How to conduct keyword research that’ll attract potential customers to your business

There are two must important component of Google Ads.

The first and most important part is your landing page and the second most important part is your keywords and keywords match type.

Your landing page do the job of converting the visitors to leads while your keywords and keywords match type does the job of driving the right visitors to your landing page.

When conducting keyword research, the first thing to do is to determine the type of leads you need.

If you want to attract those leads that are already in the market for your service, you'll have to find and target those kind of keywords.

How to conduct keyword research

The aim of placing an advert is to get them seen by potential customers.

And conducting keyword research will help you pick-out keywords your potential customers are using to search for your services on Google.

In this section, you'll learn how to pick-out keywords your customers will likely use to search for your services.

Use Google Keyword planner

Google keyword planner is a free keyword research tool provided by Google for their Google Ads search advertisers.

There are other payed keyword tools but those tools are useless when it comes to conducting keyword research for a local market.

How to use Google keyword planner

Head over to Google keyword planner here. Click on "discover new keywords" box

Enter your the name of your service as your keyword and then click "GET RESULTS"

You'll now be given a list of hundreds or thousands of keywords list to select

The next thing is to restrict the keywords data to your target location.

To do this, click on the location tab at your top right hand corner

Add your target location and click save

How to select the right keywords

When going through the list of keywords suggested by Google keyword planner, you'll discover that there are literary hundreds and thousands of keywords to look at.

Must of those keywords are irrelevant to your business.

So, what you'll do while going through those keywords is to put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients or customers.

You'll ask yourself this question on each keywords suggested.

Lets say, two of the keywords listed are: 

1. how to become a remodeling contractor
2. bathroom remodeling contractor

You will ask yourself that if you were a client and in the market to hire a remodeling contractor, which one of the above keywords will you possible use to get what you are looking for.

This strategy allows you to gauge the intent of every keywords.

For the keyword "how to become a remodeling contractor" you'll see that it's intent shows that people that will likely use it are people looking to become a contractor.

For the second keyword "bathroom remodeling contractor" you'll realize that it is the keyword you'll likely use if you are in need of a bathroom remodeling work.

Go for long tail buyer intent keywords

I talked about how to gauge the intent of a keyword above but all keywords are not the same.

The longer a keyword with buyer intent, the stronger that keyword is.

Buyer intent are the keywords people use to search for a local business when they are ready to buy a service.

Lets take a look at this two high intent keywords:

1. bathroom remodeling contractor
2. bathroom remodeling contractor NYC

Both of the above keywords are the same but what makes the second keyword more powerful than the first is because the searcher specified a location (NYC).

If you were a bathroom remodeling contractor based in NCY, then the second keyword would be more valuable to you than the first because it's intent is more clearer than the first.

Disadvantages of long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are every marketers dreams but it has a major flaw must especially for local businesses.

They usually come with very little or no search volume.

Without search volume on a keyword, it's a waste of time and energy creating an adgroup that contains the keyword.

When that happens, don't freak out. You can still go for the shorter keywords (broad keywords).

Don't neglect informational keyword

Informational keywords are keywords people use to research about a problem of which your service can solve.

Although the probability of people searching with informational keywords buying your services immediately is low but that doesn't mean they won't eventually buy in the future.

It's just that they aren't ready as of now to buy your service but rather are making more research.

Once they are done with their research, they will then buy your service. 

So, targeting informational keywords isn't bad. Even if you failed to convert them to a client right away, you can tag them and re-market to them later on until they are finally ready to buy your service.

And when the time comes that they are finally ready to buy your service, your business will be the first thing staring at them.

Structure your keywords with the right match types

Selecting the right keywords doesn't mean your job is done. You got to associate those keywords with the right match type.

In this section, you'll learn what keyword match type is and how to use them on your keywords.

What is keyword  match type

According to Google, keyword match types helps control which searches on Google can trigger your ad.

If you use the wrong keyword match type on your campaign, you could still fail despite selecting the right keywords

There are four types of keywords match type:

1. Broad match
2. Modified broad
3. Phrase match
4. Exact match

Broad Match:

Adding your keywords as a broad match is committing digital suicide.

With a keyword tagged as broad match, you are giving Google the power to show your ads on any search term they deem related to your keywords.

For example, if you added roofing contractor as a broad match keyword.

Google will not only show your ads for roofing contractor related keywords but they will also show it on searches like bathroom remodeling contractor and bedroom remodeling contractor.

Google will view all those keywords as being related to your broad match keywords (roofing contractor).

The key to a successful Google Ads campaign is not to give Google total control over your campaigns and that is what broad match keywords will do.

Google loves broad match keywords because it will make them more money.

But for you, it will end up wasting your ads budget without any thing to show in terms of conversion and revenue.

Modified Broad Match

Modified broad match keywords is ideal for you to use in setting up your campaign.

Modified broad match keywords are related to broad match but are more targeted than broad match and yet have a greater reach than phrase and exact match.

With modified broad match, you put a (+) sign before any words.

What that does is that it instructs Google to show your ad on any search term that contains the + sign word.

Phrase Match

According to Google, phrase match is a keyword setting that allows your ad to show only when someone's search includes the exact phrase of your keyword, or close variations of the exact phrase of your keyword, with additional words before or after.

The phrase match keyword "remodeling contractor" can cause your ad to show if someone searches for "remodeling contractor," "california remodeling contractor," and "remodeling contractor reviews."

Exact Match

According to Google, exact match is a keyword setting that allows your ad to show only when someone searches for your keyword, misspelling of your keywords or close variants of your keyword. 

For example, if you added "attorney" as an exact match keywords, you ads might show up for keywords like attorney or attorneys.

If your exact keyword is "dentist" your ads may get triggered for searches like "dental clinic" and "dentist ny"

Importance of using the right keyword match type

1. Your ads will be more targeted
2. It reduces wasted spend
3. it reduces the need and stress of looking for and adding negative keywords
4. it increases lead generation and help reduce your cost per leads

Conclusion

Although choosing the right keywords is very important, if you don't associate the right keyword match type to those keywords, you'll end up losing money.

If you conduct your keyword research with the instructions given above, then you're half way in hacking Google search ads.