You’re planning to start a Google Ads Search campaign for your IT services company, the questions that instantly pop-up in your mind are “What keywords should I use?” “Should I just guess? Should I follow Google’s recommendations?” “What do potential my clients actually search for?” Selecting the right keywords can make or break your PPC campaigns. Certainly, you want your campaign to drive more leads or sales, right?
Having strong PPC keyword research is the basis of great campaigns. In this article Roc Pro will explain how to effectively research possible keywords, using only tools that are freely available. Our SEO agency will provide you a crash course in Google Ads Keyword Research.
Step 1: Google Search
Your aim when researching keywords is to identify the main terms/keywords.
For starters, you should identify what are the keywords that searchers use when searching? Look for a positive keyword that will form your initial ad groups and make sure to eliminate negative keywords.
Start using Google search. Enter a keyword you think people might be searching for, but don’t immediately press “enter” to complete the search. Google will suggest some related terms.
For example, I typed “best PPC agency,” and didn’t hit enter, Google provides a number of suggestions. Some of these are potential positive keywords, and areas to research. Some are negatives like India, Los Angeles, and Australia.
If you’ll notice we’re using Google suggestions to build our initial list of potential positive and negative keywords. Keep entering keywords until Google stops suggesting new ideas.
Also, you can ask another person to do the initial PPC keyword research. It can be beneficial to ask someone else’s thoughts on what searchers might be searching for and there’s a higher chance that that someone will likely think of a term you have overlooked.
Step 2: Press “Enter,” and scroll to the bottom of the page
To complete the search, hit “enter,” and scroll to the bottom of the results page. Google will tell you what keywords they think are related to that term.
In the image 1, we’ve searched for “best PPC agency,” we hit “enter” and scrolled to the bottom of the search results page.
Here’s the list of positive keywords:
- PPC services
- pay per click
- make money with pay per click
- ppc management
Here are some general keywords:
- ppc management agency
- digital marketing agency
Negative keyword
- best ppc company in india
Click on each of these terms and look for other keywords and repeat the process.
Step 3: Keyword Planner
You’ve identified your initial list of positive and negative terms, now put them into Google’s free keyword planner. Go to Google Ads, look for “Tools” in the top menu, and open the “keyword planner”.
Select the option to ‘discover new “keywords”. Enter all the keywords you’ve found into the planner, and see what else Google suggests. You can also add your website, and your competitor’s websites. Google will tell you what keywords they think are relevant to these pages.
You can only enter 10 keywords at a time, so you have to do this multiple times.
The initial keyword ideas can be seen at the top, while underneath, you can see Google’s suggestions. You can use the filter option to organized the list and show only keywords that have say at least 100 searches a month.
Take note that, at you’re still identifying the broad keywords. You’re creating a general picture of the search landscape in the market.
Based on the list above, we would say these are the categories of the keywords:
The positive keywords are:
- ppc management
- google ads agency
- adwords agency
The negative keyword:
- ppc (searcher who search for ‘”ppc” probably aren’t looking for an agency)
The neutral keyword:
- PPC consultant
Step 4: Broad and Modified Broad Match
We’ve finished the initial PPC keyword research, you might be thinking, what to do next? Do we have to invest in a tool that will give us 1000+ keywords?
Setup your campaigns based on this first round of research, and build search query data by using phrase and modified broad match keywords.
Every week we need to log in to Google Ads and review the search query report. Remove irrelevant terms by adding them to the list of negative keywords, and categorise compatible terms into their own ad groups.
By following this you’re doing a realistic research, then running ads to build up search query data. It’s like you’re letting Google do your keyword research for you. The terms in your search query report are more accurate than the output of any keyword research tool. Depending on the size and scale of your campaign, this could be a good methodology to get genuine data.
Step 5: Broad Match
If you’ve been managing ads for quite some time and struggling to find new ideas, then we might need to create a ‘broad match research’ campaign.
Using broad match to your target keywords is a bad practice. By doing this approach Google will show your ads against searches Google thinks are related to your keyword. However, if we’ve strategically use broad match as a research tool to find new keywords you hadn’t originally considered will help you choose the right keywords.
Just remember to limit your budget on the campaign, and set the keyword bids 25% lower that you would normally. Make it a habit to review the campaign weekly.
Step 6: RLSA
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads or RLSA, is an advanced targeting feature that allows advertisers to “customise the search ad campaigns for people who have already visited the website”.
RLSA’s allow advertisers to reassign their search campaigns to target specific clients who are already familiar with their services and website. These ads yield better ROI through improved click per rates and lower cost per acquisition since the targeted market has already been acquainted.
We hope you have found this article helpful and wish you success with your PPC campaigns for your IT service company. These are a few approaches in conducting your PPC keyword research. Choosing the right keywords is an ongoing process. As you gain more data, you can expand your keywords to increase your performance.
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