Journal · · Edwin Parr
Read the query report before the keyword planner
The planner is a catalogue of wishes. The query report is what you actually bought.
Keyword planners are optimistic. They will offer you volume in towns you do not cover and jobs you do not do. The query report will show you what you paid for last week. Start there.
Every retainer gets a query habit: add, cut, or ignore with a reason. Ignore is allowed. “We will look later” is how accounts rot.
SEO should read the same file
If paid is already buying a query that converts, the page for that query deserves to exist. If paid is buying junk, do not write a blog to match the junk. We have seen content programmes built to chase the planner, then wonder why the organic traffic will not enquire.
The page still has to be crawlable. Thin copies and parameterised duplicates will waste the brief. We say so before anyone commissions 2,000 words.
The useful work is on queries where the searcher already has a job, a product, or a postcode attached.
How it lands in the week
A short list: added, cut, ignored. The ignored column is the adult one. Not every junk query needs a negative on day one, and not every decent query needs a new ad group. The report is a ticket queue. Treat it like one, and paid search stops being a museum of leftover keywords.