Surfside PPC Podcast

Welcome to the Surfside PPC podcast. Go to surfsidepppc.com to join Surfside PPC Premium and ask your questions. Thanks for listening and please subscribe. What's up everyone? Welcome to episode number 11 of the Surfside PPC podcast. So today I'm going to be going over keyword research and keyword research tools in particular. So I'm going to be going over some of my favorite keyword research tools and then really some tricks that I have for using keyword research tools, particularly the Google keyword planner. So I will have a premium video video that goes along with this one. I'm also al also going to create some videos related to the Google keyword planner as well. So, if you join Surfside PPC Premium, you can join that on my YouTube membership, on my Patreon, or on my school page. Join any of the three. $5 a month, you'll get access to all my premium content. I also have my Google Ads course for sale for $34.99 per year. So, let's get into our video and let's get into question number one. What are your favorite keyword research tools currently? What are the main keyword rese arch tools that you use for Google ads and search engine optimization and how do you use them?
So question number one is what are my favorite keyword research tools? So there are a bunch. I mean there are at one point I mean I I think especially when AI tools first started becoming very popular. There must have been hundreds if not thousands of keyword research tools basically for every possible thing you can imagine. I've done tons of videos, tons of blog articles, tons of content about keyword research tools over the years. Basically there's three leaders I guess you say in like the industry. So Seamrush, Hrefs, MA, those are almost more, you know, full marketing tools. I would say MA is still more of a SEO tool. So kind of more search engine optimization specific, whereas Hrefs, Href's also very search engine optimization specific, but also trying to incorporate more things as far as your entire business. And same thing with Semrush. It's really they're becoming more digital marketing tools than just your standard keyword research tools, but they do have very good keyword research options. Another one that in there. That's a cheaper option. There's a couple cheaper options. So, SE ranking, that's not one I've really ever used is S ranking, like search engine ranking. I know that one was purchased and you know, a lot of people use that one, but not one that I use too often. And then the other one that I've used really I got grandfathered into a plan at $20 a month, I don't even know when, but I've just kind of kept my subscription because it's it's really worth the cost, is Spyfu. So, Spyu has actually just improved their pay advertising side, I use Spyu mainly for the purpose of just trying to figure out what pages are really popular on competitive websites. So, they have a really cool report where you can look at the top organic pages that a company has to actually see, okay, this is a marketing company. They have 5,000 pages on their website. Here are the top 200 that drive the majority of their traffic. And then I can use that to say, how can I guide my marketing strategy? Same thing using this for other types of companies. So, if I have, you know, a client that I'm working with and they have a competitor who's really big in the industry, I could figure out all the different types of content that they've created, top pages that they're already ranking. So, it helps give me a guideline of like, okay, we're implementing this search engine optimization strategy, this marketing strategy. We need these pages on our website and we need to do them better than competitor ABC. So, that's what I usually use Spyu for. They have put a lot more paid data into Spyu as of 2026. So, it actually is a really good paid advertising tool right now. A lot of the tools lost that data. I haven't used Semrush actually in the past several years. It used to be a tool I used all the time, but not really one that I use too often. My current, if you were to say, Corey, do some keyword research. My current keyword research stack is three tools. The Google keyword planner, which is completely free, these are the three that I use the most. It doesn't mean I don't use any outside of these, but these three basically give you everything you need. The Google keyword planner. So, that's kind of my first tool I always use SEO, PPC, it's really a PPC tool, but the keywords are all SEO relevant as well. And you're getting data directly from Google. So, Google keyword planner number one, that is the one I use the most. That's always been the one I use the most. Now, people might say, "What about Google Trends? What about some of these other keyword tools?" Google Trends could be useful if you are working with a certain client or you're working on a specific project and you're trying to figure out what are the things people are searching for the most with this. Are there specific things trending that we can cover first that we can create? video, a blog article about Google Trends is really useful for like news agencies or anybody who is trying to have like up tothe-m minutee information that is kind of currently breaking. For a marketing agency, you know, if I'm covering the news, then yeah, Google Trends can be useful for Google Ads, marketing news, things like that. Just seeing trending searches, but overall, it's not something I use as often. It's really Google keyword planner. The Google Search Console I don't necessarily consider a keyword tool. I kind of consider it more of a ranking tool. So, just kind of understanding where your rankings, what pages are ranking. I guess you could consider it a keyword tool, but it's not your standard let's search for a keyword and see, you know, other keywords we can target. It's really more of these are the