The success of a Google Ads account is usually dependent on its search campaigns. Google search campaigns are campaigns that show ads when someone types in a query on Google.com.
The driver of a good search campaign is the proper use of keywords. Keywords are the words you use to target ads on relevant queries to your business.
It’s important to conduct proper keyword research prior to launching a Google Ads search campaign. This will help you allocate your ad budget more effectively at the time of launch.
A common mistake that we see with Google Ad accounts is the use of keywords that are not relevant to the business. This results in wasted ad spend and poor performance.
The goal of conducting keyword research is to find relevant terms for your business that help turn website traffic and visitors into customers.
In order to conduct proper keyword research, you will need to have a Google Ads account created. If you don’t have Google Ads account created, then please refer to our guide on How to Create a Google Ads account.
Here are the top 3 ways to conduct keyword research:
- Google Ads Keyword Planner
- Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest Tool
- Google.com
Let’s take a deeper look at each…
1. Google Ads Keyword Planner
Once you have a Google Ads account created, click the tools and settings icon in the top navigation and under the Planning column, click “Keyword Planner”.
Google’s Keyword Planner gives you two options for researching keywords:
- Discover New Keywords
- Get Search Volume and Forecasts
If you are looking to find keywords for a new account, then you will want to click the discover new keywords option. If you have a keyword list already and you want to see keyword volume metrics like average monthly impressions, then get search volume and forecasts will be helpful.
For now, let’s click “Discover New Keywords”:
Once in the discover new keywords section, you will be asked to either:
- Start with keywords
- Start with website
Let’s take a look at both.
Start with keywords
In the start with keywords section, enter the products or services you sell under the “Enter the products or services closely related to your business section”. Then, add your website domain under the “Enter domain as a filter” section.
Then, click “Get Results”.
After you click “Get Results”, Google will load up a number of keywords that closely match the product or service that you entered on the previous step.
From here, you will be able to download the keyword list by clicking “Download keyword ideas”, which can be used later when you are building out your search campaign.
Google provides a key metric in this view to help you prioritize your keyword list called Average Monthly Searches. Average Monthly Searches can be used to find the keywords with the most search volume for your business. You will want to prioritize your campaign build efforts around the keywords with the most volume in order to maximize your ad exposure in the future.
Now, let’s take a look at the start with website section.
Start with website
In the start with website section, enter your website URL in the enter a domain box and click “Get Results”.
Then, Google will provide a similar list of keywords that you can target in ads based on your website. This is a good option if you have a website with rich, relevant content that Google can use for researching keywords.
You can also download this list of keyword ideas like you did in the start with keywords section.
Now, let’s take a look at another helpful tool called Ubersuggest.
2. Ubersuggest
Navigate to Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest tool. Type in your target the keyword and click search.
From here click “Keyword Ideas” in the left hand navigation:
Now, Ubersuggest will provide you with a list of keyword ideas that you can download via CSV and add to your master sheet:
Finally, we can use the related searches on Google.com to find other keyword ideas.
3. Google.com
One final area that you can use to source keyword ideas is on Google.com itself.
To find keywords on Google.com, type in your target keyword that is relevant for your business into the search box on Google.com. Then, scroll down to the bottom of the search results page where it says “Searches related to x,y,z keyword”.
Here there will be a number of keywords that you can use in ads that are related to your target keyword.
Congrats! You should now have a comprehensive keyword list with expected average monthly search volume metrics that you can use to begin building out your search campaigns.
Once your list is prioritized by search volume and relevancy, you will want to add those keywords to your search campaign under the appropriate match types.
If you’re new to keyword match types, please check out our guide on Google keyword match types here.