In Google Ads, the choice of keywords determines the precision and conversion effectiveness of the ads. Choosing the right keywords allows your ads to precisely reach potential customers, achieving a higher ROI; choosing the wrong keywords, however, may waste the budget and lead to a large number of ineffective clicks.
1. Core Goals of Keyword Research
In Google Ads, keyword research is not just about finding words with high search volumes, but more importantly, filtering out keywords that are high-intent, high-conversion, and low-competition to ensure the best return on ad spend.
Characteristics of high-conversion keywords:
✅Clear search intent: Users have a strong purchase or action need, such as "buy smartwatch" has more conversion potential than "smartwatch review".
✅Reasonable bidding: When keyword competition is fierce, CPC (cost per click) can be high, so choosing cost-effective words is more important.
✅Strong relevance: Keywords must be closely related to the product or service to avoid ineffective traffic due to vague or overly broad terms.
2. How to Find High Conversion Rate Keywords?
1. Use Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is a fundamental keyword research tool that can help you:
Discover related keywords
Understand search volume, competition level, and click cost
Get suggestions for different match types (broad match, phrase match, exact match)
🔹Usage tips: Enter the core keywords of your product or service, filter keywords with moderate search volume, medium competition, and reasonable CPC, avoiding focusing only on high-volume generic words.
2. Analyze Competitor Keywords
Observing the advertising keywords of competitors can help you discover high-conversion words. You can use the following tools:
Google Ads bidding intelligence tools (such as SEMrush, Ahrefs): Enter a competitor's website to see the keywords they are using in their ads.
Manual search: Enter your product keywords in Google search and see which ad copy and keywords are used by top-ranking competitors.
🔹Usage tips: Analyze competitors' ad copy, refine their commonly used high-intent keywords, and optimize them in combination with your own business.
3. Use Google Search Suggestions & Related Searches
Enter your keywords in the Google search box to see the autocomplete suggestions, which are phrases commonly searched by users. The "related searches" at the bottom of the search results page are also a good way to obtain long-tail keywords.
🔹Usage tips: Add these long-tail keywords to your ad groups to help reduce CPC and increase conversion rates.
4. Focus on User Search Intent, Filter High Conversion Keywords
Keywords can be categorized by search intent into three types:
1️⃣Informational: Users are looking for information, such as "how to choose a smartwatch"
2️⃣Navigational: Users are looking for a specific brand, such as "Apple Watch official website"
3️⃣Transactional: Users have a purchase intent, such as "buy smartwatch"
🔹Usage tips: In ad placements, prioritize transactional keywords and appropriately mix some informational keywords for traffic attraction and brand exposure.
5. Combine Brand Keywords + Non-Brand Keywords to Create a Keyword Combination Strategy
Brand Keywords
: Such as "Apple Watch purchase", can improve the conversion rate of brand traffic.
Non-Brand Keywords
: Such as "smartwatch recommendations", helps attract new customers.
Competitor Keywords
: Such as "Huawei Watch vs Apple Watch", can be used to capture competitor traffic.
🔹Usage tips: Brand keywords usually have lower CPC, it is recommended to create separate ad groups to avoid the budget being excessively consumed by highly competitive non-brand keywords.
3. Keyword Optimization and Testing Strategy
✅Regularly monitor the Search Terms Report
Google Ads backend provides a search terms report that can help you discover the actual search terms used by users, eliminate ineffective traffic, and add high-conversion keywords to your ad groups.
✅Use Negative Keywords to exclude low-quality traffic
For example, if you sell high-end furniture, you can add words like "cheap", "second-hand", "free" to the negative keyword list to avoid wasting budget.
✅A/B test different keyword combinations
Conduct A/B testing for different keyword combinations, observe which brings higher conversion rates, and continuously optimize the ad strategy.
4. Summary: The Golden Rules of Keyword Research
📌 Choose keywords with clear search intent and high conversion rates, rather than simply pursuing high search volumes.
📌 Combine Google Keyword Planner, competitor analysis, and user search data to find precise keywords.
📌 Regularly optimize keywords, use the search terms report and negative keywords to reduce ineffective clicks and improve ROI.
Mastering keyword research skills will help your Google Ads gain more precise traffic and enhance the effectiveness of your placements!
