Why professionals always start with keyword research
TL;DR
Keyword research isn't an ads activity. It's market research. Google's Keyword Planner is free to use, and you don't need to spend a penny on ads to access it.
Most businesses skip keyword research entirely.
Not because they don't care about search. They skip it because keyword research sounds like something you do once you've decided to run ads. An activity for PPC specialists. A step in an advertising workflow.
It isn't. Keyword research is market research. It's one of the first things experienced marketers do when they're trying to understand a new market, a new audience, or a product launch. The data answers questions that are difficult to get answers to anywhere else.
What keyword research shows you
At its simplest, keyword research reveals what people type into Google when they're looking for something. But the value goes beyond search volume and competition scores.
It shows you demand. If hundreds of people search for a specific problem every month, that problem is real and recurring. If nobody searches for it, the problem might still exist, but the language doesn't match how people think about it.
It shows you intent. Someone searching "how to manage Google Ads without an agency" is in a different place from someone searching "best PPC agency London." Same broad topic, very different needs.
It shows you competition. High competition on a keyword means established businesses are already spending to be visible there. Low competition with meaningful volume often signals a gap worth exploring.
And it shows you language. The exact words people use when they're looking for something like what you offer. That language is often different from how businesses describe themselves internally. It's one of the most useful inputs for website copy, landing pages, and product messaging.
The gap between how companies describe their products and how customers describe their problems is where engagement tends to stall.
Google Keyword Planner is free
Google's Keyword Planner, the tool that Google Ads advertisers use to plan and research keywords, is free to use with any Google Ads account.
Setting one up takes a few minutes. During the signup flow, switch to Expert Mode and select "Create an account without a campaign." Google does require a payment method during setup, but you won't be charged unless you choose to run ads later. The official Google Ads help documentation describes this path and confirms Keyword Planner is "a free tool to discover new keywords related to your business" (Google Ads Help).
A step-by-step walkthrough covers the full setup: How to create a Google Ads account without a campaign.
Once you're in, you can enter a topic, a phrase, or even a URL and see what people are searching for, how often, how competitive those terms are, and what advertisers typically pay for clicks. It's not the only keyword research tool available, but it draws directly from Google's own search data..
Why experienced marketers start here
The reason professionals tend to start with keyword research isn't an obsession with keywords. It's that the data answers foundational questions quickly.
Before building a landing page: what language do potential customers use? Before planning content: what questions are people asking? Before setting a budget: how competitive is this space, and what does visibility cost?
These aren't advertising questions. They're business questions. The data happens to live inside an advertising tool.
A B2B software company might discover that their target audience doesn't search for the product category at all, but does search for the problem it solves. That changes positioning everywhere.
A local services business might find that a specific long-tail phrase has consistent monthly volume with almost no competition. That's a content opportunity, a landing page worth building, or simply a signal about what to say on the homepage.
An early-stage startup might learn that the terms they assumed were high-demand have almost no search volume in their market. Better to learn that before building around those assumptions.
What the data looks like in practice
Keyword Planner returns a few key data points for each term:
Average monthly searches. How many times people search for this term, averaged over the past 12 months. Google's own documentation notes these are "approximate" figures (Google Ads Help). In practice, accounts without active ad spend see broad ranges (e.g., 100-1K), while accounts with spend see narrower figures. Neither is precise. The numbers are directionally useful for comparing terms and spotting patterns, not for forecasting exact traffic.
Competition. Low, medium, or high, based on the proportion of ad slots filled by advertisers bidding on the term. There's also a competition index (0-100) for a more granular view. Useful as a rough proxy for commercial intent.
Top of page bid (low/high range). The 20th and 80th percentile of what advertisers typically pay per click. Even without plans to advertise, this indicates how much others value the traffic.
Individual numbers are useful, but patterns across groups of keywords are more revealing. A cluster of related terms with low competition and consistent volume often suggests underserved demand. A high-volume term where competition is also high points to an established market with real spend behind it.
Keyword Planner data reflects Google's search ecosystem specifically. It doesn't cover Bing, ChatGPT, or other surfaces where people increasingly search. For a fuller picture, additional sources help, but Google still accounts for roughly 90% of search activity worldwide across all devices (StatCounter, March 2026).
Research before spend
One of the most practical things about keyword research is that it works before you've committed to anything.
No budget required. No campaign live. No historical performance data needed. You can research a market, test demand for a product idea, or map a competitive landscape before spending anything.
Most PPC tools work differently. They're built around optimising existing campaigns and tend to need weeks or months of data before they're useful. Keyword research works from day one.
For businesses still deciding whether paid search is right for them, or that want to understand their market before making that call, keyword research is a low-risk starting point with immediate returns.
Making keyword research more conversational
Keyword Planner is powerful, but the interface is designed for advertisers managing campaigns. If you're coming to it for market research rather than ad targeting, the layout, terminology, and workflow can feel like they're built for someone else.
Addy takes this approach: keyword research through conversation. Describe what you're trying to understand and get back interpreted data rather than raw tables. It works from the first question, before any campaigns exist, and connects research to next steps when you're ready.
If you haven't set up an account yet, the step-by-step walkthrough takes less than five minutes.
Where to start
If you've never used Keyword Planner, the setup takes less than five minutes. Create a Google Ads account using Expert Mode, select "Create an account without a campaign" (Google Ads Help), and go to Tools > Keyword Planner.
Start with a few searches around the problems your customers have, in the words they'd use to describe what they need.
Then look at what comes back. The volume. The competition. The related terms you hadn't thought of. That's the starting point for decisions about content, positioning, and whether paid search makes sense.
The data is free, the insights are immediate, and nothing is committed. Keyword Planner only reflects Google's search ecosystem, and platform-specific data can age quickly. But for an initial read on demand, language, and competition, few tools offer this much before you've spent anything.