The power of keywords and how to carry out proper research in Google Ads

The platforms on which businesses choose to advertise can significantly affect their success. While social media giants like Facebook and Instagram leverage sophisticated algorithms to serve ads to users based on their interests and online behaviors, these users are typically engaged in casual browsing, seeking entertainment, and connecting with friends. They are not actively looking to make a purchase. In contrast, Google Ads promotion targets people who are first intentionally looking for specific services, information, or products. These users are task-oriented, investing their time in a focused search with the intention of finding and possibly buying what they need now.

This fundamental difference in user intent highlights the importance of choosing the right keywords for Google Ads, as well as for proper Facebook advertising, ensuring that your marketing efforts reach an open and ready audience.

Keywords serve as a bridge that connects your business to potential customers who are looking for what you offer. This article will explore the power of keywords for Google Ads promotion and provide insight into how to choose the right keywords to ensure your ads reach the right audience at the right time.

Promotion in Google Ads – what are keywords?

Keywords are the words that people type into the search engine to find information, product, or service on the Internet. The most important thing to remember before starting Google PPC advertising is that keywords do not always come alone but consist of long and descriptive phrases that describe the business and products as accurately as possible. There are two main forms of keywords:

1. Broad keywords

Broad keywords are usually relatively short phrases that describe your products or services. Broad keywords are popular because they have the potential to attract a large audience, but they also tend to be less specific, so they’re not as useful for targeting ads and landing pages. However, they can still be used for some PPC campaigns.

2. Long tail keywords

Long tail keywords are more specific than broad keywords. Therefore, they tend to be more targeted and useful when used for your landing pages, ad groups, and keywords. In general, long-tail keywords have higher click-through rates, more conversions, and less competition. Also, they address a targeted and relevant audience.

Relevance

The most important thing to consider when choosing keywords for Google Ads promotion is relevance. Provided you have a clear idea of the products and services you offer, your ideal customers, your competitors and their marketing, the Google Keyword Tool is an excellent tool to identify the most relevant and competitive keywords.

For example, to improve relevance for a local business, you may want to use a combination of broad keywords, local keywords, and long-tail keywords, depending on the location of your business. These can range from city- or region-level keywords to industry-specific terms that target potential customers in a particular geographic area.

Competition

The lower the competition, the higher the chances of attracting paid traffic to your website from your ideal customers within a certain budget.

The competition is not always as high as you might think. For example, if you sell a popular product or service, such as a car or mattress, you may find that your competitors have selected some generic keywords such as “car” or “mattress”.

This means that even though your competitors may be spending a lot on running sponsored campaigns, their keyword research has failed them because they are not targeting relevant and competitive keywords.

In this type of scenario, it’s likely that your customers are searching for a more specific term, such as “hybrid car” or “baby crib mattress,” so it makes sense to focus on those keywords.

Therefore, before you start researching keywords for building a campaign, you should review your competitors’ keywords and think about how to differentiate yourself from them. When choosing between different keywords, consider both relevance and competition. This is because the higher the number of clicks from relevant keywords, the more likely your ad will convert. However, the higher the competition, the harder it will be to attract those clicks. Therefore, you should choose keywords with moderate relevance and low competition. The phrases you choose will determine to some extent how much advertising on Google costs. We also wrote a whole article on this topic that you should read.

Examples of better (and less) keywords for different professionals:

1. Marriage counselor

• Better keyword options: “couple therapy in [city]”, “couple counseling for communication problems”, “couple therapist in (region: north/central…)”.
• Less effective keywords: “marriage counselor”, “therapy”, “marriage help”.

2. Business consultant

• Better keyword options: “small business growth strategies”, “startup business consulting services”, “small business financial planning”.
• Less effective keyword choices: “consulting”, “business consultant”, “strategic consulting”.

3. Dog trainer

• Better keyword options: “puppy training classes near me”, “obedience training for aggressive dogs”, “behavioral dog trainer”.
• Less effective keyword choices: “dog training”, “pet trainer”, “animal training”.

4. Mortgage advisor

• Better keyword options: “mortgage advice for first time home buyers”, “mortgage advisor for refinancing”, “advice with the best mortgage rates”.
• Less effective keyword choices: “mortgage help”, “loan advisor”, “home finance”.

5. A college that sells courses

• Better keyword options: “online business management courses”, “IT certification programs”, “continuing classes in [topic]”.
• Less effective keyword choices: “college courses,” “degree programs,” “online education.”

Using the right keywords can significantly impact the success of a small business Google Ads campaign by attracting a more targeted and conversion-ready audience.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is the most famous tool that advertisers use when doing keyword research. It is designed to allow marketers to search for keywords on the Google ad platform and provide them with suggestions and phrases that can be used for their advertising campaigns with the intention of attracting quality business leads.

In addition, this tool also includes a “keyword ideas” section, which can be helpful when planning paid campaigns for advertising on Google Shopping or any other type of ad on Google, as it allows you to find phrases that you may not have thought of, but are still relevant to your brand or product.

And finally, there is the “long tail” section that allows users to search for phrases that are more likely to convert. This tool is helpful when it comes to keyword selection for both PPC and SEO.

So why should you use Google’s keyword tool?

The Google Keyword Planner is the simplest way to find and research keywords on the Google Ads platform. It helps you find new keywords with low competition and high ROI potential. It also gives suggestions on how much it will cost to place ads for each keyword, which can help you allocate your budgets more effectively.

As you now understand, finding the perfect keywords is an essential part of launching a successful paid advertising campaign and an integral part of managing Google campaigns, but choosing the right keywords is not as simple as it sounds. First, you need to be clear about what the keywords mean to your business, what they are used for and why they are relevant to you.