Understanding Keyword Planner Metrics: Search Volume, Competition, and Bid Estimates

Google Keyword Planner provides three key metrics to help you evaluate keywords for advertising and SEO: Search Volume, Competition, and Bid Estimates.

• Search Volume (Avg. monthly searches): This metric shows the average number of times a keyword is searched per month within your selected location and time frame. It is usually presented as a range (e.g., 1K–10K) and helps identify how popular or in-demand a keyword is.

• Competition: This indicates how many advertisers are bidding on that keyword relative to all keywords on Google. It is categorized as low, medium, or high. While primarily reflecting paid ad competition, it also serves as a rough indicator of organic competition. Higher competition means more advertisers are targeting that keyword, which usually leads to higher costs.

• Bid Estimates (Top of page bid - low and high range): These show the approximate minimum and maximum amounts advertisers have historically paid to appear at the top of the search results page for that keyword. The low range is roughly the 20th percentile bid, and the high range reflects more competitive bidding. These estimates help you budget and set realistic bids for your ads.

Additional context:

• Keywords with high search volume tend to attract more competition and higher bids, making them more expensive to target.

• The forecast feature in Keyword Planner predicts future metrics such as clicks, impressions, cost, and conversions based on your budget and bids, helping you plan campaigns effectively.

• Competition and bid estimates vary by location, time period, and network settings, so always customize these parameters to your campaign needs.

In summary, use search volume to gauge keyword popularity, competition to understand advertiser demand and difficulty, and bid estimates to plan your budget and bidding strategy effectively within Google Ads campaigns.