<span style="font-weight: 400;">Many years back when I was scrolling through a random webpage, I came across an ad for a product. What really surprised me was that I had searched for that item a few days back on Google. I was in awe, and a little bit anxious. I felt like I was being spied on. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">This is how ads work on Google. Everything you type into Google’s search bar is being used to show you advertisements. Even though it might seem like a normal thing now, back then these things would blow people's minds! </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Ever since its inception in the year 2000, Google Ads has been nothing more than a resounding success, even becoming Google’s biggest source of income. One of the reasons for its popularity is that it is a very cost-effective advertising platform for businesses of all sizes. From small home-run businesses to huge companies, everyone uses Google Ads!</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">There are a couple of factors that decide if an ad is good or not. The ad must have an eye-catching creative, </span><a href="https://vividreal.com/blog/the-secrets-of-writing-google-ads-copy-that-sells/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">a brief but informative copy</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and lastly, it should be paired with relevant keywords. </span><span style="color: #00ccff;">If you do not plan and choose your keywords well, your ad campaigns will not perform well.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> It is important to know how to research keywords, what different keywords you should use, and why you should use them.</span>

On a related note, if you want to excel with Google ads, we'd love to help you out. We've got dedicated teams who will work on every aspect of the ad. <a href="https://vividreal.com/google-ads/">Talk to us to know more.</a>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Keyword research is the process of selecting words or phrases, someone might type into a search engine when they look for a specific product or service. It is a way of telling Google, who they should display your ads too. This is a crucial step if you are investing your time and money into promotion via Google Ads. Before we dwell into keyword research, let us take a brief look at how Google Ads function.</span>

<span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>How advertising on Google Ads works:</b></span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">When an advertiser creates an ad on Google, they have to identify keywords relevant to the industry their products/services belong to. </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">If certain keywords are popular, and if there are many ads that run with those keywords, the competition will be high, and so will the bidding amount. </span><a href="https://vividreal.com/blog/which-googleads-campaign-type-is-best-for-you/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Search and display ads</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> use cost-per-click bidding (</span><a href="https://vividreal.com/blog/why-are-ppc-ads-important-for-small-businesses/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">also known as pay-per-click</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">). With CPC bidding, you'll pay only when someone actually clicks on your ad and visits your site.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Suppose someone searches for something on Google, Google looks at the query and all the ads with those keywords and determines whether there will be an auction.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">If 2 or more advertisers are bidding on the same keyword, an auction is triggered.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Once in the auction, Google assigns ranks to your ad depending on your bid and its quality score.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Quality score is a score ranging from 1-10, that determines the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The ads’ ranks are compared, and the one with the better rank is displayed.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Google has its own tool that you can use to carry out keyword research. It is quite simple and easy to use. Just visit </span><a href="https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Google Keyword Planner</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, sign in and create an ad campaign by following the instructions given on the website. I will now guide you through a step by step process on conducting Google Ads keyword research.</span>

