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12 Key Elements of a Business Plan (Top Components Explained)

Starting and running a successful business requires proper planning and execution of effective business tactics and strategies .

You need to prepare many essential business documents when starting a business for maximum success; the business plan is one such document.

When creating a business, you want to achieve business objectives and financial goals like productivity, profitability, and business growth. You need an effective business plan to help you get to your desired business destination.

Even if you are already running a business, the proper understanding and review of the key elements of a business plan help you navigate potential crises and obstacles.

This article will teach you why the business document is at the core of any successful business and its key elements you can not avoid.

Let’s get started.

Why Are Business Plans Important?

Business plans are practical steps or guidelines that usually outline what companies need to do to reach their goals. They are essential documents for any business wanting to grow and thrive in a highly-competitive business environment .

1. Proves Your Business Viability

A business plan gives companies an idea of how viable they are and what actions they need to take to grow and reach their financial targets. With a well-written and clearly defined business plan, your business is better positioned to meet its goals.

2. Guides You Throughout the Business Cycle

A business plan is not just important at the start of a business. As a business owner, you must draw up a business plan to remain relevant throughout the business cycle .

During the starting phase of your business, a business plan helps bring your ideas into reality. A solid business plan can secure funding from lenders and investors.

After successfully setting up your business, the next phase is management. Your business plan still has a role to play in this phase, as it assists in communicating your business vision to employees and external partners.

Essentially, your business plan needs to be flexible enough to adapt to changes in the needs of your business.

3. Helps You Make Better Business Decisions

As a business owner, you are involved in an endless decision-making cycle. Your business plan helps you find answers to your most crucial business decisions.

A robust business plan helps you settle your major business components before you launch your product, such as your marketing and sales strategy and competitive advantage.

4. Eliminates Big Mistakes

Many small businesses fail within their first five years for several reasons: lack of financing, stiff competition, low market need, inadequate teams, and inefficient pricing strategy.

Creating an effective plan helps you eliminate these big mistakes that lead to businesses' decline. Every business plan element is crucial for helping you avoid potential mistakes before they happen.

5. Secures Financing and Attracts Top Talents

Having an effective plan increases your chances of securing business loans. One of the essential requirements many lenders ask for to grant your loan request is your business plan.

A business plan helps investors feel confident that your business can attract a significant return on investments ( ROI ).

You can attract and retain top-quality talents with a clear business plan. It inspires your employees and keeps them aligned to achieve your strategic business goals.

Key Elements of Business Plan

Starting and running a successful business requires well-laid actions and supporting documents that better position a company to achieve its business goals and maximize success.

A business plan is a written document with relevant information detailing business objectives and how it intends to achieve its goals.

With an effective business plan, investors, lenders, and potential partners understand your organizational structure and goals, usually around profitability, productivity, and growth.

Every successful business plan is made up of key components that help solidify the efficacy of the business plan in delivering on what it was created to do.

Here are some of the components of an effective business plan.

1. Executive Summary

One of the key elements of a business plan is the executive summary. Write the executive summary as part of the concluding topics in the business plan. Creating an executive summary with all the facts and information available is easier.

In the overall business plan document, the executive summary should be at the forefront of the business plan. It helps set the tone for readers on what to expect from the business plan.

A well-written executive summary includes all vital information about the organization's operations, making it easy for a reader to understand.

The key points that need to be acted upon are highlighted in the executive summary. They should be well spelled out to make decisions easy for the management team.

A good and compelling executive summary points out a company's mission statement and a brief description of its products and services.

An executive summary summarizes a business's expected value proposition to distinct customer segments. It highlights the other key elements to be discussed during the rest of the business plan.

Including your prior experiences as an entrepreneur is a good idea in drawing up an executive summary for your business. A brief but detailed explanation of why you decided to start the business in the first place is essential.

Adding your company's mission statement in your executive summary cannot be overemphasized. It creates a culture that defines how employees and all individuals associated with your company abide when carrying out its related processes and operations.

Your executive summary should be brief and detailed to catch readers' attention and encourage them to learn more about your company.

Components of an Executive Summary

Here are some of the information that makes up an executive summary:

• The name and location of your company
• Products and services offered by your company
• Mission and vision statements
• Success factors of your business plan

2. Business Description

Your business description needs to be exciting and captivating as it is the formal introduction a reader gets about your company.

What your company aims to provide, its products and services, goals and objectives, target audience , and potential customers it plans to serve need to be highlighted in your business description.

A company description helps point out notable qualities that make your company stand out from other businesses in the industry. It details its unique strengths and the competitive advantages that give it an edge to succeed over its direct and indirect competitors.

Spell out how your business aims to deliver on the particular needs and wants of identified customers in your company description, as well as the particular industry and target market of the particular focus of the company.

Include trends and significant competitors within your particular industry in your company description. Your business description should contain what sets your company apart from other businesses and provides it with the needed competitive advantage.

In essence, if there is any area in your business plan where you need to brag about your business, your company description provides that unique opportunity as readers look to get a high-level overview.

Components of a Business Description

Your business description needs to contain these categories of information.

• Business location
• The legal structure of your business
• Summary of your business’s short and long-term goals

3. Market Analysis

The market analysis section should be solely based on analytical research as it details trends particular to the market you want to penetrate.

Graphs, spreadsheets, and histograms are handy data and statistical tools you need to utilize in your market analysis. They make it easy to understand the relationship between your current ideas and the future goals you have for the business.

All details about the target customers you plan to sell products or services should be in the market analysis section. It helps readers with a helpful overview of the market.

In your market analysis, you provide the needed data and statistics about industry and market share, the identified strengths in your company description, and compare them against other businesses in the same industry.

The market analysis section aims to define your target audience and estimate how your product or service would fare with these identified audiences.

Market analysis helps visualize a target market by researching and identifying the primary target audience of your company and detailing steps and plans based on your audience location.

Obtaining this information through market research is essential as it helps shape how your business achieves its short-term and long-term goals.

Market Analysis Factors

Here are some of the factors to be included in your market analysis.

• The geographical location of your target market
• Needs of your target market and how your products and services can meet those needs
• Demographics of your target audience

Components of the Market Analysis Section

Here is some of the information to be included in your market analysis.

• Industry description and statistics
• Demographics and profile of target customers
• Marketing data for your products and services
• Detailed evaluation of your competitors

4. Marketing Plan

A marketing plan defines how your business aims to reach its target customers, generate sales leads, and, ultimately, make sales.

Promotion is at the center of any successful marketing plan. It is a series of steps to pitch a product or service to a larger audience to generate engagement. Note that the marketing strategy for a business should not be stagnant and must evolve depending on its outcome.

Include the budgetary requirement for successfully implementing your marketing plan in this section to make it easy for readers to measure your marketing plan's impact in terms of numbers.

The information to include in your marketing plan includes marketing and promotion strategies, pricing plans and strategies , and sales proposals. You need to include how you intend to get customers to return and make repeat purchases in your business plan.

5. Sales Strategy

Sales strategy defines how you intend to get your product or service to your target customers and works hand in hand with your business marketing strategy.

Your sales strategy approach should not be complex. Break it down into simple and understandable steps to promote your product or service to target customers.

Apart from the steps to promote your product or service, define the budget you need to implement your sales strategies and the number of sales reps needed to help the business assist in direct sales.

Your sales strategy should be specific on what you need and how you intend to deliver on your sales targets, where numbers are reflected to make it easier for readers to understand and relate better.

6. Competitive Analysis

Providing transparent and honest information, even with direct and indirect competitors, defines a good business plan. Provide the reader with a clear picture of your rank against major competitors.

Identifying your competitors' weaknesses and strengths is useful in drawing up a market analysis. It is one information investors look out for when assessing business plans.

The competitive analysis section clearly defines the notable differences between your company and your competitors as measured against their strengths and weaknesses.

This section should define the following:

• Your competitors' identified advantages in the market
• How do you plan to set up your company to challenge your competitors’ advantage and gain grounds from them?
• The standout qualities that distinguish you from other companies
• Potential bottlenecks you have identified that have plagued competitors in the same industry and how you intend to overcome these bottlenecks

In your business plan, you need to prove your industry knowledge to anyone who reads your business plan. The competitive analysis section is designed for that purpose.

7. Management and Organization

Management and organization are key components of a business plan. They define its structure and how it is positioned to run.

Whether you intend to run a sole proprietorship, general or limited partnership, or corporation, the legal structure of your business needs to be clearly defined in your business plan.

Use an organizational chart that illustrates the hierarchy of operations of your company and spells out separate departments and their roles and functions in this business plan section.

The management and organization section includes profiles of advisors, board of directors, and executive team members and their roles and responsibilities in guaranteeing the company's success.

Apparent factors that influence your company's corporate culture, such as human resources requirements and legal structure, should be well defined in the management and organization section.

Defining the business's chain of command if you are not a sole proprietor is necessary. It leaves room for little or no confusion about who is in charge or responsible during business operations.

This section provides relevant information on how the management team intends to help employees maximize their strengths and address their identified weaknesses to help all quarters improve for the business's success.

8. Products and Services

This business plan section describes what a company has to offer regarding products and services to the maximum benefit and satisfaction of its target market.

Boldly spell out pending patents or copyright products and intellectual property in this section alongside costs, expected sales revenue, research and development, and competitors' advantage as an overview.

At this stage of your business plan, the reader needs to know what your business plans to produce and sell and the benefits these products offer in meeting customers' needs.

The supply network of your business product, production costs, and how you intend to sell the products are crucial components of the products and services section.

