Introduction
Customers take immediate action whenever they want to learn, find, do, or buy something.
This course will explain how keywords connect you to these interested customers and how to build the right list for your campaign.
What you’ll learn:
How keywords help you reach customers when they’re showing interest
How to start building the right keyword list for your campaign
What would you do?
You’re launching a new app that allows customers to find last-minute deals on flights. Which of the following keywords or phrases would you choose for your campaign?
What are keywords?
Your customers are already out there roaming the web. The trick is to have them find you. That's where keywords come in. Keywords are words or phrases that help determine where and when your ad can appear. Building a solid keyword list helps you reach only the most interested people, who are more likely to become your customers. Pretty cool, huh?
Building your keyword list: Seven tips for success
Selecting the right keyword list for your campaign can help you show your ads to the right customers. Your keywords should match the terms your potential customers would use to find your products or services. Here are seven tips to build a successful keyword list:
Think like a customer when you create your list: For most advertisers, their Google Ads accounts are powered by keywords. There are a host of different sources available to you to find the right ones. Regardless of the sources that you use to generate your keywords, you should think holistically about all the different ways that potential customers could reach you. Here are the biggest sources you should consider when determining how to find new keywords:Your website: Stay on top of your site’s offerings. Find any gaps between your site’s content and your keyword list.Your products: Be sure that you’re bidding on core product keywords. When your audience is at the end of the buying cycle, they’ll be searching for a specific product or service. If you’re a retailer, things like product names and models can make for high-performing keywords.Your brand: Remember the value of your branded terms as well. If you deal with multiple products, add keywords that are combinations of your brand name and high-volume products that people often search for in the same query.
Organize your keywords by theme: Organizing your keywords into well-defined groupings often makes it easier for you to manage and maintain your account. This may correspond to the customer’s journey, for example, grouping upper funnel versus lower funnel keywords. You may group keywords by performance targets, such as cost per acquisition, margin, or profitability. Alternatively, you may want to group keywords by business structure, such as product line, brand, or geography. Example: If you own a shoe store, you might create two ad groups: one for running shoes and one for evening shoes. Your ad group for running shoes could include ads with keywords like "running shoes" and "running sneakers". Your ad group for evening shoes could include keywords like "evening shoes" and "dress shoes". This way, potential customers could see your ad about evening shoes when they search for "evening shoes" — not when they search for "running shoes".
Select specific keywords to target specific customers: Select more specific keywords that directly relate to your ad's theme if you want to target customers who may be interested in a particular product. Using more specific keywords would mean that your ad only appears for terms that apply to your business. Keep in mind that if the keywords are too specific, you might not be able to reach as many people as you'd like. Example: If you sell men's athletic footwear, you might choose specific keywords like "men's basketball shoes", a type of shoe you offer. That way, for example, your ad would be eligible to appear when someone searches for these types of shoes or visits a website about basketball.
Select general keywords to reach more people: Select more general keywords if you prefer to reach as many people as possible. Keep in mind that you might find it difficult to reach potential customers when adding very general keywords because your ad could appear for searches that aren't always related to your business. Also, more general keywords can be more competitive and may require higher bid amounts. Example: If you're a large shoe store, you might choose a general keyword like "shoes". That way, for example, your ad would be eligible to appear when someone searches for a wide variety of shoes or visits websites about fashion.
Use negative keywords: Negative keywords prevent your ad from showing in searches that use terms that aren't relevant to your product or service. Adding negative keywords can help you reduce costs and make your ad appear only for the search terms you want. Example: If you sell men's athletic footwear, but you don’t sell soccer cleats, you could add “cleats” as a negative keyword.
Pick the right number of keywords: We recommend five to 20 keywords per ad group, although you can have more than 20 keywords in an ad group if you want. Remember, each ad group should contain keywords that directly relate to that group's theme. Your keywords will automatically match variations such as possible misspellings or plural versions. So you don't need to add those. Example: If your ad group contained the broad match type keyword "tennis shoes", then your ad would be eligible to appear when someone searched for that keyword or any variation of the keyword such as "buy tennis shoes", "running shoes", or "tennis sneakers".
Choose keywords that relate to the websites or apps your customers see: On the Google Display Network, your keywords allow your ads to show on relevant websites or in apps. Choose keywords that are related to each other and that are related to the content your customers browse. For apps, Google Ads may extend the scope of your keywords in order to match your ads to more relevant search terms.Example: Imagine you create a keyword list that includes terms related to boots. Websites about boots would be targeted by the keywords on your list. You could also exclude the terms "ski" and "snowboard" to prevent your ads from appearing on sites about winter sports.
Writing effective keywords: Putting a plan in motion
You know that the right keywords can have a big impact on targeting, but how do you write effective keywords? Let’s follow Marla, an online children’s shoe retailer who’s no stranger to shoes — or keywords — as she goes through the process of creating a keyword list. In doing so, she incorporates a few tips for choosing the right keywords — tips that pay off in attracting customers and improving results on her next Search campaign!
At first, Marla wanted to get as many customers to her online shoe store as possible. So, her initial campaign used very general keywords like “shoes” and “sneakers”. This strategy worked well to foster lots of clicks, but on the sales front, the numbers weren’t quite as high.
So, in thinking about how to approach updating her keywords, Marla considers the first tip: Think like a customer!In doing so, she tries to imagine what her customers might search for and creates lists of all the categories of shoes she sells — things like boys’ athletic shoes, girls’ dress shoes, etc. Then she thinks of specific search words for each category. So, for the boys’ athletic shoes category, for example, she might list “running shoes”, “basketball shoes”, and “soccer cleats”. Now, she has a list of keywords that are specific to the kinds of searches that people who are looking for shoes like the ones she actually sells might use!
Now, she’s onto tip #2: organize keywords by theme. This takes that first tip one step further by creating an ad group around keyword themes for the different types of shoes she sells. One campaign she comes up with is around the broad theme of boys’ athletic shoes. In here, she creates different ads and keywords — things like “basketball shoes”, “soccer cleats”, and “running shoes”. Now this campaign is targeting the right customer, while being organized as well!
And for our next idea, tip #3. In this case, it’s time to be specific. To promote a boys’ basketball shoe sale, she decides to revamp the existing keywords for this ad group with those targeted specifically to this promotion. Rather than use general terms like “basketball” or “sports”, she updates with specific keywords — things like “discount boys’ basketball shoes” and “boys’ basketball shoes sale”, to get started. She knows this is just the beginning of a more complete list — successful advertisers choose between five and 20 keywords per ad group!
To improve visibility to likely customers even further, Marla applies tip #4: use negative keywords. This ensures her ads don’t show to the wrong people. Since she only sells children's shoes, to her negative keyword lists she adds things like “Women's” and “Men's” to make sure that she isn’t paying for clicks on a product she doesn’t sell. And at this point Marla is up to 15 keywords, so she’s easily following tip #5 of having five to 20 keywords per ad group.
Recap
When creating keywords, remember to think like your customer, organize by theme, and be specific or broad, depending on your goals.
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