Optimizing Keywords

Overview of Optimizing Keywords

Your keywords should describe your products or services and relate directly to your ad text.

Here are some optimization strategies for keywords:

• When choosing keywords, think like a customer. What terms or phrases would your customers use to describe your products or services? List any keywords that you think users might search for on Google to find your business. Keep in mind that customers may use different terms to find your product or service than the terms you would normally use. For example, one advertiser might think of his product as "nutrition bars" or "protein bars" while some of his customers might call them "meal replacement bars" instead.

• Choose specific keywords that relate to your business, ad group, and landing page. Keywords that are too broad can lower your performance by generating many ad impressions but few clicks. To avoid this, delete generic keywords on your list that could relate to a wide spectrum of products or services. One-word keywords are likely to be too generic, so try using two- or three-word phrases.

• Include variations. To help your ad show more often, include relevant keyword variations including singular and plural versions. If applicable, consider using colloquial terms, alternate spellings, synonyms, and product or serial numbers. Though broad matched keywords can automatically include potential synonyms, you can ensure that you're not missing out on relevant traffic by including variations in your keyword list.

• Take advantage of keyword matching options. With some keyword matching options, you'll get more ad impressions; with others, you'll get more focused targeting. Negative match keywords are an especially important part of most keyword optimizations.

• Use unique keyword URLs. Keyword destination URLs send users to a specific page of your website, ensuring that a potential customer arrives immediately at the page that's most to the keyword that triggered your ad.

It's also important to know how keywords work in general. Here are a few tips on keyword formatting and other keyword advice:

• Keywords are not case-sensitive, so 'flights to new york city' is recognized as the same keyword as 'flights to New York City.'
• You do not have to include punctuation such as periods, commas, and hyphens. The keyword 'eye-glasses' is the same as 'eye glasses' but different from 'eyeglasses.' If your keyword is broad match, variations like this are likely to be targeted already.
• Avoid including duplicate keywords across different ad groups and campaigns. Only one of our ads can be shown for each search, and these duplicate keywords will compete against each other to appear.