Investors are always keen on this information to help them reach a balanced assessment of if investing in your business is risky or offer benefits to them.

You need to create a link in this section on how your products or services are designed to meet the market's needs and how you intend to keep those customers and carve out a market share for your company.

Repeat purchases are the backing that a successful business relies on and measure how much customers are into what your company is offering.

This section is more like an expansion of the executive summary section. You need to analyze each product or service under the business.

9. Operating Plan

An operations plan describes how you plan to carry out your business operations and processes.

The operating plan for your business should include:

• Information about how your company plans to carry out its operations.
• The base location from which your company intends to operate.
• The number of employees to be utilized and other information about your company's operations.
• Key business processes.

This section should highlight how your organization is set up to run. You can also introduce your company's management team in this section, alongside their skills, roles, and responsibilities in the company.

The best way to introduce the company team is by drawing up an organizational chart that effectively maps out an organization's rank and chain of command.

What should be spelled out to readers when they come across this business plan section is how the business plans to operate day-in and day-out successfully.

10. Financial Projections and Assumptions

Bringing your great business ideas into reality is why business plans are important. They help create a sustainable and viable business.

The financial section of your business plan offers significant value. A business uses a financial plan to solve all its financial concerns, which usually involves startup costs, labor expenses, financial projections, and funding and investor pitches.

All key assumptions about the business finances need to be listed alongside the business financial projection, and changes to be made on the assumptions side until it balances with the projection for the business.

The financial plan should also include how the business plans to generate income and the capital expenditure budgets that tend to eat into the budget to arrive at an accurate cash flow projection for the business.

Base your financial goals and expectations on extensive market research backed with relevant financial statements for the relevant period.

Examples of financial statements you can include in the financial projections and assumptions section of your business plan include:

• Projected income statements
• Cash flow statements
• Balance sheets
• Income statements

Revealing the financial goals and potentials of the business is what the financial projection and assumption section of your business plan is all about. It needs to be purely based on facts that can be measurable and attainable.

11. Request For Funding

The request for funding section focuses on the amount of money needed to set up your business and underlying plans for raising the money required. This section includes plans for utilizing the funds for your business's operational and manufacturing processes.

When seeking funding, a reasonable timeline is required alongside it. If the need arises for additional funding to complete other business-related projects, you are not left scampering and desperate for funds.

If you do not have the funds to start up your business, then you should devote a whole section of your business plan to explaining the amount of money you need and how you plan to utilize every penny of the funds. You need to explain it in detail for a future funding request.

When an investor picks up your business plan to analyze it, with all your plans for the funds well spelled out, they are motivated to invest as they have gotten a backing guarantee from your funding request section.

Include timelines and plans for how you intend to repay the loans received in your funding request section. This addition keeps investors assured that they could recoup their investment in the business.

12. Exhibits and Appendices

Exhibits and appendices comprise the final section of your business plan and contain all supporting documents for other sections of the business plan.

Some of the documents that comprise the exhibits and appendices section includes:

• Legal documents
• Licenses and permits
• Credit histories
• Customer lists

The choice of what additional document to include in your business plan to support your statements depends mainly on the intended audience of your business plan. Hence, it is better to play it safe and not leave anything out when drawing up the appendix and exhibit section.

Supporting documentation is particularly helpful when you need funding or support for your business. This section provides investors with a clearer understanding of the research that backs the claims made in your business plan.

There are key points to include in the appendix and exhibits section of your business plan.

• The management team and other stakeholders resume
• Marketing research
• Permits and relevant legal documents
• Financial documents

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Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.

How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated April 17, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

Free business plan templates and examples

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

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10 Business Plan Words Every Manager Needs to Know By Heart If you're starting or running a business, you'll need to know this list of essential business planning words.

By Tim Berry • Jan 30, 2012

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

So I've changed my mind -- again -- and come up with this list of essential business planning words every manager should know:

1. Business plan: An organized collection of milestones, tasks, assumptions and basic business numbers. It covers strategy and details what's supposed to happen when, who's in charge of what, how progress is measured, when money is to be spent and from where, and when money is expected to come in. It isn't a document; it's a plan. If it isn't reviewed and revised monthly, then it won't be very useful. So it has to be practical and just big enough to serve the business need.

Related: To Make Business Planning Less Daunting, Let's Call It Something Else 2. Business planning: Steering a company using a cyclical process. Plan, review and revise as necessary to optimize. Business planning is management.

3. Business strategy: A combination of strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, target market, business offering and product-market fit. Focus is vital. Who isn't in your market and what you're not offering can be more useful information than who is and what you are offering. All of this can be expressed in bullets, slides, a few key paragraphs or any other way that keeps strategy and focus top of mind.

4. Business forecast: A simplified, manageable set of assumptions about future cash flow, including sales, cost of sales, expenses, assets, liabilities and capital. It isn't about predicting the future; it's about connecting the dots on assumptions and drivers in your monthly projections over the next year and your annual forecasts for the subsequent two years. It focuses on what drives the key components, expressed as money. Those drivers include factors like capacity, sales and marketing activities, management compensation, direct costs, and so forth. The goal is to lay out connections between key assumptions in projections spread month by month as expected amounts. For example, you would project how direct costs look as a percentage of sales. Usually the relationships are more important than the actual numbers. So, to follow the example, if your actual sales are higher than expected, you can tell from your forecast that direct costs also will be higher than expected. Companies with a good forecasting process rarely get through a month without some change in the forecast.

5. Strategic plan: A business plan that leaves out the nuts and bolts.

6. Operations plan: A business plan that leaves out the strategy.

7. Marketing plan: A business plan that leaves out the overall company financial strategy.

Related: The Top 10 Business Plan Mistakes

8. Annual plan: A business plan that leaves out plans for the second and third year.

9. Bank-ready business plan:

a. A document created as output from a business plan, formatted for easy reading and highlighting past financial performance and current financial position. Bankers look for payment history and assets backing the loan.

b. When used to describe a canned boilerplate document somebody is selling, as in turnkey or ready-made, it is just sleazy sales hype for a bad product. Buyer beware: A ready-made business plan is always a waste of money.

10. Investor-ready or funding-ready business plan:

a. A document or pitch created as output from a business plan, describing a business investors will be interested in based on the specifics of that business. The most common and essential highlights are management team, product-market fit, potential market, potential growth, defensibility (some hard-to-copy elements like technology or knowhow), scalability and potential return for investors. No matter how brilliant, beautiful or creative it might be, it isn't investor ready -- and never will be -- if it doesn't describe a business with real prospects for investors.

b. See 9b above.

Related: Three Financial Guesstimates Every Business Plan Needs

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10 Creative Ways to Discover Keywords for Your Business

Written by Samantha Winchell @samwinchell

As Google’s Hummingbird Algorithm rolls out with full-force, some site owners are scrambling to find ways around the new restraints. With the goal of prioritizing naturally good content that truly provides value to searchers, Google has altered their algorithm to put more emphasis on quality, and less on semantics.

What this boils down to, is that Google removed the ability for marketers to see which key terms are being used in order to find their site.

As a matter of privacy, and to draw better search results for their customers, Google removed search query data, and as a result, marketers are left with vague, “(Not Provided)” data.

Accustomed to the wealth of information that once came from Google search query strings, many are vying to get back the prized information by finding loopholes. Some marketers have become lost, needing the surety of exact keyword phrases that landed a visitor on their site. There are even those who have given up altogether, as they’re lacking their traditional source of insight.

However, keyword research is still a vital source for creating a successful website, online presence and marketing strategy. So sometimes, it’s best to roll with the punches and not fight the card you’ve been dealt. Fortunately for us, there are numerous tools and resources available today to aid in keyword research!

Believe me, with a touch of creativity, and a bit of active brain power, you will go above and beyond the (not provided) limitations. Check out some of my favorite tools for innovative keyword research:

1) Yahoo/Bing Keywords

As inbound marketers, we really took a blow when Google announced that all search terms would appear as “not provided.” But here’s a wacky idea - look at the info you still get from Bing and what remains from Yahoo. Though this information is more limited, and may not have the depth that Google results once did, it will still help you gain insight into what people are purposefully typing into the search bar to find your page. Don’t knock it; this information is still very insightful.

First off, it may reveal descriptive terms that your readers use that you may not have thought of. Secondly, it will give you an idea of the tone/reasoning behind the search. Was it phrased as a question? Did it carry a more conversational tone? Consider these questions as you build out your keywords and content in the future.

2) Keywords Designated to Your Top 10 Blog Pages

If you have been following best practices, each of your blog posts should already be written for one designated keyword/term. First, determine what your top 10 most viewed blog posts are, then look at which keywords were associated with this content. Gather these results and feed them into a keyword planning tool.

There are a few free options out there, but using the Google Keyword Planning Tool always does the trick for us. Type in your keyword, check out the results and look for long-tail keywords that spring from the suggestions. Long-tail key terms are becoming invaluable as Google begins catering to more natural, conversational search queries.

3) Add a Search Bar to your Site

Adding a search bar to your blog or website provides two bonuses – if someone is using a search bar on your site, it means they’re spending time on your website, looking for more content, and the terms they search for will be provided.

If you’ve put thought into your content strategy, then you are consciously targeting your ideal customers. As they begin using your search bar, you’ll get a closer look at what they expect to find from your content and may get more insight into their pain points. Using Google Analytics , you’ll be able to track search queries from your website much like you would have from Google’s search tool before.

From these results, you may find a related topic that you’ve yet to cover – that’s the perfect opportunity to build more content and provide your viewers with quite literally, what they are asking for. Keep in mind, however, that this resource involves an additional fee , so may not be the most cost-effective option for your business.

