Keywords are at the very heart of any search campaign, so much so that it wasn’t all that long ago when Google’s advertising platform was universally referred to as AdWords.

Words have meaning and Google cracked the code early on, when it came to matching people who used keywords to search for things with businesses and organizations eager to place their ads when those terms were searched.

The purpose of this post is to drill down further than just a casual discussion about keywords—and which ones may be good or which ones aren’t good. Rather, this discussion will help shape the way you look at keywords and factor in things you may not have thought about before.

A lot has been made about keyword research over the years, with volumes of articles written (mainly from keyword tools and software companies) but none of this really helps as much as it could until we fully understand keywords from a human perspective.

Behind every search term (also referred to as a query) is a person who took time out of their day to pull up Google.com and actively look for something. This can range from directions to the local library, researching where to buy something, or an infinite list of other purposes.

But the main difference between Google and all the other advertising platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., is their visitors have the power of intent.

They are actively seeking out information as opposed to an advertiser who places a banner ad, hoping to attract attention.

This power of intent, when combined with certain keywords that carry a commercial value, is the winning combination we’re after. These are the searches where somebody is looking to buy a product or service, either now or at some point in the future.

Here are some examples of search terms we consider having commercial value:

• New York to Florida moving companies
• Nordstrom promo code
• Tree trimmers near me
• Sign shop in Denver
• Back-to-school sales
• Home gym equipment

To give you a quick example of keywords with little or no commercial value so we can compare and contrast, view the following.

• Directions to local library
• When is winter solstice?
• What temperature to cook a turkey?

You get the point . . . 

Now that we’ve discussed keywords that carry commercial intent, let’s talk about something you may or may not be familiar with, which is the marketing funnel.

As you can see above, not all keywords that carry commercial intent are created equal. And believe me they’re not.

How they perform doesn’t always equate to how much they cost. As you might expect, a “bottom of funnel” keyword carries a higher relevance and is thus considered more likely to convert into a lead or sale, and therefore it’s likely to perform better and also cost more per click as a result.

Please, please don’t assume the keyword right out of the gate is too expensive. Maybe it is, but it’s usually expensive for good reason—it works. That keyword has probably performed well and has been rewarded by you or your competitors beating it up to a level that justifies its cost. Supply and demand!

Here’s an example of working our way down the funnel from very broad to very specific.

• Show
• Tradeshow
• Tradeshow display
• Custom tradeshow display
• Custom-built tradeshow display
• Custom-built tradeshow display in Atlanta

The first keyword, show, is far too generic, and we can assume most people typing in show are probably looking for a Netflix show or something completely unrelated to what an advertiser in the tradeshow exhibit industry would want.

Let’s look at the other end of the funnel at the most targeted keyword, custom-built tradeshow display in Atlanta. If the advertising exhibit house is located in Atlanta then it doesn’t get any more targeted and relevant than that. It would consider it a bull’s-eye keyword.

BUT . . .  

The trade-off is that there’s most likely little, if any, traffic volume on that keyword, no matter how much you’re willing to spend on it.

SO . . .  

This leaves us dissecting those middle to bottom keywords in a funnel. The ones where we can make a certain degree of inference.

Let’s assume …

Here’s a breakdown of each keyword:

• Show. This is way too broad to even consider.
• Tradeshow. Pinpoints the industry but is still too broad.
• Tradeshow display. This is getting closer but doesn’t infer budget as this includes low cash exhibit options.
• Custom tradeshow display. Now we’re talking! Custom infers a higher price point.
• Custom-built tradeshow display. Custom-built doesn’t an even better job of assuming a higher budget.
• Custom-built tradeshow display in Atlanta. Perfect, except the location is off (that query is looking for an Atlanta provider and if you are located anywhere else, that might not be a good term to bid on).

Close Match Variants

Now that we’ve evaluated keywords and how to identify commercial value and relevance, let’s talk about a really big component. This happens once your campaign goes live and isn’t talked about nearly enough—close match variants.

This is a Google Ads feature that can be used for good or can become a costly mistake.

What is the close match variant?

Google sits on a mountain of data. When it’s combined with their sophisticated machine learning capability, it produces the ability for Google to guess that a search term or query by a visitor may not match completely with your specific keywords. It may be close so Google will show your ad anyway and if clicked on, it will cost you money.

