ideas that are related to the search terms.
To learn more about keyword types (short tail and long tail ), I suggest reading the article: Keywords: everything you need to know .
3. How to analyze the results presented
After conducting the research, it is time to analyze the results presented by the Planner.
First, evaluate the result for the words searched and suggested by the Planner.
Then, select the words you will use for your ad or content production.
The idea is that you will be able to have a good positioning (paid or organic) when there is a query on Google for the chosen keywords.
There is no set number of keywords to be used. You should take into account your budget and which ones are really relevant to your ad offer.
If your budget is limited, you may want to choose fewer keywords to relate to your ad. Google AdWords recommends using 5 to 20 words per ad.
The Keyword Planner presents in its results 3 relevant information about the words presented:
a) Average Monthly Searches
It is the average number of monthly searches for a given keyword in the last 12 months.
See if there is a relevant number of queries before making the word selection, after all it is useless to select a term that has no search volume.
Currently the Planner presents the volume with intervals for the new accounts. For example: 100 – 1 thousand. You will only have the accurate information if you are a user with active campaigns in AdWords.
b) Competition
The competition will display the number of advertisers that have shown ads for each keyword in relation to all keywords on Google.
The higher the competition, the more expensive the keyword ‘s CPC is, generally , and the harder it is to get the top positions.
If you are just starting out, look for words that have medium or low competition, unless you have a high investment value.
c) Suggested bid
It is calculated considering the costs per click (CPCs) that advertisers are paying for the keyword, according to the search network settings you have selected.
Remembering that it is only an estimate and its values may vary.
Assess whether the CPC is aligned with the cost of customer acquisition (CAC) or cost per lead (CPL) and whether the investment is viable.
To learn how to choose the best keywords for your ad, read the article: Keyword research: how to choose the best keywords to fight for results on Google
4. How to select the keywords for your ad in the Keyword Planner
After defining the keywords you will be using, you can include them in your plan in the Keyword Planner itself before creating your first campaign.
Click the button 
in the Add to plan column on the screen with the results displayed.
See below that a plan will be created showing estimates such as bid range and daily forecasts with clicks and estimated cost:
You will be able to save and / or link the selected words to a new campaign in AdWords.
5. How to use search to create content and improve organic traffic
After performing the query in the Planner and selecting the keywords that are most relevant to your business, it is time to prioritize which keywords will be worked on in the Content Marketing strategy.
In RD Station Marketing there is a Keyword Panel, which allows the registration of the desired terms and clearly shows the evolution of each one.
RD Station Marketing also has direct integration with Google AdWords, showing which ranking position (ascending order of results) on Google your words are.
Note in the mind map that content creation should be prioritized when your placement is above the 100th position on Google. For other cases, see what to do:
Conclusion
Proper analysis and selection of keywords for your ad will be critical to the success of your paid media campaigns.
Likewise, if you want to position your site organically on Google, the creation of the content must be done strategically, considering the results identified in the searches.
Using the Keyword Planner you will have an investment versus return forecast, which is essential in paid media campaigns, such as Google AdWords.