4) Go In-depth with your Persona Research

No campaign is complete without first identifying who the target audience is. By clearly defining your buyer personas , (your ideal customers), you will be taking a more preemptive strike to provide your viewers with what they need before they even ask. Study your personas; ask yourself what their needs are. What are their pain points? Where do they find their information? What do you provide that aligns the most with their lifestyle?

I'm certain that as you delve further into your buyer persona research , you will not only find valuable information about your customers, but you will unearth new vocabulary terms that they might be using in search as well. Use this to your advantage and uncover an abundant source of information.

5) Online Industry Forums

Many industries encourage the use of online forums where like-minded individuals contribute and generate conversation. These are playgrounds for valuable keywords that you may not have thought of on your own.

Plug the URL of a related industry forum into the Google Keyword Planning Tool ; this will grab hundreds of the terms that people use and talk about on a daily basis, and produce them in a simple-to-use Excel file. Comb through this list for long-tail phrases that are relevant to your business. You might find that this list will also give you ideas for blog posts and premium content offers!

6) Google’s Related Search and Suggestions Tools

If you have an idea of what your keyword should be, type it into Google – scroll to the bottom and you’ll see Google’s “related searches,” (See Below). This provides you with variation on that term; you can see other search queries that viewers may have used to find a similar topic. One of these related searches may be more relevant, or may provide a more long-tail approach.

Similarly, you might see “Google Suggestions” as you type into the search bar. There are tools available that easily organize Google Suggestion results such as Übersuggest , which simplifies the process for you. Type in your keyword and Übersuggest will come up with suggestions for all of the letters in the alphabet. They even go as far as including numbers and symbols to fully grasp the way that humans search.

7) Thesaurus

Haven’t used a thesaurus since you were in college? Well now’s the time to bring out this handy tool and go back to your glory days!

Much like Google Suggestions, a thesaurus will help you to brainstorm relevant terms. Perhaps there is another term that resonates better with your personas. You’ll never know until you give it a shot.

8) Social Media and Google Trends

Depending on current events, trending hashtags might provide some insight into what’s popular at the moment. Of course, this methodology won’t work with every industry, but if you’re B2C, or a tech-friendly business for instance, trends on Twitter might help generate new ideas.

If you’re looking for more specific topics, Google offers a more expansive trends tool . With Google Trends, you’ll find top searches within common categories, the day’s “Hot Searches,” and can even explore data for specific terms !

Not only will these trends help with your keyword research, but they may even provide opportunities to refine your buyer persona descriptions as well. Within the trends tool you can find information such as a term’s interest over time, regional interest, and related searches. Filter through your buyer personas considering the data you’ve found and confirm that your definitions line up accordingly.

9) Industry book titles

This is a technique we use a lot with our more technical clients. Often, the titles of industry-specific books will incorporate the vocabulary used by thought leaders in the space. Where better to find key terms than from the people teaching them? Your ideal customers are likely also learning from these material sources, and will often mimic the vocabulary throughout search queries as well.

Hop onto Amazon (or iTunes or Google Books) and do a search for your key term. Take a look at the book titles. Chances are you’ll gain ideas on how the terminology is used, and get a better feel for the tone that resonates with your audience. Better refine your findings by using a keyword tool to mash up multiple titles.

10) Ask Those Who Know Best: Your Customers

Last (but certainly not least) is just straight up asking your customers. What better way for finding what your ideal customers want than by listening to them? Typically, if someone is asking you a question there’s a good reason; the answer is not readily or easily available on your site. There are multiple ways you can gain insight on your key terms, that are coming directly from your customers. Start by taking a look at your FAQ's, analyze your social media for common questions and survey your customers for a better understanding of what they are looking and searching for. Begin adding content that you know your viewers want with a double duty approach.

You’ve Built a Solid List of Keywords, Now What?

You don’t need to rely solely on Google to provide key terms; you have the tools and smarts to find them on your own. Give some of the ideas above a shot and build out a lengthy list of viable key terms. Make sure that they broadly cover all spectrums of your sales funnel, and will be relatable and engaging for your audience.

But don’t stop there - as you build out more campaigns, and evolve as a brand, it will be necessary to revisit and refine your keywords list as well. Growth is key, especially with rising technologies such as microphone speech options, mobile search and even Google glass. Your viewers expect to find what they’re looking for within a matter of seconds, so the more you hone in your keyword strategy, the better off you will be.

Once you’ve landed on a keyword, do you know how use it effectively? Ensure that your hard work isn’t all for nought - optimize your web pages by including the term in key areas which will help to improve your search rank. Some of the best areas to place your keyword include:

• Page Title (Title Tag)
• Header Tags
• Image Alt Tags; and
• Text that is Bolded or Underlined

Include natural variations of your key term within the body copy as well. Because search engines pull from the body copy of web pages to best suit a searcher’s query, it is likely that you will appear on page results for a variety of search terms beside the one you are targeting. Search engines are now smart enough to understand variations of terms and will serve up the most relevant content, even if it doesn’t contain that exact word or phrase.

We also encourage you to play with your keyword list. There is no steadfast rule that every term you find will be a winner. Search engine optimization can prove to be a tricky task, but don’t be discouraged if you’re not finding immediate results. There is a lot of competition out there, and it can take weeks, or even months for you to start seeing traction with your strategy. In the end, your goal should always be to nurture your visitors and provide them with great content. Typically, if you follow this methodology, you will achieve what you set out to do in the first place!

Marketers are resilient beings, and I’m proud to be a part of such an exciting and ever-evolving industry. How would we learn to grow and adapt new skills if a wrench or two weren’t thrown into the mix? Embrace the fact that you have the ability to express your creativity and make a difference every day! I’m sure that you will find that overcoming a challenge is easier than you would think, being the clever marketer that you are!

How has your keyword strategy grown since Google implemented the Hummingbird updates? I invite you to comment below with any other ideas or suggestions you have for our fellow readers. Collectively, we will – I repeat, WE WILL – overcome the cringe-worthy, “not provided” bridge!

Samantha Winchell is the SEO Strategist at New Breed Marketing , an inbound marketing agency and HubSpot partner. Samantha manages client site optimization, and outreach for New Breed Marketing. Her passion is to discover the newest search engine trends and comprehensively optimize websites.You can read more articles by Samantha and her team over at the New Breed Blog .

Originally published Nov 25, 2013 10:00:00 AM, updated January 18 2023

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10 Free Business Plan Templates in Word, Excel, & ClickUp

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 13, 2024

Turning your vision into a clear and coherent business plan can be confusing and tough. 

Hours of brainstorming and facing an intimidating blank page can raise more questions than answers. Are you covering everything? What should go where? How do you keep each section thorough but brief?

If these questions have kept you up at night and slowed your progress, know you’re not alone. That’s why we’ve put together the top 10 business plan templates in Word, Excel, and ClickUp—to provide answers, clarity, and a structured framework to work with. This way, you’re sure to capture all the relevant information without wasting time. 

And the best part? Business planning becomes a little less “ugh!” and a lot more “aha!” 🤩

What is a Business Plan Template?

What makes a good business plan template, 1. clickup business plan template, 2. clickup sales plan template, 3. clickup business development action plan template, 4. clickup business roadmap template, 5. clickup business continuity plan template, 6. clickup lean business plan template, 7. clickup small business action plan template, 8. clickup strategic business roadmap template , 9. microsoft word business plan template by microsoft, 10. excel business plan template by vertex42.

A business plan template is a structured framework for entrepreneurs and business executives who want to create business plans. It comes with pre-arranged sections and headings that cover key elements like the executive summary , business overview, target customers, unique value proposition, marketing plans, and financial statements.  

A good business plan template helps with thorough planning, clear documentation, and practical implementation. Here’s what to look for:

• Comprehensive structure: A good template comes with all the relevant sections to outline a business strategy, such as executive summary, market research and analysis, and financial projections 
• Clarity and guidance: A good template is easy to follow. It has brief instructions or prompts for each section, guiding you to think deeply about your business and ensuring you don’t skip important details
• Clean design: Aesthetics matter. Choose a template that’s not just functional but also professionally designed. This ensures your plan is presentable to stakeholders, partners, and potential investors
• Flexibility : Your template should easily accommodate changes without hassle, like adding or removing sections, changing content and style, and rearranging parts 🛠️ 

While a template provides the structure, it’s the information you feed it that brings it to life. These pointers will help you pick a template that aligns with your business needs and clearly showcases your vision.

10 Business Plan Templates to Use in 2024

Preparing for business success in 2024 (and beyond) requires a comprehensive and organized business plan. We’ve handpicked the best templates to help you guide your team, attract investors, and secure funding. Let’s check them out.

If you’re looking to replace a traditional business plan document, then ClickUp’s Business Plan Template is for you!

This one-page business plan template, designed in ClickUp Docs , is neatly broken down into the following sections:

• Company description : Overview, mission, vision, and team
• Market analysis : Problem, solution, target market, competition, and competitive advantage
• Sales and marketing strategy : Products/services and marketing channels
• Operational plan : Location and facilities, equipment and tools, manpower, and financial forecasts
• Milestones and metrics: Targets and KPIs

Customize the template with your company logo and contact details, and easily navigate to different sections using the collapsible table of contents. The mini prompts under each section guide you on what to include—with suggestions on how to present the data (e.g., bullet lists, pictures, charts, and tables). 

You can share the document with anyone via URL and collaborate in real time. And when the business plan is ready, you have the option to print it or export it to PDF, HTML, or Markdown.

