OMG Google Keyword Tool is GONE!

Earlier today I was busy doing a little keyword research with the keyword tool that Google provides, yes, I had seen the huge banner for months now letting me know that it would soon be gone, but like many others I choose to ignore that banner and just kept thanking my lucky stars that today would not be the day that I had to go get myself familiar with a different method of researching keywords.

When a few hours later I went back to the page and found that it had gone I panicked.  Maybe, if I typed it in a few more times my precious keyword tool would come back, even if it was just to say good bye.

No such luck.  I felt the sweat start to form on my upper lip.  I had a client calling in less than 30 minutes and I had promised a good keyword session for her new site, I was in shock.   Why oh why had I not taken the time to go check out Ad words and get comfortable with the new way of searching that they promised was on the way?

I spent the next 10 minutes whining to my main programmer about my dilemma but he looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign language.  Wasn’t anyone going to help me with this terrible turn of events?

I feel like a fool, I grabbed my mouse and headed over to our Ad words account (you’re going need one of those now) and started to read.

You know what I found?

It’s not going to be all that bad.  I’m not sure why Google has decided to force everyone to use a registered Ad words account to do their keyword research, well, other than the obvious; they want to improve ad sales. 

Okay so here are the new steps to perform keyword research.

1) Log into your Ad words account – If you don’t have one then you need to get one. https://adwords.google.com

2) Click Tools and Analysis and find the “Keyword Planner”

3) In the far right, upper corner you will see a button that says Search for Keywords, click that and a pop up will appear
Type in your keywords and this will come up

You no longer have global and local, it’s now just Avg. Monthly but it will still show the competition factor and search queries. 

You can also target the traffic for a location and a few other filters, so that’s fun.

So yes, the good old Google Keyword Tool is no longer, (side note, on the URL that had the keyword video and link to Keyword tool tutorial, there is a 404 now; I thought that was funny for some reason).
Continue with your keyword research and pass along the information to those SEO, webmasters and others that, like me, might have just had small panic attacks.

Hope this helps!