keywords we're already ranking for. How can we find additional keywords and how can we also improve our existing rankings? So, that's usually my the way that I use that tool. Now, a few of the other tools that we have. So, my first one is Google keyword planner. Number two is going to be Spyu. So, Spyu, I think I pay $20 a month. I have lifetime some type of plan I was grandfathered in and that one I already mentioned what I use it for and then the other one that I use pretty often is answer the public. So that's a tool that I'm pretty sure Neil Patel purchased and improved and Neil Patel actually has really good keyword tools. So Uber Suggest and answer the public are both really really good keyword tools. Answer the public is $9 a month. So I pay $30 a month for keyword research tools and I could potentially pay more. I have paid a lot more in the past. Hrefs mod Semrush for what I'm currently doing. They just don't have as much use that I, you know, that I've used them for in the past. I'm generally not doing big SEO projects. And a lot of times for SEO, I'm using Google Search Console and I can get enough data out of Spyu and out of a few of the other keyword research tools that I'm using to say, hey, this is what we're currently ranking for. Here are the positions that we have. Here's the pages we have ranking. So, that's one of those where I probably just don't have a use for it from the SEO perspective. But it is one of those tools that can be very useful. So that will kind of wrap up this question. Basically, what are my favorite keyword research tools? Google keyword planner is free in your Google Ads account. Spyu, I think their plans start at $39 a month. I pay $20 a month. That's the main reason why I have it. I think it you don't necessarily need something like Spyu, but I think being able to do competitive research, it is a very good tool in that aspect. And then last but not least, I also use Answer the Public a lot. So Answer the Public gives you a bunch of questions, AI questions. So, all of those can be very useful. Now, AI rankings and AI data is new. So, it's not something where I even trust the data that tools are reporting yet. So, it's one of those things where I'm going to wait until that data is a little bit more clear as far as, you know, how many clicks is AI mode in Google actually driving? How many clicks are we getting from chat GPT? Yes, you can figure out that information in Google Analytics 4. Yes, there are already tools that can track track that for you. I just haven't found a use for it just yet. It's something I'll definitely add into my tools just to make sure I'm I'm tracking everything. So, that might be something that I eventually add in later. Uber Suggest and Keyword actually Uber Suggest has a lifetime plan where for one website is $290. And I do think it's one of the best deals that you can possibly have. If you have multiple websites, they have a plan that's like five to seven websites for $490. And for a lifetime plan, that's a really good option. And it keeps your data, everything is up to date in there and they also have Google Ads, SEO, GEO, AI. So, all of that is in there. So, I do think that that's a really good tool. But this is going to wrap up this question. Just basically my favorite keyword research tools that I'm currently using. And we are going to get into question number two.
Do you have any tips and tricks for using Google keyword planner? How do you use it to find keywords for Google Ads? Is there anything that I can do to find better keywords to target.
Okay. What are some of my favorite tips and tricks with the Google keyword planner? This will probably be a standalone video. This will be a premium podcast, but basically what some of my favorite tips and tricks are. First and foremost, when you're doing searches, so I like to do one keyword searches. So, if I'm doing something, for example, going to use the example of just turf installation because that can go a lot of different directions where you can say yes, we sell turf or yes, we are somebody who does turf installation. So, you can kind of, you know, use this for both. But basically what what I would generally do is do a keyword search like turf installation and I'm looking for every single possible short tail and longtail keyword where the keyword text includes turf installation. So using filters, I always like to do that as you know one of my main tips and tricks. Do a search you know for me it could be Google ads and then in your keyword text filter say the keyword text must contain Google ads. So that's one of the first things that I do just to try to figure out longtail and short tail keywords for whatever my seed keyword is. So that's first and foremost. The next thing is I really do like to add in website URLs. So doing searches with website URLs specifically just to see what Google thinks of my website, what keywords Google associates with my website. It's one of those things where that tool has gotten really good. And it's one of the few ways that I'm able to still get some health keywords. There are some limitations in the keyword planner as far as healthbased keywords. So, that's one of the things I've been running into really more in the last year. So, it's one of those where I'm trying to wrap my head around the exact policies and things like that that I have to follow to make sure that I could actually find health keywords. But, I know finding certain keywords in certain types of, you know, for health practices or, you know, certain types of of medical practices, I guess you'd say, um, certain types of doctors, they just don't have when you enter seed keywords, it'll almost be like error. We don't have any keywords for this. And obviously, it's just a privacy type issue or a a medical type issue where we just can't see that data. So, one of the ways to get around that is by entering