Keyword planning is an important activity because it allows website owners to effectively use the most searched keywords in their web contents.

Google Keyword Planner
For a more successful keyword planning, it is recommended to use Google Keyword Planner. It may not be the perfect tool but it is considered as one of the most effective tools for keyword searching. What more can be effective than a keyword tool that provides the right volume of keyword numbers because they came right out of the source? Google is undoubtedly the best place to go to get the best keywords.

Pros and Cons of Google Keyword Planner

Recently, Google made an announcement regarding the replacement of its free keyword search tool with the Keyword Planner – Google’s integrated PPC tool. With that change, SEO experts are wondering what to do now.
Google’s decision to launch the Keyword Planner means the continued focus on providing support for PPC advertisers than for organic keyword search marketers. This means that Keyword Planner is focused more on PPC ads.

PROS
1. Keyword volume can now be viewed on hyper-local basis. This means that users can see search volume not only for their city area but also into surrounding areas.
2. Keyword Planner can divide the keyword into suggested sets.
3. There is a good feature called Multiply Keyword Lists that allows users to search based on combinations of terms from two lists.
4. It is possible to filter out the keywords under specific search volume.
5. Users can search up to more than 100 words, unlike in the previous free tool.

CONS
1. Some features are no longer available like Exact, Phrase and Broad
2. Keyword Planner is not good for researching trending topics. Users need to use another tool for that, the Google Trends.
3. Users cannot search for terms that are closely connected to their words.
4. Device targeting has been removed.
5. Global Search is now the default search options being called All Locations and if you need to search locally, you are going to have to drill down further for your specific area.

Keyword Volume Search Alternative Tools

For those who are a bit annoyed with this latest change from Google, there are other alternative tools that you can use for your keyword volume search. The following are some of the best free keyword volume tools available on the web today:

1) Google Webmaster
2) Bing Keyword Tool
3) WordTracker
4) SEMRush

Conclusion:
Keyword planning is undoubtedly one of the best Internet marketing techniques today. Every website owner knows that importance of being able to view their keyword volume in order to see how their competitions are doing. It has also become vital to use more than one keyword volume search tool because data can significantly vary based on where it comes from.

Using Google’s Keyword Planner is recommended because it comes from a trusted company. But it is also advisable to try other free tools because it allows you to have a bigger view of how many times a keyword has searches from different sources. For instance, you can view how many searches one keyword has from Google and Bing.

For your keyword planning activities, it would be best to stay with Google and then incorporate one or two other of the given free tools.