But that’s not all. This template is equipped with basic and enterprise project management features to streamline the business plan creation process . The Topics List view has a list of all the different sections and subsections of the template and allows you to assign it to a team member, set a due date, and attach relevant documents and references.

Switch from List to Board view to track and update task statuses according to the following: To Do, In Progress, Needs Revision, and Complete. 

This template is a comprehensive toolkit for documenting the different sections of your business plan and streamlining the creation process to ensure it’s completed on time. 🗓️

If you’re looking for a tool to kickstart or update your sales plan, ClickUp’s Sales Plan Template has got you covered. This sales plan template features a project summary list with tasks to help you craft a comprehensive and effective sales strategy. Some of these tasks include:

• Determine sales objectives and goals
• Draft positioning statement
• Perform competitive analysis
• Draft ideal customer persona
• Create a lead generation strategy

Assign each task to a specific individual or team, set priority levels , and add due dates. Specify what section of the sales plan each task belongs to (e.g., executive summary, revenue goals, team structure, etc.), deliverable type (such as document, task, or meeting), and approval state (like pending, needs revisions, and approved).

And in ClickUp style, you can switch to multiple views: List for a list of all tasks, Board for visual task management, Timeline for an overview of task durations, and Gantt to get a view of task dependencies. 

This simple business plan template is perfect for any type of business looking to create a winning sales strategy while clarifying team roles and keeping tasks organized. ✨

Thinking about scaling your business’s reach and operations but unsure where or how to start? It can be overwhelming, no doubt—you need a clear vision, measurable goals, and an actionable plan that every member of your team can rally behind. 

Thankfully, ClickUp’s Business Development Action Plan Template is designed to use automations to simplify this process so every step toward your business growth is clear, trackable, and actionable.

Start by assessing your current situation and deciding on your main growth goal. Are you aiming to increase revenue, tap into new markets, or introduce new products or services? With ClickUp Whiteboards or Docs, brainstorm and collaborate with your team on this decision.

Set and track your short- and long-term growth goals with ClickUp’s Goals , break them down into smaller targets, and assign these targets to team members, complete with due dates. Add these targets to a new ClickUp Dashboard to track real-time progress and celebrate small wins. 🎉

Whether you’re a startup or small business owner looking to hit your next major milestone or an established business exploring new avenues, this template keeps your team aligned, engaged, and informed every step of the way.

ClickUp’s Business Roadmap Template is your go-to for mapping out major strategies and initiatives in areas like revenue growth, brand awareness, community engagement, and customer satisfaction. 

Use the List view to populate tasks under each initiative. With Custom Fields, you can capture which business category (e.g., Product, Operations, Sales & Marketing, etc.) tasks fall under and which quarter they’re slated for. You can also link to relevant documents and resources and evaluate tasks by effort and impact to ensure the most critical tasks get the attention they deserve. 👀

Depending on your focus, this template provides different views to show just what you need. For example, the All Initiatives per Quarter view lets you focus on what’s ahead by seeing tasks that need completion within a specific quarter. This ensures timely execution and helps in aligning resources effectively for the short term.

This template is ideal for business executives and management teams who need to coordinate multiple short- and long-term initiatives and business strategies.

In business, unexpected threats to operations can arise at any moment. Whether it’s economic turbulence, a global health crisis, or supply chain interruptions, every company needs to be ready. ClickUp’s Business Continuity Plan Template lets you prepare proactively for these unforeseen challenges.

The template organizes tasks into three main categories:

• Priorities: Tasks that need immediate attention
• Continuity coverage: Tasks that must continue despite challenges
• Guiding principles: Resources and protocols to ensure smooth operations

The Board view makes it easy to visualize all the tasks under each of these categories. And the Priorities List sorts tasks by those that are overdue, the upcoming ones, and then the ones due later.

In times of uncertainty, being prepared is your best strategy. This template helps your business not just survive but thrive in challenging situations, keeping your customers, employees, and investors satisfied. 🤝

Looking to execute your business plan the “lean” way? Use ClickUp’s Lean Business Plan Template . It’s designed to help you optimize resource usage and cut unnecessary steps—giving you better results with less effort.

In the Plan Summary List view, list all the tasks that need to get done. Add specific details like who’s doing each task, when it’s due, and which part of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) it falls under. The By Priority view sorts this list based on priorities like Urgent, High, Normal, and Low. This makes it easy to spot the most important tasks and tackle them first.

Additionally, the Board view gives you an overview of task progression from start to finish. And the BMC view rearranges these tasks based on the various BMC components. 

Each task can further be broken down into subtasks and multiple checklists to ensure all related action items are executed. ✔️

This template is an invaluable resource for startups and large enterprises looking to maximize process efficiencies and results in a streamlined and cost-effective way.

The Small Business Action Plan Template by ClickUp is tailor-made for small businesses looking to transform their business ideas and goals into actionable steps and, eventually, into reality. 

It provides a simple and organized framework for creating, assigning, prioritizing, and tracking tasks. And in effect, it ensures that goals are not just set but achieved. Through the native dashboard and goal-setting features, you can monitor task progress and how they move you closer to achieving your goals.

Thanks to ClickUp’s robust communication features like chat, comments, and @mentions, it’s easy to get every team member on the same page and quickly address questions or concerns.

Use this action plan template to hit your business goals by streamlining your internal processes and aligning team efforts.

For larger businesses and scaling enterprises, getting different departments to work together toward a big goal can be challenging. The ClickUp Strategic Business Roadmap Template makes it easier by giving you a clear plan to follow.

This template is packaged in a folder and split into different lists for each department in your business, like Sales, Product, Marketing, and Enablement. This way, every team can focus on their tasks while collectively contributing to the bigger goal.

There are multiple viewing options available for team members. These include:

• Progress Board: Visualize tasks that are on track, those at risk, and those behind
• Gantt view: Get an overview of project timelines and dependencies
• Team view: See what each team member is working on so you can balance workloads for maximum productivity

While this template may feel overwhelming at first, the getting started guide offers a step-by-step breakdown to help you navigate it with ease. And like all ClickUp templates, you can easily customize it to suit your business needs and preferences.

Microsoft’s 20-page traditional business plan template simplifies the process of drafting comprehensive business plans. It’s made up of different sections, including:

• Executive summary : Highlights, objectives, mission statement, and keys to success
• Description of business: Company ownership and legal structure, hours of operation, products and services, suppliers, financial plans, etc.
• Marketing: Market analysis, market segmentation, competition, and pricing
• Appendix: Start-up expenses, cash flow statements, income statements, sales forecast, milestones, break-even analysis, etc.

The table of contents makes it easy to move to different sections of the document. And the text placeholders under each section provide clarity on the specific details required—making the process easier for users who may not be familiar with certain business terminology.

No business template roundup is complete without an Excel template. This business plan template lets you work on your business financials in Excel. It comes with customizable tables, formulas, and charts to help you look at the following areas:

• Highlight charts
• Market analysis
• Start-up assets and expenses
• Sales forecasts
• Profit and loss
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow projections
• Break-even analysis

This Excel template is especially useful when you want to create a clear and visual financial section for your business plan document—an essential element for attracting investors and lenders. However, there might be a steep learning curve to using this template if you’re not familiar with business financial planning and using Excel.

Try a Free Business Plan Template in ClickUp

Launching and running a successful business requires a well-thought-out and carefully crafted business plan. However, the business planning process doesn’t have to be complicated, boring, or take up too much time. Use any of the above 10 free business plan formats to simplify and speed up the process.

ClickUp templates go beyond offering a solid foundation to build your business plans. They come with extensive project management features to turn your vision into reality. And that’s not all— ClickUp’s template library offers over 1,000 additional templates to help manage various aspects of your business, from decision-making to product development to resource management .

Sign up for ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan today to fast-track your business’s growth! 🏆

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Keywords For Business – Includes Startup, Entrepreneur, Marketing, Writing and Small Business SEO Terms

By: Author Tara Jacobsen

Posted on Last updated: December 8, 2021

Categories Keyword Marketing

I do a lot writing and helping to develop keywords and focuses for my business clients. While I have 17+ years experience of doing SEO work, sometimes it is just nice to have a starting point where you can set off from with your Adwords planning tool search or even just to figure out what to write about in a blog post.

Huge keyword lists give you tips and ideas for where to start with your keywords marketing strategy. Help your website search optimization efforts. Great for bloggers, marketing, social media and beginners.

These are broken down by my main business SEO and keyword interests and categories, they are not necessarily in some sort of “official” format.

Business and Entrepreneur SEO Keywords

Marketing and social media seo keywords.

Motivation and Goal Setting SEO Keywords

Startups SEO Keywords

Sales and Customer Service SEO Keywords

Search Engine and SEO Keywords

Psychology SEO Keywords

Financial SEO Keywords

Technology SEO Keywords

Graphic Design and Art SEO Keywords

Writing SEO Keywords

Books SEO Keywords

History SEO Keywords

Science SEO Keywords

As this is a post about SEO and keyword search terms for business, I would be remiss not to mention that it does have keywords including Startup, Entrepreneur, Marketing, Writing and Small Business!

Additional Resource :: 100 Ways To Make Money Online !

Want to create a new Google Ads account?

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• How it works
• AI-Powered Ad Solutions
• Performance Max
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Choose the right keywords

The right keywords can get your ad in front of the right customers, and Google Ads Keyword Planner is here to help.

Find new keywords

Search for words or phrases related to your products or services. Our keyword research tool will help you find the keywords that are most relevant for your business.

Analyze keywords

Our keyword research tool gives you insight into how often people search for certain terms–and how those searches have changed over time.