Pro: If monitored closely, close variants are a helpful tool to discover keywords you want and then add them to your campaign.

Cons: If you don’t monitor them your campaign may leak money over time due to undesirable search terms.

As a rule of thumb, we suggest monitoring the list of search terms once a week.

Here is an example of the Google Ads close variant.

• Your keyword is “custom tradeshow display.”
• The close variant is “custom tradeshow booth.”

Do we like the close variant as much as our specified keyword? The determination, if no, means you can add it as a negative keyword. If the answer is yes, you can add it to your campaign and bid accordingly.

Keyword Duplicity

Keyword duplicity is the term I use to describe instances where there are either two different meanings to a keyword or the people who search a particular keyword may have more than one intent.

The best way to illustrate this is with an example. Let’s suppose you are a marketing agency that specializes in marketing videos for apartments and multifamily complexes. Your goal is to get your ad in front of apartment owners and marketing directors for apartments.

So you set up a search campaign and target the keyword “apartment video tours.” At first glance, this keyword appears good and it accurately describes the service you provide. However, the vast majority of people searching for those keywords are actually potential new tenants and not the owners. Potential tenants are apartment shopping online and using “apartment video tours” to aid their search.

Without having hard data in front of me, it very well could be that 90% or more of those queries are tenants searches and NOT apartment marketing managers.

This forces us to use other qualifying words to get more specific. For example, amending the search keyword to “apartment marketing videos” instead of “apartment video tours” helps weed out tenants, since more of them won’t be using the word marketing in their query. But it comes at a big cost because there are far fewer people searching for this new relevant search term.

To address this issue, we’ll segue into the last section of this blog post where we can use some techniques and tools to help us solve potential keyword problems.

Ways To Address Problematic Keywords

Before just pausing a keyword, ad group, or even campaign, we have a few methods to help us overcome issues related to intent, relevancy, inference, duplicity, and low traffic.

Low traffic — Use synonyms to expand the search opportunities. Rather than “tradeshow display,” it could be “tradeshow exhibits” or “tradeshow booths” etc.

Intent — Not sure about the intent of the keyword? Use Google yourself and search the keyword in incognito mode. Write down all paid search results and all first-page organic results. Now go through and click each of them. If you find a competitor, that’s a good sign (not a bad thing).

Google is sitting on a mountain of big data and has more information on engagement metrics than anyone else. The organic SERP results should include websites and landing pages that are related to your product or services. If it doesn’t and isn’t a tight correlation, you most likely have a user intent issue and your ad won’t perform well.

For example, if you search “apartment video tours,” most, if not all, are YouTube results for apartment tours and not apartment marketing agencies.

Relevancy

For any concern about relevant keywords in your campaign, use what I call “mini conversions” at the keyword level. These are set to be time on site, pages viewed, or other metrics other than leads, sales, etc., and that will help you determine the level of engagement with a visitor searching those terms. If you’re getting a lot of nice engagement from “mini conversions,” you can feel good about a lead or sale not far behind. 😊

Duplicity Keywords and Double Meanings

Remember how at the end of our discussion about duplicity I said I would prepare a couple of ways to address this? Well, here we go.

There are two main ways we can tackle this problem.

#1— Forgo the duplicate meaning keywords in exchange for the targeted keywords with a qualifying word and then bid aggressively to help counter volume issues.

Example:

Skip ‘apartment video tours’ and instead bid on “apartment marketing videos” aggressively, even if it has much lower traffic volume.

#2—Factor in waste.

Let’s say your average order size is large and you have decent margins. You can afford to have 80% of conversions be a wash if the other 20% more than make up for it from a marketing dollars perspective.

Take our “custom tradeshow display” for example. It takes the right client with a healthy budget to afford to go under contract with our exhibit house company. However, the large average individual amounts, those 2 out of 10 leads, when averaged out, more than make up for those 8 out of 10 duds.

Conclusion

A true understanding of keywords involves experience, an understanding of your industry, business model, and especially your customer or client. But it also involves a keen understanding of problem-solving based on different issues that will certainly creep in. Call it part science and part art form, but armed with this knowledge, over time you’ll be able to make incremental improvements to your campaigns that will produce the positive results you are looking for.