5 Easy Ways to Pick Keyword in AdWords

‘Keywords’ are nothing but the phrases that users or customers type in search engines for getting results in accordance with those words. These keywords play an important role when it comes to a business’s search or visibility. It is a pre-assumed fact that when they type your keywords in the search engine like Google, they are looking for a business like yours. So, shouldn’t it be your task to make your business discoverable for keywords highly specific and relevant to your business? But how do you do that? How do you target keywords especially for the business ads?

A business has to pay for Google AdWords and it can be frustrating if it is not getting back the required clicks on these ads as expected. One reason for this problem can be a wrong selection of keywords. Let’s ponder deep into this and understand the ways in which a business can pick the right keywords for AdWords:

1. Be Specific for selecting Keywords:

‘Being Specific’ in terms of choosing appropriate keywords means selecting the keywords that are more relevant to your business needs. For example, if your business is about selling organic vegetables and you are selecting the keyword ‘vegetables’ as it has more traffic then you are probably missing out on the audience looking for ‘organic vegetables’ and not just the vegetables. The keyword ‘vegetables’ is too generic here. However, ‘organic vegetables’ is more specific and relevant to your business. Avoid being tempted to adding keywords that are irrelevant to your ad but has lots of traffic. It creates a negative impression of your business products and services when people are interested in that particular product or service.

2. List out different variations:

It is required to list out variations because you don’t know what phrase is going to be typed in the search engines. For example, your business is a ‘gift shop’ and your potential customers are typing in ‘gift store’. Chances are your business will not be visible for the keyword ‘gift store’ as you haven’t thought on this variation and only focused upon ‘gift shop’. This goes same for the AdWords as well. So, always list out variations. These might include:

• Synonyms
• Colloquial terms
• Product names
• Alternative Spellings
• Singular and Plural versions

3. Use Google’s Keyword Planner:

The AdWords Keyword Planner tool is the best option provided by Google to plan upon targeted keywords. Submit a keyword or URL and select relevant high-ranking keywords from the results. It gives an idea of the kind of keywords that are suitable for your business need. If your business has several keywords, you can opt for creating separate campaigns based on few specifically-focused keywords.

4. Language and Location-based Targeting:

Language and Location are the other aspects to account for while selecting the keywords for AdWords. It ensures that your adverts are displaying in front of a right set of audience. Depending upon the location preference of your customer base, a business can select countries, states, provinces or even smaller areas. Customized targeting is a preferable option for as the ads will appear only in front of the customers who are looking for such results.

5. Understand Google’s keyword matching options:

There are three different options available with Google when a business wants to match a search query with its results. They are:

• Broad Match:

Broad match is Google’s default setting for matching particular keywords. Consider for an example, your keyword is ‘garden design and maintenance’. With broad match option, your ad will be displayed when the user types in ‘garden design’ or ‘garden maintenance’ or any other words included in the keyword. This also stands true for variations as well as synonyms.

• Phrase Match:

Phrase match can be used for a more tightly targeted keyword. Say, for example, your keyword is ‘hacking tips and tricks’ and you have phrase match option enabled. The ad will be triggered only when the user types in a phrase containing the entire keyword. So, if a user types ‘ethical hacking tips and tricks’ then your ad will be displayed. But it will not show up in results if the user types ‘hacking tricks’. A quotation mark is used to indicate that the keyword should be phrased matched.

• Exact match:

The exact match option goes a step further to match only the phrases that are exactly the same as a keyword. Square brackets are using to indicate that the keyword is targeting for an exact match. This option allows driving high click-through rates (CTR) as the search results match the exact business needs provided by your business.

Final Thoughts:

A number of options may be available for choice when you are to select the right keyword for business ads. It is in the best interest to know how to choose between them for getting best results. How do you pick keywords from AdWords? Tell me in a comment section.