Get bid estimates

Keyword Planner will give you suggested bid estimates for each keyword to help you determine your advertising budget.

Make your plan

Once you’ve found the keywords you like, you can add them to your advertising plan. Save your plan or share it with others. When you’re ready, you can finalize and launch your campaign.

Partner with a Google Ads expert to set up your first campaign

• We’ll get you up to speed on the latest platform updates
• We’ll design a media plan that makes the most of your budget
• We’ll help you launch your first campaign with hands-on guidance

Get started with the Keyword Planner

We know that using a new tool can be complicated. Click on the text below to learn how you can get started.

Create a keyword plan

Understand your keyword forecast

Create campaign based on your plan

Tools and campaigns that can help you meet your goals.

Interested in learning more about what Google Ads has to offer? Click on the cards below to explore more related campaigns and helpful tools.

Insights Page

Grow your business with insights and trends that are tailored to your business.

Recommendations Page

Improve your campaign performance and efficiency with suggestions that are tailored to your needs.

Stay connected to your campaigns on the go, monitor your campaigns in real-time, and take quick action to improve performance.

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• Top Keywords
• Most Asked Questions
• Most Searched Words
• Top Business Books
• Write For Us

Get the top most searched Keywords in Google

List of Business Keywords: Find the Best Keywords For Your Business

Business keywords.

Being a business owner can be a tiring job. You need to keep an eye on every minute detail your business deals with. That could be vendors, finances, human resources, overheads, salaries and what not. Apart from that, you also need to take care of your clients’/audience needs.

With internet reaching far and wide, you would probably want to know which keywords for business containing the term ‘Business’ do most users search for on Google. The reason why we have leveraged the power of Mondovo’s Free Keyword Tool  is to bring you an exhaustive Business keywords list.

The Top business keywords listed

The top business related keywords list.

Mondovo’s Keyword Research Tool has been designed not only to let users find keywords but to deliver key insights for each keyword so that users, like you, will be able to make sense of what you get and get things done with them.

If you liked this data on Marketing Keywords, then you might be interested in The Most Asked Questions on Google and The Most Searched Words on Google . For other Top Keywords Categories check the links below.

[contact-form-7 id=”1599″ title=”Mondovo.com – World’s 1000 Most Expensive Questions On Google”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1592″ title=”Mondovo.com – Most Expensive Google Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1531″ title=”Mondovo.com – Can Question Keywords”]

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[contact-form-7 id=”1469″ title=”Mondovo.com – How Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1424″ title=”Mondovo.com – Government Trade Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1419″ title=”Mondovo.com – Industrial Goods Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1414″ title=”Mondovo.com – Web Hosting Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1407″ title=”Mondovo.com – Virtual Server Hosting Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1401″ title=”Mondovo.com – Shopping Cart Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1397″ title=”Mondovo.com – Semiconductors Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1392″ title=”Mondovo.com – Online Stores Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1385″ title=”Mondovo.com – Online Payment Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1380″ title=”Mondovo.com – Business Travel Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1374″ title=”Mondovo.com – Home Based Business Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1367″ title=”Mondovo.com – Diet Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1361″ title=”Mondovo.com – Jobs Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1353″ title=”Mondovo.com – Shoes Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1348″ title=”Mondovo.com – Gardening Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1342″ title=”Mondovo.com – Electronics Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1336″ title=”Mondovo.com – Casino Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1329″ title=”Mondovo.com – Home Improvement Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1323″ title=”Mondovo.com – Biotechnology Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1317″ title=”Mondovo.com – Business Management Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1304″ title=”Mondovo.com – Work From Home Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1277″ title=”Mondovo.com – Pest Control Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1267″ title=”Mondovo.com – Entertainment Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1260″ title=”Mondovo.com – Landscaping Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1250″ title=”Mondovo.com – Golf Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1210″ title=”Mondovo.com – Pharmaceutical Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1203″ title=”Mondovo.com – Agriculture Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1197″ title=”Mondovo.com – Transportation Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1190″ title=”Mondovo.com – Startup Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1181″ title=”Mondovo.com – B2B Keywords & Question Keywords_copy”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1176″ title=”Mondovo.com – Email Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1159″ title=”Mondovo.com – Coffee Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1144″ title=”Mondovo.com – Mortgage Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1137″ title=”Mondovo.com – Web Development Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1132″ title=”Mondovo.com – Forex Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1126″ title=”Mondovo.com – Nutrition Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1109″ title=”Mondovo.com – Health Care Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1095″ title=”Mondovo.com – Hotel Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1084″ title=”Mondovo.com – Dating Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1078″ title=”Mondovo.com – Software Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1069″ title=”Mondovo.com – Restaurants Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1064″ title=”Mondovo.com – Internet Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1058″ title=”Mondovo.com – Law Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1052″ title=”Mondovo.com – Legal Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1046″ title=”Mondovo.com – Jewelry Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1040″ title=”Mondovo.com – Retail Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1034″ title=”Mondovo.com – Energy Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1027″ title=”Mondovo.com – Human Resources Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1015″ title=”Mondovo.com – Plumbing Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1009″ title=”Mondovo.com – Management Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”1003″ title=”Mondovo.com – Web Design Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”997″ title=”Mondovo.com – Automobile Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”989″ title=”Mondovo.com – Environmental Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”983″ title=”Mondovo.com – Construction Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”949″ title=”Mondovo.com – Advertisement Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”930″ title=”Mondovo.com – Weight Loss Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”913″ title=”Mondovo.com – Technology Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”896″ title=”Mondovo.com – Ecommerce Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”884″ title=”Mondovo.com – Financial Services Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”876″ title=”Mondovo.com – Acne Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”870″ title=”Mondovo.com – Debt Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”861″ title=”Mondovo.com – Accounting Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”854″ title=”Mondovo.com – Gift Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”848″ title=”Mondovo.com – Dog Training Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”832″ title=”Mondovo.com – Aerospace Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”841″ title=”Mondovo.com – Auto Insurance Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”822″ title=”Mondovo.com – Internet Security Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”816″ title=”Mondovo.com – Online Backup Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”810″ title=”Mondovo.com – Credit Card Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”804″ title=”Mondovo.com – Cell Phone Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”798″ title=”Mondovo.com – Poker Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”792″ title=”Mondovo.com – Luggage Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”784″ title=”Mondovo.com – Media Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”776″ title=”Mondovo.com – iPhone Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”770″ title=”Mondovo.com – Education Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”764″ title=”Mondovo.com – Dedicated Server Hosting Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”758″ title=”Mondovo.com – Office Backup Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”752″ title=”Mondovo.com – Twitter Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”744″ title=”Mondovo.com – Fitness Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”738″ title=”Mondovo.com – Consumer Services Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”729″ title=”Mondovo.com – Email Hosting Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”722″ title=”Mondovo.com – Email Software Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”716″ title=”Mondovo.com – Office Supplies Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”688″ title=”Mondovo.com – Food & Beverage Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”659″ title=”Mondovo.com – Finance Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”648″ title=”Mondovo.com – Social Media Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”643″ title=”Mondovo.com – Wedding Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”625″ title=”Mondovo.com – Chemical Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”542″ title=”Mondovo.com – Sales Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”531″ title=”Mondovo.com – Travel Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”525″ title=”Mondovo.com – Music Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”510″ title=”Mondovo.com – Computer Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”501″ title=”Mondovo.com – Fashion Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”427″ title=”Mondovo.com – Art Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”389″ title=”Mondovo.com – Photography Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”376″ title=”Mondovo.com – Business Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”353″ title=”Mondovo.com – Marketing Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”302″ title=”Mondovo.com – Real Estate Keywords & Question Keywords”]

[contact-form-7 id=”221″ title=”Mondovo.com – The Most Searched Words on Google”]

[contact-form-7 id=”204″ title=”Mondovo.com – The Most Asked Questions on Google”]

[contact-form-7 id=”184″ title=”Mondovo.com – SEO Keywords & Question Keywords Sheet”]

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Most Popular Business Keywords List in [2024]

Looking for the top Google search business keywords? We’ve got you covered! below you can see the most popular business keywords. Whether you’re looking for PPC keywords or SEO keywords, we’ve gathered the best topic for you.

If you can’t find what you need, use this Free Keyword Tool to find the keywords you’re looking for!

We’ll also tell you how competitive each business keyword is and its average cost for ads to help you pick the best ones for your campaigns.

Here’s the big list of  popular keywords  that covers most popular industries, Also you can check the directory of  blog post ideas .

Table of Contents

Seed Keywords

Seed keywords typically represent the core concepts or ideas related to your business, products, or services. For example, if you run an online store selling running shoes, your seed keywords might include “running shoes,” “athletic shoes,” “sports shoes,” and so on. 

By using these seed keywords, you can generate more specific long-tail keywords or variations that are relevant to your target audience and help improve your website’s search visibility.

Here is a list of seed keywords for business

Long Tail Keywords

Long Tail Keywords are longer, more specific search phrases with lower search volume but higher conversion rates. Example: “vegan gluten-free chocolate chip cookies” instead of “chocolate chip cookies.”

Here is a list of long tail keywords for business company

Commercial Intent Keywords

Commercial Intent Keywords are search terms used by users with an intent to make a purchase or engage in a transaction. 

These keywords often indicate a strong interest in buying a product or service. Example: “buy iPhone 13 online”.

Here is a list of commercial intent keywords for business

Informational Intent Keywords

Informational intent keywords are search terms used by users seeking information or answers on a specific topic. 

They generally start with words like “how,” “what,” “why,” or “where.” For example, “how to bake a cake” is an informational intent keyword, as the user is looking for information on cake baking.

