Target Google Ads With Keyword Research
In our last article, we looked at the options in Google Ads to allow you to target customers based on their location (where). In this article we take a closer look at the world of keyword research to display search ads based on what the customer is looking for.
Keyword Research
Choosing the right keywords can make or break your ad campaign. There are a lot of tools that you can use to assist you in your search for relevant keywords. However, in addition, you need a good understanding of your potential customers so you can predict what they might type in the search box. In this article we will provide an overview of how to gather, edit and organise your collection of keywords for more effective campaigns.
Start With The Landing Page
The best place to start your keyword research is on the landing page. This is the page where your potential customers will arrive when they click your ad. Review the text on the landing page(s) and start making a list of relevant keywords that you can use. Once you’ve completed this task, you should have a good starting point for your keyword research.
Organise With Four Categories
Once you have your initial keyword list, you can start to organise it into four broad categories
Brand Phrases - Keywords that contain your brand name for example,Joe’s Coffee, Joe’s Coffe.com, Joe’s Coffee beans
Competitor Phrases - Keywords that relate to your competitors selling similar products
Generic phrases - Keywords relating to your products and services for example, coffee, latte, americano.
Related phrases - Keywords that don’t relate precisely to your products but are related for example, tea, hot drinks, cold weather
When considering keywords, it’s a good idea to start with a very broad term and then get more specific. For example, drinks > hot drinks > coffee > latte > skimmed latte…
You should also consider words that have a similar meaning. For example ,coffee is also known as java, a cup of joe or brew. These should be included in your keyword list as well.
Consider The Long Tail
When selecting keywords, it's important to realise that the more broad generic terms (like coffee) will cost you more to include in your campaign. As your terms get more specific (for example, “specialist coffee in central Dublin”) they will more likely be less costly. These specific terms are known as long tail keywords. They will likely have less clicks than the broad terms but the people clicking on them are more likely to want what you are advertising.
Long String Words and Phrases
It has become more common for customers to use voice recognition on their phones when making search queries. This means that search terms can be longer than traditional text based search e.g. “What is the best coffee shop in central Dublin?” Consider using some of these longer phrases in your keyword list to take account of this change in search behaviour.
Keyword Tools
Now that you have your initial list of keywords, you can review some of the many Keyword Tools available. This will help you edit your list as the tools provide data on how many times your proposed keywords are used in search queries.
Google’s Keyword planner is a popular tool for this type of analysis and we will be publishing a more comprehensive article on its use at a later date. However, the key statistic that you are looking for in a tool like this is the search volume.
Google’s tool will also let you know the level of competition for your chosen keywords. The more competitive a word or phrase is, the more expensive it will be to use in your campaign. Look for keywords with high volume but lower levels of competition.
These tools are also useful for helping you to identify additional keywords that you may have omitted from your initial list.
Organise Your KeyWords
You should now have a really good list of keywords related to your ad campaign. The next step is to break this list into small, targeted groups of keywords that are closely related to each other. The keywords in each category can then be placed into ad groups within Google Ads.
The more precise these ad groups are, the easier it is to measure the effectiveness of the keywords, edit the list moving forward and generate targeted and relevant ads. The more organised and relevant your campaign the better your Quality Score will be.
The Quality score is Google’s calculation that measures the overall user experience of your ad. This number (from 1-10) can impact the overall cost and effectiveness of your search ads. More on this key figure in a future article
Negative Keywords
Finally, consider using negative keywords in your campaign. These are search terms that you don’t want your ads to show up for. You can use these keywords to negate queries that are irrelevant or offensive. If we assume that the coffee shop in our example is a high end retailer, we can exclude searches such as “cheap coffee” from our list with negative keywords.
You can also use negative keywords to exclude terms that are similar but not related to your business. For example, “coffee maker” and “coffee machine” might be examples that our coffee shop could exclude.
A good list of negative keywords can save your campaign money by only showing your ad when it’s relevant.
Summary
Creating, editing and managing your keywords is a vital part of your search ad campaign. Don’t underestimate the amount of time that this exercise can take you. A good rule of thumb is to spend around 15% of your campaign management time on keyword research.
A good set of well defined keywords can help target your campaign, generate good quality traffic and help you manage the ad spend.
A poor set of keywords will burn through your ad spend in no time and the clicks generated will be less likely to convert into new business.
If you are interested in running a Google Search Ad campaign for your business but you're not sure how to get started, please reach out to us here.