How to Build Your Keyword List – delete this page
Selecting the right keyword list for you campaign can help you show your ads to the customers you want as they search for specific terms of visit certain websites. The keywords you choose should match the terms your potential customers would use to find your products or services.
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1. Think like a customer when you create your initial list.
Write down the main categories of your business and the terms or phrases that might fall under each of those categories. Include terms or phrases your customers would use to describe your products or services.
Example
If you sell men’s athletic footwear, you might start off with some basic categories that customers would use, like men’s sports shoes. You can also add men’s sneakers, or men’s tennis shoes, if you find out these are commonly used terms for your products. Expand your list further by including your brand and product names.
Tip
- When you add keywords to an ad group, you can manually enter one keyword per line or add keywords with an embedded spreadsheet. To use a spreadsheet, click the Add keywords by spreadsheet link.
- If you’d like to add keywords that contain multiple words (phrases), you don’t need to use hyphens or any other punctuation. For example, if you’d like to add the keyword men’s sports shoes, you would add it to your list as men’s sports shoes.
2. Select more general or specific keywords depending on your goal.
To reach customers more effectively, select specific keywords that directly relate to your ad’s theme. Using more specific keywords would mean that your ad only appears for terms that apply to your business. But keep in mind that if the keywords are too specific, you might not be able to reach as many people as you’d like.
Example
If you sell men’s athletic footwear, you might choose specific keywords like men’s cross country shoes, a type of shoe you offer. That way, for example, your ad would be eligible to appear when someone visits a website about cross country running.
Choose general keywords if you’d like your ad to be eligible to appear for a large number of search terms. In most cases, adding very general keywords might make it difficult to reach potential customers because your ad could appear for searches that aren’t always related to your business. Also, more general keywords can be more competitive and may require higher bid amounts.
Example
If you’re a large shoe retail store, you might choose a general keyword like shoes. That way, for example, your ad would be eligible to appear when someone searches for a wide variety of shoes or visits websites about fashion.
You should try testing out more and less specific keywords and then decide which ones give you better results. No matter how general or specific your keywords are, they should always be as relevant to your ads and website as possible. Note that it’s a good practice to avoid having duplicate keywords in your account as Google shows only one ad per advertiser on a particular keyword.
3. Group similar keywords into themes.
Try grouping your keywords into themes based on your products, services, or other categories. That way, you can create ads about your keyword themes and then, display more relevant ads to potential customers when they’re searching for a specific product or service. Additionally, you can keep your account better organized if your keywords are grouped into themes.
Example
If you own a candy store, you can have a group of keywords for chocolate candy and another group of keywords for sour candy. Then, you can create separate ad groups for these groups of keywords and have specific ads for chocolate candy and for sour candy. That way, you can show potential customers your ad about chocolate candy when they search for one of the keywords in your “chocolate candy” ad group, such as chocolate truffles.
4. Pick the right number of keywords.
Most advertisers find it useful to have somewhere between five and 20 keywords per ad group, although you can have more than 20 keywords in an ad group. However, remember to group your keywords into themes. If you use broad match type, you don’t need to include other variations of your keywords, like possible misspellings or plural versions. Keywords of two or three words (a phrase) tend to work most effectively.
Example
If your ad group contained the broad match type keyword tennis shoes, your ad would be eligible to appear when someone searched for any variation or term in the table below.
| Broad match keyword | Ads may show on searches for |
| tennis shoes | tennis shoes |
| buy tennis shoes | |
| running shoes | |
| tennis sneakers |
Note: You can have up to 20,000 individual targeting items (including keywords) per ad group and as many as 5 million individual targeting items in your account. However, a handful of well-targeted keywords will likely deliver the majority of their relevant clicks with a lot less management.
5. Use the Keyword Tool to find and select new keywords.
You can get keyword ideas by using the Keyword Tool. This tool will also show you how often people searched for those keywords idea, which can help you decide which keywords to add without as much guesswork.
Example
If you enter the phrase chocolate candy in the Keyword Tool, it might show you gourmet chocolate candy or dark chocolate candy as additional keywords to consider.
6. Improve your click through rate with negative keywords.
In some cases, you’ll want to prevent your ad from showing for terms that aren’t relevant to your product or service. Try adding negative keywords to help you reduce costs and make your ad appear only for the search terms you want.
Example
Let’s say you’re advertising an online bookstore that only sells new books. If you don’t want your ad to appear for used books, you might consider adding the terms used and secondhand as negative keywords to keep these terms from triggering your ad.
7. Use the search terms report to further improve your keyword list.
The search terms report gives you information on what people were searching for when they saw your ad. This information can help you remove poorly performing keywords or add new ones. You can also use the search terms report to help you identify negative keywords.
8. Use keyword match types to better control who sees your ads.
Keyword match types give you greater control over who sees your ads. For example, with the exact match option, you can make your ad eligible to show up only when someone searches for that exact keyword or close variations of that exact keyword, like misspellings or plural versions, and nothing else.
Keywords aren’t case-sensitive; they’re matched without regard to upper-case or lower-case letters. For example, you don’t need to enter chocolate candy and Chocolate Candy as keywords – just chocolate candy will cover both.