website URLs at times. But, but ultimately, I like, you know, first and foremost entering a short tail keyword and using that keyword text specifically. Number two, entering my website URL and then looking at what keywords have the highest bid ranges. Those are going to be your keywords that are the most valuable. So, the ones that Google actually thinks, hey, these are very valuable keywords for this specific business. So, I definitely think looking at top of page bid ranges from the low range and the high range. I like the low range number a lot more. The high range can sometimes be over reported because you could have a few advertisers that are just bidding like crazy on this keyword. But the high range tells you something too. If if advertisers are willing to bid 50, 60, 70, $80 on a keyword, then there's a lot of value for every single click that's coming in for that keyword. If I can get 10 or 15 clicks for that keyword and you know five or 10 other keywords every month, then you know potentially it drives me an additional client or do every single month for keywords that I wasn't ranking for a month or two ago. So basically what I'm trying to look for are what are my highv value keywords. I don't really care as much about high search volume keywords. I do care about search volume but just because I see okay the term Google ads has you know 600,000 searches or whatever it might be in the United States every single month. I'm really more curious about okay how many people are searching Google ads for medical practices, Google ads for doctors, Google ads for chiropractors, you know, all of these different types of variations. Google ads for tree services. Now, I can break down tree service marketing, for example, into tree service marketing agency, advertising agency. Ultimately, what you're looking for are what are people searching the most often? What are the highest value keywords? And then basically, if you enter your website URL, what is Google essentially think of your website? So, what are the keywords that they most closely associate to your website. Usually the keywords that have higher bid ranges tend to be much better keywords from a Google Ads perspective. So going back to our turf installation example, if you do a search for like turf installation, you're generally going to see that at the very bottom of the list, the search term turf insulation is going to have a much lower bid than commercial turf insulation companies. Soccer turf installation, you know, some of or soccer field turf installation. Some of these keywords are people that are ly looking for companies to do this work. So if I own a company like that and I have turf installation companies, residential, you know, professional residential turf installation, turf installation near me, turf installation, you know, enter whatever city you're targeting, Charleston, South Carolina. So if you're targeting all those keywords, you're going to bring in some really good searches because those keywords have very high intent from a Google Ads perspective. Now, from an SEO perspective, what you want is to rank locally for the keyword turf installation. So when somebody types in turf installation near me, you need pages on your website for all the cities that you serve. You need a Google business profile with a bunch of reviews that you know your location is close enough to that person. Because ultimately what Google's trying to figure out is, okay, Cory's Turf is a turf insulation company serving these specific counties, cities, and towns. He has pages on his website about how he does commercial turf insulation, soccer field turf insulation, putting green turf insulation. He works with golf courses. He works with residential customers. He works with country clubs. You know, he does turf installation for high schools. Basically, I have pages on my website for all these different categories related to turf installation for businesses, commercial customers, all these things. From an SEO perspective, if I have a really good review score for my Google business profile and I'm in this 10, 15, 20, 20 mile radius of where this person's located, they're in my service area, then there's a much better chance that Google's going to put me up in the map section. They're going to of my ad at the very top of the list. I'm going to have a local service ad that's listed there. I'm going to have an organic listing on that first page. So, when you're using keyword research tools, ultimately it's about how do I dominate one keyword? That's been my focus with Google Ads really this year. I've done it in the past, but kind of I've I've gotten a little bit of way of from my content creation, my my video creation, but basically what I can tell you is if I take Google Ads and I create 100 to 200 videos around Google Ads topics, they're going to rank pretty well. Well, I'm going to do a pretty good job of positioning myself as a Google Ads expert and then my pages related to Google Ads agency management, all of that are more likely to rank. So, that will wrap up our video. Basically, you know, question number one, what are some of my favorite keyword research tools? Question number two, what are some tips and tricks for using Google keyword planner? So, if you have any questions about this, please leave them. I guess we don't have a comment section. I'm used to doing that for videos. Basically, please leave a review, rate, subscribe. I'm not used to the podcast. Uh, but subscribe on YouTube. If you're interested in Surfside PPC premium and some of my premium content, it does support Surfside PPC and helps me create more content. Also, you can get my Google Ads course on my website. Oh, as always, consulting management options available. So, see you at episode number 12. Thanks for listening to the Surfside PPC podcast. 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