Google Keyword Validation

What is Google keyword validation?

Google keyword validation means checking, before you build, whether enough people type your problem into Google every month and whether businesses pay real money to reach those people. You do it in Google Keyword Planner, which Google calls a free resource for advertisers building keyword lists. You never have to run an ad.

Two numbers carry the weight. Average monthly searches estimates how many times a month a phrase and its close variants get searched. Top of page bid shows what advertisers have historically paid per click for the top ad slots: Google gives a low range (roughly the 20th percentile) and a high range (roughly the 80th). That price per click is called CPC, cost per click, and a high CPC is a loud signal that someone earns money from these searchers.

When should you use it?

It fits when:

• Customers search for a fix: B2C products, local services, courses, software for small businesses.
• Google Trends analysis already gave you direction and you now want size.
• You are about to write a landing page and want the headline in the words people type.

Keep it short or skip it when:

• You sell to 200 possible enterprise buyers. Their searches are too few to register.
• Your product creates a brand new habit. Nobody searches for it yet, so research the current workaround instead.

How do you do it, step by step?

1. Open Keyword Planner without launching anything. Sign in at ads.google.com with a Google account. Google asks you to complete account setup, including billing information, before keyword ideas appear. Charges come only from live ads, so never publish a campaign. Then open the Tools menu and choose Keyword Planner.

2. Seed it with three kinds of words. Choose “Discover new keywords”. Enter problem words (“bookkeeping for salons”), solution words (“salon accounting software”) and, in the website box, a competitor’s address. Set the location and language to the market you will sell in first.

3. Use the last 12 months. Volume is an average over the months you choose. Twelve months smooths out seasonal swings.

4. Download and clean the list. Export the ideas to Google Sheets. Keep five columns: keyword, average monthly searches, competition, top of page bid (low), top of page bid (high). Delete big-brand names and anything off-topic. Expect to keep a quarter of the list.

5. Tag every keyword by intent. Add a column with one of three labels. Learn: “how to do salon bookkeeping”, “what can hairdressers claim”. Compare: “best accounting software for salons”, anything with “reviews” or “vs”. Buy: “accountant for hairdressers”, anything with “near me”, “hire”, “price” or “cost”. Compare and Buy searchers are the ones who pay, and Learn searchers become blog readers.

6. Read the money signal. Sort by the high bid. When advertisers keep paying several euros or pounds per click, they earn it back from those visitors. A phrase with healthy volume and bids near zero has curious searchers and few buyers.

7. Write one demand number. Add up average monthly searches for the Compare and Buy keywords that match your offer exactly. That is your “people actively looking each month” figure. Date it, because you will compare it later.

About ranges. Accounts that don’t spend on ads see volume as wide buckets such as 1K to 10K instead of exact counts, a restriction Search Engine Land reported when Google brought it in. Work with the low end of each bucket. Google also leaves out keywords with very low volume and sensitive keywords entirely.

What does a worked example look like?

Say Hana is a bookkeeper in Manchester who wants to offer fixed-price bookkeeping to hair and beauty salons. The figures are invented to show the method.

She seeds “salon bookkeeping”, “accountant for hairdressers” and “beauty salon accounting”, plus the website of a salon booking app, with the UK, English and the last 12 months. Planner returns about 140 ideas and she keeps 31.

Tagging gives 9 Buy terms (“accountant for hairdressers”, “salon bookkeeper”), 7 Compare terms (“best accounting software for salons”) and 15 Learn terms (“tax for self employed hairdressers”).

Her account shows buckets. Most Buy terms sit at 10 to 100 a month and two at 100 to 1K, and the high bids run from £4 to £9. On the low end she counts roughly 300 to 500 people a month actively looking. Small, and the bids tell her accountants already make money from exactly these clicks. The 15 Learn terms become her first blog posts.

Her call: build a landing page headlined “Accountant for hairdressers and salon owners”, since that phrase had the strongest Buy volume. Once the copy is written, she pastes it into a keyword density checker to make sure the phrase reads naturally and isn’t stuffed into every line.

Which free tools help?

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Trusting one number to the digit. Volumes are rounded estimates. Use them for order of size: 50, 500 or 5,000.
• Counting Learn searches as buyers. “How to do my own bookkeeping” is someone trying NOT to hire you.
• Double counting variants. Planner already folds close variants into one figure, so “salon bookkeeping” and “salon book keeping” are the same searchers.
• Publishing a campaign by accident. The setup screens push hard toward a first ad. Check that nothing is live before you close the tab.
• Chasing the biggest keyword. “Accounting software” has huge volume and a thousand rivals. A smaller phrase that matches your exact customer wins.

How do you know it worked?

You have a dated demand number, a list of Buy phrases, and a bid range for each. Our rule of thumb for a go: a few hundred Compare and Buy searches a month in your launch country for a high-priced service, low thousands for a low-priced product, and at least a handful of phrases where advertisers pay real money per click.

No-go for search: the Compare and Buy sum stays under 100 a month and bids sit near zero. Then search is a weak channel for you, and proof has to come from outreach and conversations.

What should you do next?

Turn your Learn terms into questions with AnswerThePublic research, and size the whole market with bottom-up market sizing. Then put your winning phrase on a page and run a landing page test. If you want a coach while you do it, the Fe/male Switch startup game walks you through validation with an AI co-founder.

FAQ

Is Google Keyword Planner free?

Yes. Google calls it a free resource for advertisers. You need a Google Ads account with setup and billing information completed, and you pay only if you publish ads.

Why does Keyword Planner show ranges instead of exact numbers?

Accounts with little or no ad spend see bucketed ranges. Use the low end, compare terms by bucket, and cross-check direction in Google Trends. Paid keyword tools show point estimates, but they model the same Google data.

What is a good search volume for a startup idea?

It depends on price. Divide your yearly revenue goal by your price to get the customers you need, then remember that only a small slice of searchers will ever buy. A £2,000 service can live on 300 searches a month, while a £5 app needs far more.

Updated 26 October 2026 · Written by the Fe/male Switch team

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