Here is a list of informational intent keywords for business

More Helpful Content:

• Most Popular Credit Card Keywords List in [2024]
• Most Popular Accounting Keywords List in [2024]
• Most Popular Finance Keywords List in [2024]
• Most Popular Crypto Keywords List in [2024]
• Most Popular Insurance Business Keywords List in [2024]

This post was proofread by Grammarly . Try it – It’s Free! Millions trust Grammarly’s free writing app to make their online writing clear and effective. Getting started is simple

Email, SMS, and more — Klaviyo brings your marketing all together, fueling growth without burning through time and resources. Deliver more relevant email and text messages — powered by your data. Klaviyo helps you turn one-time buyers into repeat customers with all the power of an enterprise solution and none of the complexity.

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Grind Success is a place where entrepreneurs, start-ups, and business owners can find wide-ranging information, advice, resources, and tools for starting, running and growing their businesses.

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Find Keyword Ideas in Seconds

Boost SEO results with powerful keyword research

How to Use Google Keyword Planner

Written by Brian Dean

Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool used by advertisers based on Google-suggested phrase terms as the primary foundation. It helps one discover relevant keywords for search campaigns to ensure ads get to the right audience. Importantly, the tool provides estimates for search volumes and costs to target the respective terms.

This is the ultimate guide to using Google Keyword Planner.

In fact, I’ve used the Google Keyword Planner (formerly known as Google Keyword Tool) to help grow my site’s organic traffic to 360,408 visits per month:

And in this guide, I’ll show you how to get the most SEO value out of this awesome tool.

• Step #1: Access the Google Keyword Planner

Step #2: Choose Your Tool

Step #3: filter and sort the results, step #4: analyze the keyword ideas section, step #5: choose a keyword, bonus step #1: get exact keyword search volume data, bonus step #2: the gkp hack.

Try the FREE Backlinko Keyword Research Tool . Discover new keywords and performance data to use in your site content, SEO campaigns, and more.

Step #1: Access Google Keyword Planner

Yes, Keyword Planner is a free tool.

But there’s a catch:

In order to use the Google Keyword Planner, you NEED to have a Google Ads account.

If you don’t have a Google Ads account already, you can set one up in a few minutes:

(Just follow the prompts, enter some information about you and your business, and you’re in. Note: You don’t have to run an active campaign to use the Keyword Planner. But do need to at least set up a Google Ads campaign.)

Next, log in to your Google Adwords account. Click on the “Tools” menu item to the left of your screen.

Then, choose “Keyword Planner”:

You’ll see 3 different tools within Keyword Planner: “Discover New Keywords”, “Get search volume and forecasts”, and “Organize keywords into ad groups.”

When it comes to SEO-focused keyword research , the first two tools are enough to generate thousands of potential keywords.

To be clear:

This tool is designed with PPC advertisers in mind. So there are a lot of features in the tool (like keyword bidding features) that won’t be useful if you’re using this tool to find keywords for SEO.

With that, it’s time for me to show you how to find SEO keywords using each of the tools built into the Google Keyword Planner.

There are two main tools inside of the GKP.

And now I’m going to show you how to use these two tools to help you create a massive list of keywords for your SEO campaigns .

1. Discover New Keywords

Like the name suggests, this tool is ideal for finding new keywords.

As you can see, the field above this tool says: “Enter products or services closely related to your business”.

Quick Note: The value you get from the Keyword Planner is largely based on the information that you enter here. So you want to be VERY strategic about what you enter into this field.

So to help you get the most out of this tool, I’ll break down each of the two main options.

“ Start With Keywords ”: These words and phrases describe your business (for example, “weight loss” or “coffee”). This allows you to access Google’s internal database of keywords for different industries.

Pro Tip: You can enter multiple keywords into this field. Just put a comma after each keyword and press enter. For example, if you run an eCommerce site that sells cookies, you’d want to enter terms like “gluten free desserts” and “low carb cookies” here.

“ Start With a Website ”: This is designed for Adwords users. But you can sometimes find a few solid keywords here using your site’s homepage… or an article from your site.

(More on that later.)

Once you’ve entered your information into one (or all three) of the fields, click “Get Results”.

Next, you’ll see the Keywords Results Page. I’ll show you how to use that part of the Keyword Planner later in the guide.

For now, let’s dive into the second tool in the GKP: search volume and forecasts.

2. Get search volume and forecasts for your keywords

This feature is only really useful if you already have a long list of keywords… and just want to check their search volume. In other words, this tool won’t help you generate new keyword ideas.

To use it, copy and paste a list of keywords into the search field, and hit “Get Started”.

You’ll also see the same Keywords Results Page you see when you use the “Find new keywords” tool.

The only difference is that a) you only get data on the keywords you entered and b) Google will predict how many clicks and impressions you’ll get from the keywords you entered:

No matter which tool you ultimately used, you end up in the same place: The Keywords Result page.

And now it’s time for me to do a deep dive into how that page works… and how to get the most out of it.

Now it’s time to filter the list of keywords down to a smaller list of terms that are best for you.

Both the tools I just described will take you to the “Keywords Results Page”, which looks like this:

Here’s a breakdown of the page:

At the top of the page, you’ll notice four targeting options: Locations, Language, Search networks and Date range.

Here’s what these four things mean:

“Locations”

This is the country (or countries) that you’re marketing to. Simple.

This is the language of the keywords you want to see information on.

“Locations” and “Language” are automatically set to target English-speaking people in the United States. If that’s your target audience (in most cases it will be), you can leave these options as-is.

But let’s say you’re based in Germany. You’d want to change the Location to “Germany” and choose “German” as the language.

“Search networks”

This is whether or not you want to advertise only on Google… or Google and their “search partners”. Search partner sites include other search engines and Google properties (like YouTube).

I recommend leaving this set to just “Google”.

“Date range”

Leaving this as the default “12 months” is usually fine.

The next important feature of the Keywords Results Page is called “Add Filter”:

This feature gives you a decent amount of filtering options. So let me quickly break down each of the options for you.

Keyword Text

Here’s where you can have the tool ONLY show you keywords that contain a certain word or phrase.

Why would you want to include certain keywords?

Let’s say that you just launched a new line of blue t-shirts. In that case, you’d want to make sure the keyword “blue t-shirt” appears in all of the keywords that the Keyword Planner suggests to you.

Exclude Keywords in My Account

This excludes keywords that you’re already bidding on in Adwords.

Exclude Adult Ideas

Self-explanatory (I hope).

Avg. Monthly Searches

This is helpful for filtering out keywords with lots of search volume (after all, these terms tend to be really competitive). You may also want to filter out keywords that don’t get that many searches.

For example, let’s say that you get a big list of keyword ideas:

You can click on “Avg. Monthly Searches” to sort the results.

That way, you ONLY see keywords with lots of search volume.

You can also do the opposite. Click “Avg. Monthly Searches” again and you’ll get a list of low-volume terms:

Competition

You can have the Google Keyword Planner only show you keywords with “Low”, “Medium” or “High” competition.

This feature trips a lot of people up.

Remember: the Google Keyword Planner is designed 100% for Google Ads… not SEO.

So the “Competition” score here ONLY refers to Adwords competition (not how competitive the keyword is to rank for in Google’s organic search results). So I recommend leaving this blank.

Ad Impression Share

Again, this setting only applies to Adwords. So for the sake of SEO, we can ignore this filter.

Top of Page Bid

This is how much you’d expect to pay for your ad to appear at the top of the page for that keyword.

(This used to be called “Cost Per Click” or “CPC”.)

Top of Page Bid is a proxy indicator of commercial intent . So if you only want to target keywords that potential buyers search for, you can set this to a certain dollar amount.

As you can see, there are two options “high range” and “low range”.

I personally set the “low range” to a few dollars. That way, I can filter out keywords without any commercial intent.

Organic Impression Share

This is how often your site appears in the organic results for each keyword. (Note: to use this feature you’ll need to connect your Google Search Console Account to Google Adwords).

Organic Average Position

Where you rank (on average) for each keyword in Google organic. Again, you’ll need to connect to the GSC for this to work.

So that’s it for filtering.

The last feature of the Keywords Results Page to look out for is called “Broaden Your Search”.

This is a new feature that shows you keywords that are somewhat related to the terms you typed in.

For example, when you search for “Paleo Diet”, you get this list of suggestions:

Now that you’ve filtered the results down to keywords that are ideal for your business, let’s break down the terms that are left.

Specifically, I’m going to show you how to analyze the terms that show up in the “Keyword Ideas” section of the Keyword Planner.

Here’s what each of the terms in this section means:

Keyword (by relevance): This is the list of keywords that Google considers most relevant to the keyword or URL you typed into it.

Avg. monthly searches: Pretty self-explanatory. However, keep in mind that this is a range… and not a super-accurate indicator of search volume.

(I’ll show you how to get more accurate search volume data in a minute.)

Pro Tip: Watch out for seasonal keywords. That’s because seasonal keywords (like “Halloween costumes”) may get 50,000 searches in October and 100 searches in May. But the GKP will say that the term gets “10,000 searches per month”, which is kind of misleading.

Competition: Like I mentioned earlier, “Competition” in the Google Keyword Planner has nothing to do with SEO. Instead, “Competition” is simply the number of advertisers that are bidding on that keyword. But it IS useful to see if a keyword has any commercial intent (after all, the more people bid on a keyword, the more potential there is for them to become a lead or customer).

Top of Page Bid: This is another great way to size keyword’s monetization potential. The higher bid here, the more lucrative the traffic tends to be.

Now that you know how to use all of the tools, features and options within the Google Keyword Planner, it’s time for the last step: finding awesome keywords that you can optimize your site’s content around.

This is tricky.

Why? There are LOTS of factors that go into choosing a keyword . And it’s more art than science.

