Keyword research is absolutely essential in the creation of pay-per-click Google Ads. Having a bank of the most relevant keywords for your business will allow you to utilise them within your Google Ads, and improve your quality score. A high quality score ensures that Google ranks your website highly in the search engine results page.
To get the click-through-rate (CTR) and brand visibility you desire, read more on how you can conduct solid keyword research for your Google Ads Campaign in 2024.
Google Ads keyword research is the process of finding the right keywords to use in your Google Ads campaigns. When you choose the right keywords, your ads will be promoted higher up on Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) and shown to people who are interested in what you have to offer.
Keyword research may be a term that is already familiar to you. This will entail essentially the same process, but specifically targeted towards Google Ads campaigns.
Keyword research is absolutely paramount for creating Google Ads. It helps you to target your ads to the right people. When you know what keywords people are using to search for products or services like yours, you can create ads that are more relevant to their needs.
Specifically to Google Ads, having good keywords ensure you have a good quality score. Your Google Ads Quality Score is a measure of the quality, relevance, and performance of your ads in your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. It is measured using a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.
A good quality score not only means your ad will rank well, it will also lower your PPC cost. Google rewards advertisers with relevant ads with lower costs of their services. Keyword research is a notable way of gaining a higher score, hence why it is so important specifically for Google Ads creation.
Like any SEO campaign, you will want to create a keyword list for your Google Ads. Start with the website landing page(s) that your ads will be linking to. Scan each page and collect relevant keywords from the copy you already have. This should allow you to collate a fairly comprehensive list of keywords that directly relate to your products or services.
With this list of keywords, you should now use keyword research to refine or even expand on this list. Because we are discussing keyword research in relation to the creation of Google Ads, we recommend using Google’s Keyword Planner as it is included with it.
The key statistic you’re looking for is search volume. The higher the search volume, the more people are searching for that given term per month. Special to Google Keyword Planner, they assign a “Competition” rank of high, medium, or low for each keyword. A high competition rating means that more advertisers are bidding on these terms, which means you’ll be likely to have to pay more to get your ad to the top positions for these search terms.
Sorting through your list and perusing Google Ads suggestions, you’ll want to highlight high-volume, low-competition keywords. These terms could drive substantial traffic to your website without costing you more as Google Ads is a PPC service. This will work to refine and possibly expand your keyword list, while overall making sure your list is more robust.
You will need to divide your keywords to ensure they are clearly organised and easy to tackle. This can be done by sorting your list by keyword match types. There are three keyword match types in Google Ads:
Knowing this keyword relevance in ads and different match types is important. It is recommended to utilise more phrase match keywords when you create your first Google Ads campaign. They strike the perfect balance between a higher volume whilst maintaining relevance to the customer search query.
You might also want to experiment combining match types to create more specific targeting. For example, you could use broad match for keywords that can garner general attention, and combine that with some terms in phrase matching to lure in potential consumers that are likely to want what you have to offer.
The last consideration in your Google Ads keyword journey is to add negative keywords to your campaign. These are search terms that you don’t want your ads to show up for. They’re an important part of any campaign optimisation, because they keep your ad relevant to the target audience.
For example, if you are a high end furniture store, you are not going to want people searching for ‘cheap furniture’ to find your site. They are not searching for what you can provide. Thus, negative keywords filter out the audience that your product or services do not cater for.
You can’t create effective Google Ads without conducting quality keyword research. By following these steps, keyword research should be a more streamlined and effective process for your website to rank well and attract more customers. We hope that these tips will help you step up your game in 2024 and start your Google Ads keyword research like a pro!
