If you’ve used Google’s Keyword Planner today you’ve probably noticed that something seemed different. That’s because Google has just rolled out some cool new features. The new additions to the Keyword Planner make the tool more intuitive and comprehensive than it has ever been before.

Search Volume Trends

The first new feature you’ll probably find is the Search Volume Trends feature, which shows you the past 12 months of search volume for a keyword, or the average monthly volume for the past 12 months if you enter multiple keywords. This feature acts almost like Google Trends, and gives you an idea of seasonality around whatever industry you might be researching. This can be especially useful in anticipating future increases or declines in traffic, based entirely on search volume.

Mobile Trends

Google has done well in embracing the impact of mobile search, and its new Mobile Trends data continues this path. Like Search Volume Trends feature, this feature shows you monthly search volume, but compares total monthly searches to monthly mobile searches. Expect to see those green bars increase, as mobile search becomes increasingly important.

Breakdown by Device

Speaking of mobile devices, the Keyword Planner now provides segmentation of which devices people are using when searching your list of keywords on Google.

Breakdown by Location

Have you ever wanted to see a nice breakdown of where your searches are coming from? Thanks to Google this is now a reality. You can input multiple locations in the Keyword Planner, and find out where the majority of the search volume is coming from. Again, this is very similar to Google Trends, in that it allows you to segment certain locations for keyword popularity. This should make keyword research a lot more geographically interesting.

All of these changes will further enhance the effectiveness of Google’s Keyword Planner, while also making the research a bit more colorful. Geographical, calendar, and device segmentation really come to life with these new breakdowns. These features should allow SEO managers to be much more targeted in their approach to keyword research.