That said, I learn best from examples. So I’m going to help you choose a keyword from your list by walking you through a quick example.

(For this example I’m going to be using the “Discover new keywords” tool because this is the best way to uncover new keywords in the Google Keyword Planner.)

First, you want to think of a keyword that’s somewhat broad…but also describes your product, service or content idea.

For example, let’s say that you run an eCommerce site that sells organic food.

If you wanted to write a blog post about the health benefits of organic coffee, you wouldn’t want to use the keyword “coffee” (too broad) or “health benefits of organic coffee” (too narrow).

But a keyword like “organic coffee” would work GREAT.

So pop that keyword into the field and click “Get Started”.

And take a look at the keywords that come up:

So: how do you know which keywords to choose?

There are dozens of different factors to look at. But, in general, I like to choose keywords based on 3 main criteria:

Search Volume: Very straightforward. The higher the average search volume, the more traffic that keyword can send you.

Commercial Intent: In general, the higher the competition and suggested bid, the easier it will be to convert that traffic into paying customers when they land on your website.

Organic SEO Competition: Like commercial intent, evaluating a keyword’s competition in Google’s organic search results takes some more digging. You need to look at the websites that are ranking on the first page… and figure out how hard it’ll be to outrank them. This guide to SEO keyword competition covers everything you need to know.

The Google Keyword Planner will only show you exact search volume data if you’re running an active Adwords campaign. Otherwise, you see a range , like this:

To be honest, the range is actually fine by me. Keyword volume tends to fluctuate anyway. So even the “exact” average monthly search volume that you used to see in the GKP was a rough estimate anyway.

In other words, there’s nothing wrong with choosing keywords based on search volume ranges.

That said, there’s a nifty trick you can use to get exact search volume out of the GKP… without needing to run ads in a Google Adwords account.

Here’s how to do it…

First, find a keyword in the list of suggestions that you want to target:

Then click “add to plan”:

Next, in the right-hand sidebar of the page, click “Plan overview”:

And look at the number of “impressions” you’d get if you bid on that term:

That number is how many people search for that keyword every month.

(In this case, 2.1k searches per month.)

And just like that, you now have accurate search volume data for your keyword. Nice!

As you saw, the Google Keyword Planner is pretty cool.

That said, the Google keyword tool has two major flaws…

Flaw #1: It only gives you keywords ideas that are VERY closely related to what you type in.

For example, let’s say your business sells organic food for pets.

So you type “organic dog food” into the tool. Here’s what you get:

As you can see, these are VERY close variations of “organic dog food”, like:

• “natural dog food”
• “dog food brands”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need a fancy tool to come up with a keyword like “dog food”.

And it’s the same story for most keywords. The GKP is good at coming up with long tail versions of your keyword . But it’s not great at generating outside-the-box keyword ideas.

Flaw #2: You get the same set of keywords everyone else does.

Needless to say, the Google Keyword Planner is an insanely popular keyword tool.

This means: the keywords that you find in the GKP tend to be SUPER competitive.

Fortunately, there’s a simple way around both of those frustrating issues: The GKP Hack.

Here’s how it works:

First, head over to the Discover New Keywords area of the GKP. Then hit “Start With a Website”.

But instead of entering a keyword, you enter a URL from another website in your niche.

For example, instead of entering “organic dog food” into the field, let’s use PetSmart’s dog food category page.

You get a laundry list of keywords that most of your competitors will NEVER see.

It gets better…

There are LOTS of other pages that you can use for the GKP Hack, including:

• Press releases
• Conference agendas
• Bio pages of influencers in your industry
• News stories
• Podcast transcripts

Basically: any page that has text on it is fair game for this technique.

I hope you enjoyed my guide to the Google Keyword Planner.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

Do you use the Keyword Planner to help you come up with keyword ideas?

Or do you mostly stick to other keyword research tools (like SEMRush)?

Let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

Although this says it was last updated a few weeks ago, I find that it is actually outdated. I’m unable to access the keyword planner without creating an ad. The screen captures in the article are no longer the same as what Google Ads is showing a new user. The icons on the top right are no longer there and the only options is to finish your first ad.

Hey June, we just updated all of the screenshots. I’ll look into what might have recently changed.

OK so I did look into this. And like I mentioned in the post, you need to setup a Google Ads account (including cc info). But you don’t need to actually run a campaign.

I ran into exactly the same issue…It won’t let you create an account unless you create a campaign. When you do that, the campaign is in PENDING state. I immediately PAUSEd the campaign which I hope stops any billing! Then you need to click the gear and switch to Expert Mode which will give you access to the WRENCH (tools and settings) to launch the keyword tools. I hope this helps.

Click the ‘skip guided content’. Then there is no need to fill in any cc or payment method detail.

But that you can only do 1st time while setting up new account and 1st time if you didn’t skip then there no option even you press go back button

Great article!

I’m having the same problem as June though.

I’ll bet someone at Google has spotted your article and decided to change it, so that people aren’t using the tool for free 🙁

I was really excited about this too, it was a great read!

I was initially having the same issue, but you have to click on the settings gear icon in the top right of the page and select “expert view” or something to that effect. Then the screenshots will match the ones in the article.

Great article, Brian! I’ve been running around trying to just “figure out” the GKP and gotten nowhere. This was exactly the straightforward tutorial I needed to get a good handle on how to make it useful 🙂

Yup, Google makes it kind of tricky to access the GKP. But, as you pointed out, it’s doable if you follow the steps from this guide. Thanks Katherine!

Did this, but no ‘expert view’ to see. I tried almost everything, followed the steps of Google itself, clicked on the link to the key word planner and it automatically sends you to the campaign builder…. Very frustrating.

April 2019 – unfortunately I am also unable to get past the ‘Create an ad’ stage. It’s requesting I put in payment information for an ad I don’t want, and there are no other routes out of this page. Anyone know of any similar keyword planners that I could use please?

Hi Lozzy, you need to setup a Google Ads account (which includes payment info) to get access. But you don’t need to actually run the ad.

Earlier GKP had option of choosing exact match and broad match keywords; couldn’t find any such option now. Could you help on this?

Hmmm. Maybe they removed that feature? I’ll look into it.

Hi, Brian – I’m writing this comment on April 6, 2019 (in case this is relevant to answering my question). Per your post, I created a Google Ads account and also a Google AdWords campaign (and entered my CC info). Now, I don’t intend to run any campaign – just want to use the Google Keyword Planner tool. So what I did is that right after I finished creating the AdWords campaign, I immediately went to the dropdown that says “Enabled” (green color) and clicked “Paused” (tan color) instead. So, my question really is: Is that all I need to do to make sure this ad campaign (which I created only because I had to to use Keyword Planner tool) NEVER runs? In other words, will Google at some point “enable” the AdWords campaign without asking me? Thanks in advance! And thanks for creating this G. Keyword Planner guide (this is my first time using this tool).

Thanks Kevin. Yup, you should be good to go. But you may want to reach out to Google Ads support to double check.

Hi Brian! and thanks for your post. I couldn’t come up with the same results as you in the Bonus Tip #1, basically my filter doesn’t take into account the item I selected and also I didn’t get why do say 120K impressions when it shows only 2.1K Anyway, hope you can answer, and thanks again man! Flo

Hi Flo, you’re welcome. That was actually a typo. It should be “2.1k”. Fixed!

Question, so if I start this Google journey, will doing all this adding words, etc cost? Does everything cost to add words?

Can you explain the difference between Volume and Average monthly searches in Keyword planner in detail

I can’t access keyword planner in order to play with it. This page https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home redirects me to “creatre a campaign”. On this one too https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/

I don’t want to create campaign, I want to use keyword planner.

How? Something changed?

Hi Alex, You don’t have to run an active campaign to use the Keyword Planner. But do need to at least set up a Google Adwords campaign.

I don’t want to create an ad for now. It requires my bank card anyway. Is this necessary? How can I use the keyword tool withthout all that?

You have to enter your billing details. You can’t use it without that.

Hi Brian, My question is as per the “old” GKP, you could add a word to your keywords and it would link the 2 together. Example: spa, facials, massage, then we would be able to add in maternity and it would only search for Maternity massage, maternity spa etc. Is this feature gone in the new version? Just makes our keywords easier to manage if w have more than one word to add (maternity was one but pregnancy with the same keywords as above.) any advice?

Hi Erika, you can still enter multiple keywords (separated by commas). But I don’t think you can do what you outlined above anymore.

Hey Erika, I think I know what you mean. You would want to use broad modified and phrase matches to have google fill in your desired blanks. E.g. +maternity +massage or “maternity massage”

There is also another method when setting up your ads, you would add in a piece of code in one of the 3 headlines. Type: Keyword, and it will give you one of three options. Select keyword and enter your keyword, such as massage, and when somebody searches X massage, google will fill in their keyword before you keyword “massage”.

Hope this helps

Thanks for your guidance. But I couldn’t start any ad campaign without filling out the payment method. Once I give my credit card number to Google, I suppose it’ll incur ad costs? How can I get around this problem? Thanks.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge on the Keyword research for SEO The Definitive Guide it really helpful. But I can search with URL to get the list of keywords my competition ain’t seeing, Error: Invalid characters such as \][`/, Is there a hack to that? Thanks in advance.

Hello Brian,

This an awesome guide for the GKT, and I am so happy with the results I got when I followed all your instructions on this guide. TBH, your blog is the best blog ever I’ve read and applied it easily without any difficulties. There’s a new update on GKT I expect you noticed when you enter your phrases and your words on the “add new keywords” box there will appear another section below called: “Other keywords to try” includes keywords related to the searches results I think we can try these keywords in this section in our keyword research, what do you think?

