Google AdWords Learning Center - Selecting Keywords

Objective: Understand how to build an effective keyword list for your campaigns through a simple five-step process. Delve into some simple but very important concepts about starting off right.

Keywords trigger ads. Ads influence clicks. And clicks bring you business. Or that's the general idea. Since keywords start this advertising food chain, it's important that you choose keywords relevant to your business from the get go.

Keyword creation involves a five-step process: expand, group, match, scrub, and test and refine.

Your first step is to come up with as many relevant keywords as possible. List any keywords that you think users might search for to find your product or service.

Use the Keyword Tool for help. Available through the Tools page on the 'Campaign Management' tab (or via the 'Keyword' tab in your Ad Group Details page), the Keyword Tool offers additional keyword ideas — including synonyms and spelling variations — to yours. It allows you to build extensive, relevant keyword lists, review traffic estimations, and add your keywords directly into your ad groups from the same page.

To learn more, visit the Keyword Tool lesson.

Keywords lay the groundwork for the ad groups and ads you create. As mentioned in the previous Organizing Your Account topic, group your keyword list into similar items, such as by product line. Each group makes up an ad group. You can write multiple ads for each ad group, so keyword groupings should match a single theme.

For example, organize keywords pertaining to organic coffee in one ad group and keywords relating to gourmet coffee in another.

Finally, remember to keep your keyword lists small and manageable.

Now it's time to target your keywords using Google's keyword matching options: broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative match. These match types help you pin point ad delivery so your ads reach people precisely when they're searching for what you have to offer.

Broad match is the default setting for all keywords. All searches made using your keyword (in any order or combination) might display your ad.

Phrase match narrows your reach by requiring the words to appear in that exact order.

Exact match further narrows your reach by showing your ad when the exact phrase is used in the search — without any other words before, between, or after.

Negative match eliminates searched phrases you don't want your ad to appear on, such as cheap or free.

For a more in depth understanding of keyword matching, visit the Keyword Targeting lesson.

After you've expanded, grouped, and provided match types to your keyword list, start refining it. Strive to keep specific keywords that relate most to your product or service. Which keywords are irrelevant or are likely to bring you the least traffic? Delete them.

Two- or three-word phrases generally work best. For example, instead of the keyword coffee, use fair trade coffee or gourmet coffee beans. Consider removing any single-word or general keywords. These are often too broad and can lead to clicks from people who don't know what you're offering.

To keep up with the dynamic nature of online advertising, you should continue to test and refine your keywords. Build on keywords that work, and delete others that don't. Also, if you're running ads on the content network, consider using placement targeting to refine your reach to your desired audience. Track your results using your performance stats in your account. To learn more about tracking results, visit the Tracking Ad Performance section.