PPC Keyword Research for Google Ads

A properly defined keyword list is vital when it comes to setting up and launching search ads. It is one of the very first steps of a PPC account setup and has a significant impact on the overall performance of a future campaign.

• If the keywords are too broad, PPC will generate low-quality traffic — an irrelevant audience that isn’t likely to convert to a lead (which is our final goal, after all). In such case users will click on our ad and enter the website, meaning Google will charge you for those redundant clicks. Even if users won’t click the ad, additional ad impressions would decrease the CTR (click-through rate) and the ad rating, which will cause rising of the average CPC eventually.
• If the keywords are too broad, PPC will generate low-quality traffic — an irrelevant audience that isn’t likely to convert to a lead (which is our final goal, after all). In such case users will click on our ad and enter the website, meaning Google will charge you for those redundant clicks. Even if users won’t click the ad, additional ad impressions would decrease the CTR (click-through rate) and the ad rating, which will cause rising of the average CPC eventually.

The best practice is to find a happy medium between both cases so that we receive a fair number of clicks without overspending.

Keyword Research via Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner (GKP) is a free tool for SEM managers from Google. It provides a list of keywords alongside with average monthly searches and other useful metrics. The Keyword Planner is available for anyone having a Google account, even those who haven’t run Google Ads campaigns. However without operating Google Ads account you won’t be able to see precise search volume data in the reports. But once you start spending money (anything around $20 would be sufficient) on your account, Google will show more precise search numbers in the Keyword Planner reports.

It is worth stating that even for operating accounts Google Keyword Planner tends to merge search volume data for similar keywords (both keywords “moving companies” and “moving companies near me” have the same search volume data). Another common case is that some of keywords are treated as synonyms and Google won’t even show all of them in the report separately (“moving company” and “moving companies”, as an example).

It’s not something critical, just keep in mind that search volume data is average (just as Google states). The best way to go is to consider those numbers as a secondary metric (there is a workaround to get more precise forecast for specific keywords, though). Despite those flaws, Google Keyword Planner is highly recommended. Its capabilities are more than enought for the majority of projects.

How to get keyword ideas in GKP

1. Go to Tools & Settings → Planning → Keyword Planner in your Google Ads account.
2. Click Discover new keywords:
   • enter words or phrases related to your service or product (up to 10),
   • select a language (only one at a time),
   • select a location (or multiple locations).
3. Broaden your search by adding keyword ideas from suggestion block or by typing additional phrases in the input field.
4. Download the results for further work in Excel (icon button in the top right corner of the screen). It’s optional — you can proceed to creating a plan in GKP, however, I prefer to process them in Excel or Google Sheets.

As a result you get a table with keywords and search volume data alongside with some estimates pertaining to average cost per click (as in the screenshot above).

Tips to master KW research in GKP

Include additional keywords

Despite modern Google Ads algorithms are pretty good in understanding whether the ad should be shown in cases when the user’s search query does not match the keyword strictly, it is still a good practice to include all possible keywords. By doing so you get more control over your search campaigns and more statistical data for decision making in the future. Thus, I encourage you to think of various word forms that your audience might use in order to find your product or service.

Besides evident keywords, think of so called “cold keywords” — they aren’t describing the product or service outright, but may be used by your potential customers to find a solution to the problem your product or service addresses:

Another way to acquire additional traffic from search ads is by using branded keywords. There are two types of branded keywords:

• your own branded keywords,
• your competitors’ branded keywords.

Using your company name as a keyword is always cheap and isn’t likely to be that big a deal. However, if you notice your competitors ads showing for your branded keywords, I suggest adding those keywords to prevent them from stealing your potential customers. And you can always do the same — target your ads on your competitors’ branded keywords. Kind of unethical and not always profitable advertising, though.

Don’t overuse seed keywords

Keep your input field lean. The Keyword Planner has a limit for the keyword ideas it shows. If you enter a single seed keyword you are likely to get around 1K of keyword ideas. Meanwhile entering 10 different seed keywords (which is maximum) won’t result with something around 10K of ideas — some results are omitted by Google Keyword Planner. The best practice is to conduct a separate search for every idea you have and to download every result.

You will definitely have duplicates, that can be removed in Excel with ease, after you merge all of the results. Such an approach will guarantee that your results are full and no keyword is missed. Alternatively you can add create a plan in Google Keyword Planner and add the results of your every search with one final download. It’s less tedious and would save you time.

Skip analyses part (for now)

While doing your keyword research try focusing on one task at a time. Although, it may look enticing to add only proper keywords, I prefer to collect all possible ideas firstly. Don’t spend time on deciding whether a keyword is worth adding or not — include all of them in your plan and keep the analyses part for later. Believe me, it will save you time in the long run.

Furthermore, you will need those (trash) keywords later for creating a negative keyword lists for your search campaigns. I will dedicate one of my next posts to the whole keyword sorting process.

Additional Tools for Keyword Research

Keyword generator

In some cases it might be useful to generate a bunch of similar keywords. It can be done by merging words with each other in keyword generators. So called artificial keywords might be handy when you are working on projects with a large number of different locations, services or SKUs and they may be structured in some kind of a template. The screenshot speaks for itself.

Google Search Console / Google Analytics

Another tool from Google, more used in SEO industry, however it has its use-cases in PPC as well. If you don’t know where to start, Search Console can provide you with some search queries your audience is already using to find your website. This service is a great free addition to Google Keyword Planner.

However, there is a drawback: Search Console is beneficial only for multipage websites with decent ranking on Google. If you are working with a brand new website, no data would be available. Note, that it will show you only the queries that your website is ranking for already, so you won’t be able to see the full picture. Anyways, a decent plane to begin your keyword research and get some seed keywords fore a more in-depth research in GKP.

If you have your Google Search Console synced with Google Analytics (can be done in GA resource settings), search queries are available there as well. Alongside with them you can see additional data pertaining to conversions and users’ onsite behavior.

Keyword Research Results

After collecting all relevant keywords I prefer to organize them in Google Sheets for further discussion with a client. If you are dealing with a massive keyword list it may be a sound idea to distribute keywords by product / service.

The screenshot illustrates the final view. Trash keywords and negative keywords will be covered in the next articles.