Keyword Research

Creating Google Search Ads campaigns requires specifying lists of keywords which will trigger ads. Advertisers must research keywords and organise these into campaigns and ad groups based on themes to create successful campaigns.

• Write down business categories and/or products
• Brainstorm keywords
• Generate keywords using Google Keyword Planner and other tools
• Organise keywords into groups
• Assign keywords to campaigns/Ad groups

Step 1: Brainstorm keywords

First write down your business’ main categories or products, then write down the words or phrases that might be in each category. Include words or phrases that your customers would use to describe your products or services.

If you sell men’s sports shoes, you could begin with some basic categories that customers would use, like ‘men’s sports shoes’. You can also add ‘men’s trainers’ and ‘men’s tennis shoes’, if you find out that these are commonly used terms for your products. Expand your list further by including your product and brand names.

Step 2: Generate additional keywords

Once you have your broad categories of keywords created, use tools such as Google Keyword Planner tool to flesh out the list.

Google Keyword planning tool

When building a Search Network campaign, get keyword ideas and estimate the traffic for those keywords with the Keyword Planner.

This tool will show you how a list of keywords might perform and the average number of times people searched for those terms. Use this information to decide which keywords might increase clicks on your and raise awareness of your product.

Use your head

Spend some time thinking about when they would buy your product, what kinds of questions they would have – even what items they would buy instead of your product (either as a replacement or from a competitor).

Google Autocomplete.

Google search can be used for keyword research. If you write a few letters in the search box, search phrases automatically appear as suggestions based on their popularity. Google displays the terms users search for most.

Other tools

Other tools you can use include:

• 3^rd Party research tools
• Amazon

Keyword Types

Specific keywords

Select keywords directly related to specific products to target customers interested in a particular product. By using more specific keywords your ad will only appears for terms that directly apply to your business, boosting conversion rate. However, bear in mind that if the keywords are too specific, you might not be able to reach many people.

Traffic generation: Low

Cost per click: Low

Conversion rate: High

For example, if you sell men’s sports shoes, you might choose specific keywords like ‘mens tennis shoes’, a type of shoe you offer. That way, your ad would be eligible to display for searches for these types of shoes.

General Keywords

Select more general keywords to reach as many people as possible. Remember that you might find your ads have a click through and conversion rate when adding very general keywords because your ad could appear for searches that are not always related to your business. Furthermore, general keywords can be more competitive and require higher bid amounts.

When using broad targeting, consider using Smart Bidding. Smart bidding uses machine learning technology to prioritise the best-performing searches regardless of their match type.  Best practice is to test general keywords, to determine which ones generate the better results.

For example, if you sell a broad range of shoes, you might specify a general keyword like ‘shoes.’ By doing this, your ad would be eligible to show when someone searches for a wide variety of shoes.

Cost per click: high

Traffic: high

Conversion rate: low

Negative keywords

There may be certain searches that you do not want to appear for. For example, you may sell microwave ovens, and not want to appear for search for toy microwave ovens. In this case, good negative keywords would be:

• Toy
• Toys
• Play
• Pretend

Organise your keywords

Organise your keywords into broad themes (campaigns) and more specific ad groups. For example, if you are selling sports shoes, you might create structure like this:

Campaign: Sports shoes

Ad groups: General shoe terms, Tennis shoes, running shoes, trail shoes

By organising your keywords into targeted ad groups, you increase the relevant of your ads to your keywords and landing page, increasing your conversion rate.