Example
If you sell chocolate candy and want to show your ad to people who are interested in buying chocolate candy only, you might want to add terms like buy chocolate candy and gourmet chocolate candy as exact match keywords. That way, your ad will be eligible to show when people search for those exact terms or close variations of them only.
9. Choose keywords that relate to the websites your customers see.
On the Display Network, your keyword list helps us show your ads on relevant websites that your customers visit. Try choosing keywords that are related to each other and are related to the websites your customers see. Learn more about choosing keywords for Display Network campaigns.
Since AdWords matches your ads to relevant websites using your keywords, all keywords used for Display Network campaigns are considered broad match. You can fine-tune your keywords by excluding certain keywords from ad groups that target the Display Network. Here’s an example of when you might want to exclude certain keywords.
Example
Let’s say you’re an optometrist and you create a keyword list that includes glasses terms. Websites about vision care would target keywords on your list, such as eye glasses and eye exam. You could also exclude the term wine to prevent your ads from appearing on sites about wine glasses.
Additional reading
- Intermediate: Using the Keyword Tool, negative keywords, and the search terms report.
- Advanced: Using keyword match types and choosing keywords for the Display Network.
Understanding Your Keyword Status
Your keyword status lets you know whether your keywords are active or not. There are a number of different keyword status types and AdWords tries to display the status that’s most relevant to your campaign at any time. You can see your keyword status in the “Status” column in your AdWords statistics table, which you can access from the Keywords tab.
Where to find your keyword status
You can see your keyword status on the “Status” column in your statistics table. Here’s how to access it:
- Sign in to your AdWords account,
- Click the Campaigns tab at the top.
- Click the Keywords tab.
- Look at the “Status” column.
- Next to each keyword, you should see your keyword’s current status.
Your Keyword Status
The “Status” column on your Keywords tab shows you information about the current state of your keywords at the time you sign in. AdWords displays your keyword statuses from statuses that you control to ones that are impacted by other factors, with the statuses that you control trumping ones that are impacted by other factors. That’s because any change to a status that you control would have more impact on your account.
| Status type | Example |
| Statuses that you control | Campaign paused; Deleted |
| Statuses related to where your keyword is in our | Eligible |
| approval process | |
| Statuses that are impacted by other factors | Low search volume; Below first page bid estimate |
Example
Let’s say you have a keyword that’s enabled, but the campaign the keyword belongs to is paused – AdWords will display that keyword’s status as paused because the campaign’s status — paused — trumps the keyword’s status.
How to interpret your keyword status
You can control some of your keyword statuses, while others are related to where your keyword is in the approval process. Additionally, some statuses let you know whether your keywords are being impacted by other factors, such as low search volume.
Here are the different types of keyword statuses and what they mean:
| Keyword status | Example |
| Campaign paused | Keywords are inactive because of your campaign status. For example, if your |
| Campaign pending | campaign is paused, the keywords in that campaign will also stop showing ads. |
| Campaign deleted | |
| Campaign suspended | |
| Campaign ended | |
| Ad group paused | Keywords are inactive due to your ad group status. For example, if you delete |
| Ad group deleted | your ad group, then your keyword in that ad group will stop showing. |
| Ad group incomplete | |
| Paused | Keyword is inactive because you paused it. Pausing a keyword means that it |
| won’t show ads or accumulate new costs until restarted. | |
| Deleted | Keyword is inactive because you deleted it. Deleting a keyword means that it |
| won’t show ads. | |
| Eligible | Keyword is active and can show ads. In some cases, your keyword might be |
| marked as Eligible even though it isn’t currently showing your ad. That’s | |
| because your ad’s appearance for an eligible keyword can be affected by your | |
| bid, Quality Score, or other factors. | |
| Below first page | Keyword is active and can show ads. However, your keyword isn’t currently |
| bid estimate | showing ads on the first page of Google search results. |
| Disapproved | Keyword is inactive and isn’t showing ads. A disapproved keyword usually means |
| there’s an issue with one or more of AdWords advertising policies, such as the | |
| keyword destination URL policy. | |
| Site suspended | Keyword is inactive and isn’t showing ads because the ads in the keyword’s ad |
| group are pointing to a site that’s not working or has violated one or more of | |
| AdWords advertising policies. | |
| Low search volume | Keyword isn’t eligible to show because it’s associated with very little search |
| traffic. This means your keyword might not to be relevant to | |
| people’s searches, or maybe it’s too specific or unusual. If the number of | |
| searches for these keywords increases even in a small amount, your keywords | |
| may be reactivated and could start triggering your ads to show again. | |
| Rarely shown due | Keyword isn’t eligible to show ads due to a low Quality Score. This means you |
| to low quality | should consider deleting this keyword, and adding a more relevant keyword to |
| score | your account. |
Tip
- Don’t do anything if your keyword has a low search volume. If the number of searches for these keywords increases even in a small amount, your keywords may be reactivated and could start triggering your ads to show again. This is particularly relevant if you’re advertising a new brand, term, or product.
- Try optimizing your account by improving your ads and keywords.