Keyword Research for PPC

The importance of researching the keywords for your PPC advertising campaign

PPC keyword research is an essential part of forming a successful SEO strategy. Though it’s possible to get started on your own, it’s incredibly difficult to form a consistent strategy that keeps your business at the forefront of online customer attention without the help of a professional SEO agency like Online Marketing Gurus.

This in-depth blog will take you through Google Ads keyword research, why it’s essential for PPC, and how to actually do keyword research for PPC. So, what is it all about, and how do you get started?

Why is keyword research for PPC important?

The first thing to highlight is just how important keyword research for PPC really is. To run a successful campaign, you’ll need to leverage the most popular search engine, Google. You can easily target the right audience for your particular product or service through Google Ads — the world’s most popular advertising platform. This will help your site rank higher on Google and build your business’s online presence and visibility.

How to do keyword research for PPC

When working with a professional SEO agency like Online Marketing Gurus, there are a few things you’ll need to identify to ensure you run the best strategy possible:

• Campaign type — You’ll need to first decide if you’re looking to promote a product, service, or even just an informational site. This will drive the rest of your PPC strategy.
• Target location — It’s crucial that you assess whether your campaign will be better off focused on a particular location to target a local audience or if it’s tenable to go broader, perhaps national or even international. Being as specific as possible is always the best policy for guiding your keyword research for Google Ads.
• Target audience — And what type of audience are you looking to target? Younger? Older? Residential? Commercial? Getting these right is essential to getting the most out of search term metrics and insights.
• Budget — To get the most out of a campaign, you need to know how much you’ll be putting in. Google Ads works on a bid system, so by conducting expert keyword research, you ensure that you bid on the most relevant keywords to drive clicks and conversions. This is why setting a strict budget is important.

Google lets fewer keywords trigger your ads

One of the most useful features of Google Ads is the ability to finetune how many keywords you’re targeting and bidding for.

Choosing to exclude certain keywords from your campaign means you’re utilising ‘negative keywords.’ This ensures you avoid paying for clicks that don’t lead to conversions.

There are also two crucial things to remember when considering your strategy:

• No commercial intent = no ad — By labelling irrelevant keywords as inactive, you can avoid unnecessary PPC expenditure. Inactive keywords won’t trigger ads, so it’s important to consult a professional to discover the right words to exclude.
• Low search volume = inactive keywords — Selecting keywords with a low Google search volume will mean they become inactive. In the past, these would become active once the search volume went up. Though these used to be viable as “just in case” keywords, Google now prioritises bids, so it’s best to focus on currently relevant PPC keyword research.

You have a small margin of error

Keyword research for Google Ads isn’t something you can do lightly. It requires a high attention to detail and a multi-level focus on your target audience and the relevance of your PPC keyword research campaign.

If you’re wondering how to do keyword research for PPC, the best way is to let professionals handle the heavy lifting. This way, you can focus on your product or service and do what you do best without the added hassle of stressful distractions.

You need to consider the quality score of keywords

Google Ads keyword research can mean the difference between a successful campaign and one that wastes money with no meaningful conversions. The reason you need experts to help you is that they can help you create keywords with the intent of passing Google Ads’ ‘Quality Score’ — a score that reflects the expected click-through rate for keywords, landing pages, and overall PPC campaigns.

You need to consider value as well as search volume

The higher the score, the higher you’ll be ranked, and the more likely you’ll get clicks. This is why it’s important to set a budget since every click will cost you — planning is essential to setting up an effective expectation for ROI. This ensures that you avoid high-volume keywords that have low competition. The difficulty comes with identifying whether a high-volume keyword actually leads to conversions, otherwise it can be a waste of resources.

Intent is essential in PPC keyword research

You need to find customers that won’t just click but actually purchase what you’re providing. Driving conversions is something that an SEO agency like Online Marketing Gurus specialises in. By conducting results-focused keyword research for Google Ads, it’s much easier to identify keywords that are likely to end in conversions.

Look for keywords with a tool

If you’re interested in getting a rough impression on where to start before calling the professionals, it’s a good idea to leverage a few essential services (both free and paid):

• Google Ads
• SEMRush
• AHRefs

Utilise keyword categories to check out keyword metrics

Whether you’re focusing on keyword research for Bing Ads or even Facebook ads keyword research, there are four main target audiences that you need to consider:

• Most aware — These are prospects that are completely aware of your offering and are ready to purchase. This approach is perfect for your campaign.
• Product aware — This refers to those that are aware of your product/service but don’t have strong brand awareness.
• Solution aware — This is a broader audience that is aware of the solution you’re providing but not your part in it.
• Pain/problem aware — The widest keyword net will be for those who haven’t looked into your brand or product.

These fall into three keyword match settings — broad match, phrase match, and exact match. Broad and phrase matches essentially target ads that are exact keyword matches and also those that are closely related. Exact only focuses on the keyword itself and doesn’t branch out. Each campaign will have a different approach, depending on the market and audience.

See what’s already working — target using data

This is where competitors come in handy. At Online Marketing Gurus, we’ll comb through competitor data to see what relevant keywords they’re using successfully to create a focused plan of action for you. This will give you an actionable keyword list to put into Google’s keyword planner and help drive conversions.

Putting It all together

Once you’ve identified your target audience, location, product offering, and how you can drive conversions, you can work to put it all together. The problem is that this is not something you can do on your own at scale. That’s where the professionals come in — we take the stress out of your hands.

It can be confusing — use an agency like Online Marketing Gurus

PPC keyword research for SEO isn’t just about doing a quick search to see what has the highest volume relating to your business offering — it’s about setting clear and targeted short and long-term goals to ensure the success of your site and build a consistent online presence.

Search volumes and queries change daily, so it’s important to have a team at your side that can keep up with the demand. When building and growing a business, you won’t have the time to check in on your PPC campaign constantly — that’s where we come in.

At Online Marketing Gurus, we’ll be there every step of the way to encourage clicks and drive conversions to ensure you profit from your investment. We’ve worked with businesses of all sizes to bring them a healthy ROI, so if you want to take the next step, you know what to do.

To learn more about our professional SEO services, get in touch today.

About the author

Danny Andrawes

Danny Andrawes, Chief Executive Officer of OMG, plays a pivotal role in shaping the agency’s strategic direction. With nearly 20 years of experience, he progressed from Content Specialist and Digital SEO Specialist to CEO, leveraging his impressive background in SEO/SEM delivery, client acquisition and retention, and change management to enhance OMG’s service offerings. Danny’s leadership emphasises client partnerships and the integration of cutting-edge tools to optimise digital campaigns, positioning OMG as a trusted partner for businesses worldwide.