Best Practices for Conducting Keyword Research

Keywords are the foundation of your AdWords account. If you do not have a keyword that matches to the search query, your ad will not be shown. Comprehensive keyword research is essential to maximizing your account’s exposure to potential customers.

• Every keyword falls into a section of the buying funnel. Understanding where your keyword falls in the funnel is important to ensure you are reaching consumers at different stages of their buying behavior.
• Keywords can be broken down into four major aspects: explicit, symptoms, problems, and product names or part numbers. Utilize each type of keyword to reach the maximum number of searchers.
• Start keyword research with your site, your competitors’ sites, the natural search results, internal site search, and the dictionary.
• Make sure you know your own keywords. If your keywords describe one or more different products or ideas, use ad copy to tell the consumer which keyword variation is related to your company.
• A good way to start expanding your keywords is to create keyword lists. By creating lists for both ad group and keyword organization, you can create larger yet more focused lists.
• When starting long-tail keyword research, do not use deep keywords. Deep keywords describe only a single aspect of how someone searches. Instead, start with wide keywords, and when you find keywords that are converting, do deep keyword research on those particular keywords.
• There are four positive match types: broad, modified broad, phrase, and exact. Use a combination of these various match types based on your budget and marketing objectives.
• Negative keywords stop your ads from showing. It is just as important to conduct negative keyword research as it is to find new positive keywords.
• The search terms report will show you what someone actually searched for that triggered your ad to show. Use this report to find new positive and negative keywords.

Keyword research can be time consuming, but it is necessary for maximum exposure. Many tools are available that will help you along in your keyword research efforts to help save you time and give you ideas you may have overlooked. In the next chapter, we will examine one of these tools: the AdWords Keyword Planner.