<span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>How to research keywords using Google’s Keyword Planner</b></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">You need to create an ad campaign and set up payment methods to get access to the Keyword Planner tool:</span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sign in to the Google Keyword Planner tool.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Select the type of business you are trying to promote. Enter a website for your business.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Select the region where your customers are located in.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Edit the type of ad you want to run. You can choose from different layouts. You can also create different versions of a single ad.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Add eye-catchy creatives to your ad. You can also add logos. </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Set a budget for your ad. A few different options will be suggested. </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Check all of your choices to make sure everything is correct.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Set up billing/payment methods.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">After you’ve created your first campaign, you get access to the keyword research tools.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">However, if you want to try out the Keyword Planner tool </span><span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>without creating an ad</b></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (or if you only want to use it for SEO), there’s a workaround that may not be obvious at a first glance.</span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sign in to the Google Keyword Planner tool.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Click “Experienced with Google Ads?”.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the next page, click on “Create an account without a campaign.”</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Click “Submit” on the next page.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Finally, click on “Explore your account”.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">You will now be able to access a slightly different version of Google’s Keyword Planner by clicking on “Tools” in the upper right corner of the page. You will see two options:</span>
<ol>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Find keywords.
</span>Find keywords that you can use to reach more people who are interested in your products/services.</li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;">Get search volume and forecasts.
You can see search volume and other important data about your keywords. You can also predict the popularity and performance of your keywords.</li>
</ol>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Let’s select “Find keywords” for now.</span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">At the top, you will find a search bar. You need to type in words that are relevant to the industry the product/service you are trying to market, belongs to.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">You will then receive suggestions of keywords from Google along with stats such as the number of monthly searches for each keyword and the number of Ads that run with those keywords (competition). High competition means that there are a lot of ads from similar businesses that are running ads with a particular keyword.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">You can then download this data and open it using any spreadsheet application. Sort the keywords in the descending order of monthly searches. You may delete the ones that barely have any monthly searches.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Analyse the remaining keywords. Keep the customers’ needs in mind and choose relevant keywords that a customer might use to find you. You don’t need to use keywords that are too general, too vague or ones that do not even relate to your industry.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What you are left with is a shortlist of keywords and phrases that people need to search for, if they want your products/services.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>Types of Keywords</b></span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Let’s say I have a shop that sells a particular brand of perfume (let’s name it Stinkaway Deluxe). I would have to choose keywords that are related to my product. There are different types of keywords I can experiment with. Some of them are mentioned below.</span>
<ul>
 	<li><span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>Brand Keywords</b></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">These keywords contain the brand's name. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Examples: </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">stinkaway, stinkaway.com, stink away, stinkaway online, etc.</span></i>
<ul>
 	<li><span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>Competitor Keywords</b></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Here, I might choose to add keywords that mention some of my biggest competitors.</span>
<ul>
 	<li><span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>Generic Keywords</b></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s always good to have a few generic keywords that someone might use to search for your product. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Examples: </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">perfume online, buy perfume online, best perfume online, etc.</span></i>
<ul>
 	<li><span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>Related Keywords</b></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">A little broader, these are keywords that people might use to look for your (or your competitors’) products.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Examples: </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">deo buy online, buy body spray, buy deodorant online, etc.</span></i>

<span style="color: #00ccff;"><b>Points to keep in mind while choosing keywords!</b></span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do not be too broad with your keywords. Only “perfume” can mean many things. People could be looking for the movie/book with the same name. A better choice would be “buy perfumes”. </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Keep your customers in mind. It’s very easy to choose keywords that might represent your products/services but these might not be the words that a person might search for on Google. Choose relevant keywords that they would type into a search bar.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Keyword popularity can be affected by seasonal demands, region, and many other factors! A lot more people are going to be searching for keywords like “gifts” and “decorations” before Christmas. These seasonal keywords are not popular during the rest of the year. This could affect the average monthly search values. </span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Long-tail keywords (example: “men’s perfume stinkaway buy online”) are specific and the competition will be very less compared to the more common keywords. These may not get you a lot of attention, but users who find your ad will be more likely to click on it and buy your product.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">A lot of people use voice commands on Google. Include a few long-tail keywords that people might actually say (example: “Where can I buy perfumes online?”).</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Check out our article on </span><a href="https://vividreal.com/blog/deadly-keyword-research-mistakes-to-avoid/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Deadly Keyword Research Mistakes to Avoid</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">There is also an option called “match types” that help control which searches can trigger your ad. Read more about that </span><a href="https://vividreal.com/blog/an-easy-guide-to-different-match-types-in-google-ads/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">All in all, setting up ad campaigns on Google is simpler than it seems. Just pay a little extra attention to your keywords for better reach! If you want ads that can bring you more revenue, let's make it happen. <a href="https://vividreal.com/google-ads/">Talk to us for more information.</a> </span>