Thanks again for creating this guide for us! Best of luck!

Thanks Rayan. I’ll check that feature out!

Brian – great info a usual! This is a somewhat related question to GKP, but what has happened to ‘Competition’ just being listed as Low, Medium or High? Realize they changed to this awhile ago but even then I used to be able to get the number when I exported it to CSV.

I use SEO Powersuite’s Rank Tracker and I can see the number in their software – only hovering over it but it won’t export with number. When I do export still get the Low, Medium, High. It pulls directly from GKP so the number is still being generated.

Multiple Questions:

1 – I was wondering if there’s anyway to get the number? I’m creating algorithms as an additional check for keyword selection.

2 – Is Google just tightening up in order to offer it in paid plans – just like they did with search volume

3 – Is their competition calculation really a good number to consider with keywords? Does it really have/present useful information to consider in regards to keyword selection? (Guess this should be the 1st question – lol)

4 – Does the “Competition (indexed value)” number have the same value as the old competition number or serve the same purpose? This number is found when you export GKP info to CSV.

Sorry for the deluge of questions! Thanks again.

Thanks Andy. I noticed that too and I need to dig in, check out the new layout and features in the GKP and update that post. Right now, I’m not sure how to answer those questions outside of #3. And that’s basically: that’s not a great way to figure out which keywords to go with. Here’s more info on that: https://backlinko.com/keyword-competition

Through and insightful. Thank You for posting. The new GKP tool requires: 1) register ads account. 2) start a campaign 3) activate campaign then pause. 4) follow along your article.

Thank you Brian, What is the figure under Comp(Au) e.g. a value of 0-1 (e.g. .89). Is this the competition value? e.g. if its .45 vs .8 the .45 would easier to get than the one with .8?

Hey Brian. The guide is cool. However, I did not quote find the answer to something. When choosing a keyword for PPC (and low budget; new business with new Ad account), what combination to use: 1. High Volume + High Comptt 2. Low Volume + Low COmptt or some other combination? Or also use low bid range?

https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/choosing-keywords

Thank you for this useful content. There is a mistake in the beginning of your article where you say:

Note: You don’t have to run an active campaign to use the Keyword Planner. But do need to at least set up a Google Adwords campaign.

We can use google keyword planner without setup camping. In starting steps (what is your main advertising goal), below 3 options there is a link with this anchor text: “Experienced with google ads?”, by click on it, we can access google keyword planner without setup any campaign.

Hello Brian, this was great and I really liked the way you simplified everything and broke it down. It is a great content for first time users. However, I tried to use the “add to plan” part but in the plan overview I only get your plan in empty. could you maybe troubleshoot what I am doing wrong?!

If you have paid version of Ahrefs, Semrush or smth else I don’t think that you need to have GKP. Even if you’re lack of budget there is another tool – Ubersuggest. However, all of these tools don’t show volume for exact cities, states and other areas. At that point, GKP is better for local SEO and your language. Another cool features are comparing mobile and desktop traffic. Some keywords are completely mobile or desktop. It’s better to consider when you create content.

Great post Bryan Thank you for the explanations 👍

Thanks Bryan, im planning to put up an eCommerce site, and, coming to your post was a very good find, cheers!

So I made an account with google ads and I am in the dashboard area and I’m not seeing what is in the screenshots. I tried switching to expert mode but it doesn’t actually change what I’m seeing in smart mode. Is the expert mode only available on desktop?

Thank you for providing this very helpful guide on the Google Keyword Planner tool. I have been using Google Ads for 7 years now, and never took the time to do keyword research. Great article!

Has the “suggested bid” information gone? Can’t find it anymore in my keyword stats.

I can’t manually filter The “Average Monthly Search Value” In “Google Keyword Planner”

I can’t either, still trying to figure that out.

You said,”But do need to at least set up a Google Adwords campaign!”. But for this I need to pay right? So how come this Adword tool is free? If I’m wrong then correct me please…

It is asking for a campaign set up and I can’t find any other way to skip it. I think it is not free anymore.

As per the comments above, great descriptive article, but the information is no longer correct. On the final page of set up (in Aust. at least) it has a note about the amount for your ad campaign being deducted automatically. Although reasonably tech savvy, I have been unable to find any pages similar to the ones you are diplaying, no wrench icon, not even in “expert mode”… so beyond spending the $$, Im pretty sure you cant access it.

Great article. I always thought competition meant ranking competition -____-“. Thanks for sharing.

I struggle with SEO so just starting to use Google keyword tool. I appreciate the detailed post. I’m gonna check out more of your stuff. I’m excited to get into the SEO stuff.

I am going through the process of setting up a Google Adwords account, but it gives me no other option but to create an active campaign, and my website is still under development. How do I bypass this and get to Google Keyword Planner?

This guide is thought out, but actually outdated. Almost none of the screenshots match up. It appears Google changed everything up. So, if someone could muster up the courage and rewrite this whole article based on the new google format and use the SEO tactics, they could take advantage – no-one really has an updated guide out yet.

I just signed up as a guide. There is nothing expect a page that says to create a campaign. I am not able to access the keyword planner without creating a campaign.

Is there any solution to access a keyword planner without creating a campaign?

Looking forward for your answer.

Hi Brian, Thanks for the Awesome guide about keyword planner & keyword research. How can i find question related keywords in keyword Planner.

Hey Brian, this is a really nice guide and I use keyword planner for all my keyword research. But there is one thing that I’m not sure about, from what I know the impressions you talked about shows how many people will see my website if I rank in top results (as in PPC form), so how close are these numbers to the actual search volume? Thank you

Got it to work! Not really sure how, though. I was having issues with the requirements in the set up, but now it’s working. It was asking me for a url and an active website, but I bypassed it somehow. I opened a new tab and accessed google keyword planner like that. Went to try another account set up and it actually took me to the dashboard that’s shown in this article. Thanks!

Thank you for the post, Brian. I’m just getting started out, so I am very appreciative of people like you who put this information out there.

By the way, I found that when I was entering keywords into the “Discover New Keywords” line, you can just press enter without the comma to add more. Alternatively, you can use the space bar after a comma.

Nice tip there. Thanks Jason.

Wow that was convoluted, I managed to get into Expert mode without putting in my card/billing details or starting a campaign.

You have to RIGHT back to the beginning where you first put in your website name….if you are already in a Campaign, click BACK until you see the very first screen.

At the bottom in small print there is an option to “Skip Guided Content”.

(From here it gets a bit vague because I did a lot of clicks…)

From there find an option to Switch to Expert Mode. Either on the page or on the top bar (there might be a wrench icon).

In fact, I had to Switch to Export Mode twice.

At some point I ended up with “All Campaigns”, this is good, because now you’ll see the Tools & Settings option > Planning > Keyword Tool.

Now bookmark it so you never have to tear your hair out again.

This doesnt work anymore does it?

1. go to search bar, type “google keyword planner tool” 2. sign in with your google ads account 3. if google is requesting you to make a campaign first, just hit the “back” button several times until you don’t see it anymore. 4. click the tiny blue phrase “switch to expert mode” 5. click the tiny blue phrase “Create an account without a campaign” 6. click the “submit” button 7. click “explore your campaign” button 8. click the wrench icon which says “settings” 9. click “switch to expert mode” 10. confirm by clicking one last time “switch to expert mode” 11. click the wrench icon which says “tools and settings” 12. there ya go, click “keyword planner”

What happened to the blue graph that used to be beside the numbers on the average monthly searches column? It was a great indication of seasonality and now it seems to have disappeared.

People here are saying that they can’t use Google KWP anymore, but that’s not true, I can use this, just by signing up for Google Ads with no campaign!

Hi Brian, After getting thru “Discover new Keywords”, I’m not getting exact monthly searches and graphs. I’m simply getting the range. How is this so???

Hi Brian, Thanks for this brief information. I am curious to know, the data shown in the keyword research is a real-time data or how to check the last updated date.

Am I missing something? I’ve used Google’s keyword planner in the past and came back here in September 2020 because now it just gives me results based on EUR1 of spending, rather than the search volume data you can see in Step 3 of this guide. Is there any way to get to the old volume view?

Hi Brian, thank you for your great content!

I’m reading your guide in Sep, 2020 and I have just realized that there’s no more “Add to plan” button.

The UI of GKP is changed, too. We can’t see the exact search volume without running ads campaigns.

Please have a look and update your guide so it can be the most updated for everyone 🙂

Once again, thank you and I admire you a lot!

This is super useful! It’s a lot to take in, but step by step I’m getting there. Especially the part about entering a link to a website of a similar brand or product website. Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention, but I am not sure what my next step can be once I have all these awesome insights in keywords from another website. How can I use this to my advantages? (It’s such a massive list).

Many thanks!!

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Berjaya founder Vincent Tan denies casino plan in Malaysia’s Forest City

Anwar also denies report government is mulling over a second casino licence to revive the beleaguered US$100b development

Tan Ai Leng

[KUALA LUMPUR] Berjaya Corp denied that company founder Vincent Tan was in talks to build a casino in Johor’s Forest City, as reported recently.

The response came after Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Thursday (Apr 25) denied a recent news report that the government is mulling over a second casino licence to revive the beleaguered US$100 billion development in the southern state of the country.

Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Berjaya and Genting Group were in early discussions with the Malaysian government on opening a casino in Forest City, Johor.

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• Malaysia mulls over plans for casino in Forest City as part of Johor-S’pore Special Economic Zone: sources

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