So you’ve drawn out a beautiful account structure with campaign themes and ad group topics. Now it’s time to fill up those ad groups with keywords, but how does one choose which keywords to use? Perhaps, just randomly selecting keywords that sound related? Hmm, not quite the approach I would take. You need to do some thorough keyword research to ensure you’re choosing keywords that aren’t too competitive or that have low quality scores or search volume.
Start by going through each ad group and keeping an organized list in an Excel document. Then use either Google’s Keyword Planner or WordStream’s Keyword Tool to find relevant keywords for each ad group. Be sure to keep in mind that it’s best to start small with the number of keywords you use per ad group (10-20 max). But, why? Isn’t it best to bid on more keywords to get better results? Picture a party that was way too crowded; the food was eaten up before you could get any, you could barely move without breathing all over your neighbor, and others likely stepped on your feet not even realizing you were there. Google reacts the same way when too many keywords are in an ad group – the party is simply too crowded and the chances of getting traffic and results out of each keyword are slim to none. You’re also going to want to use a variety of match types, bidding higher the more restrictive you go with each match type.
Once you have a keyword list for each ad group in place it’s time to dive in and start building