Nora Brown Design

AdWords Day 3: Keyword Research

AdWords works by displaying your ads next to search results when people perform searches on Google, so the next step is to determine what searches you want to trigger your ad. (Note: AdWords can also display your ads on websites that show Google ads through their AdSense program.)

Brainstorm an Initial List

The first tools to use for generating keywords are pencil and paper. Sit down for 15 minutes and, putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience, brainstorm what keywords you might use to search for what you’re offering. If you select “Broad Match” for your keywords, Google will include synonyms, singular/plural forms, and relevant variants, so you don’t need to worry about including those.

Keyword Research Tools

There are several tools you can use for doing keyword research, and I recommend playing around with each and seeing which you find most useful. Their functionality definitely overlaps.

Google Keyword Tool

You can reach this right from within your AdWords Account by visiting the “Opportunities” tab and then clicking on “Keyword Tool” in the left sidebar. Type in one or more of the keywords/phrases you came up with, and check out the related terms Google returns. By checking the box on the left and clicking the “Add Keywords” button, you can add those keywords to one of your ad groups.

Google Trends

Here you can plug in multiple keywords or phrases and see how their search volume compares over time. It also highlights events which may have affected the trends. Read my article on the Keyword Tool and Trends

Google Insights

This uses the same data as Google Trends, but has more options, such as narrowing to a particular category or date range.

Keywords in Analytics

It is good to take at the look at the keywords people are searching on to reach your site. In Analytics, go to Traffic Sources > Keywords. This may give you some ideas for keywords, but keep in mind that, for the top few at least, people are successfully reaching your site when searching for these phrases, so it would be silly to pay for ad placement. For example, I wouldn’t have an ad display for “Nora Brown Design” because I already appear high in the organic search results for that phrase.