How to optimize Google search ad keywords?

I believe everyone knows the importance of Google search ads , so what is the most important thing in Google search ads? Of course it’s the keyword! A deep understanding of your keywords can unlock your account's potential like never before. Shoplazza learned from a senior optimizer in the industry and shared with you some unique tips on optimizing keywords for Google search ads~

1. Review of Keyword Knowledge Points

Previous articles have shared with you the skills of creating keywords, "Teaching you how to accurately locate Google search ad keywords step by step", so today I will briefly list the three key points of creating keywords:

1. Use keyword tools to find more keywords to increase coverage;

2. Browse your own independent website, understand the selling points of your products, and find available keywords to improve relevance;

3. Browse your competitors’ websites and ads — get more inspiration.

Based on the experience of advertising, SHOPLAZZA has summarized the three most common problems in Google search ad keyword advertising:

1. Keywords are too broad

2. Poor keyword relevance

3. Few effective keywords

We will focus on how merchants can optimize keywords from three perspectives: "search terms", "bid adjustments" and "matching forms" based on the above questions.

2. Search term report – better monitor business traffic

Optimizing your search terms is an essential part of developing a comprehensive keyword strategy. By making full use of the search term report, you can effectively reduce advertising costs and better control the traffic in your account. Based on delivery experience, merchants can take the following two actions on search terms:

1) Add as keywords: Search terms that generate conversions or have potential conversion opportunities need to be added as keywords to increase the number of effective keywords in the account and obtain more accurate traffic;

2) Add as negative keywords (hereinafter referred to as negative words): This can prevent the merchant's ads from being triggered by specific words or phrases, avoiding some irrelevant displays, that is, the merchant's ads will not be displayed to any user who searches for the word.

Simply put, negative keywords can prevent your ads from being displayed to users who are less valuable to your business or who are less interested in your products or services. Therefore, mastering the skills of adding negative keywords can help businesses effectively improve traffic accuracy.

Here are two principles for adding negative words:

1. Relevance, that is, whether it is related to the products sold on the independent website

If the search terms do not match the product type, product attributes or business on the independent site, they need to be added as negative words to improve the quality of traffic.

For example, a merchant’s independent website sells robes for casual and party wear, and the keyword is “Robe”, but the search term “Sexy Robes” triggers the ad (as shown in the figure below). If the merchant also uses the keyword "robes on sale", it will also trigger keywords with other brands such as "Macy's robes on sale". Therefore, merchants must eliminate it in time to avoid triggering more irrelevant traffic.

2. Observe data performance: spending, click-through rate, bounce rate, etc.

Spending, click-through rate, bounce rate, impressions, etc. are all core data for evaluating search term traffic and conversion effects. After the merchant's account has accumulated a certain amount of data (generally, the click-through rate can be evaluated when the number of impressions reaches more than 1,000 times or the number of clicks reaches more than 30 times), the merchant can perform corresponding optimization operations based on the data performance.

When evaluating the quality of search terms in your Google Ads account:

1. Determine whether the keyword is related to the brand or independent website products;

2. Comprehensively consider multiple data dimensions such as click volume, impressions, and cost. If the click rate is too low, the cost is high, and there is no conversion, you can add it as a negative word;

3. With the help of Google Analytics, merchants can obtain more effective data and identify inefficient search terms.

SHOPLAZZA Tip: Bounce rate is the most core data that reflects user experience. If the search term bounce rate is above 80%, it means that the traffic is not accurate enough. Merchants can combine other data in the search term report to determine whether it needs to be added as a negative word.

3. Bid adjustment – ​​effectively increase traffic and reduce conversion costs

Search ad ranking is influenced by three factors: bid, quality score, and additional information. Ads with high quality scores can improve ad rankings and achieve the effect of reducing click costs and improving rankings. Keyword bids are closely related to quality scores, so merchants need to ensure high quality scores while optimizing bids. Merchants who want to learn how to optimize their quality scores are welcome to read our previous article "Google Ads Advertising Strategy: Detailed Explanation of How to Get a High Ranking with a Low Bid".

If a merchant still receives a low share of ad impressions while achieving a high quality score, then increasing the bid can effectively increase keyword traffic and expand the coverage of effective keywords. On the other hand, for low-performance keywords with high costs and unsatisfactory conversion effects, you can effectively control costs by lowering bids.

SHOPLAZZA has summarized specific and effective solutions for the following two common problems:

1. Low traffic leads to low conversion rate - increase bids to increase conversion rate

After a keyword obtains a quality score of 7 or above, if its impression share is still very low, even less than 10%, and the account has indicated that the bid is lower than the first page bid, it is necessary to expand traffic by increasing the bid (try to keep the price increase within 30%).

After raising the bid, merchants must monitor advertising data in real time and check whether the advertising effect has improved; remember to add negative words in time while raising the bid to exclude irrelevant traffic.

2. Large traffic, high cost, no conversion or too high CPA - lower bids and control traffic

If the keyword still has a large amount of traffic after adding a large number of negative words, and there is still a high keyword cost, and the related products have no effective conversion behaviors such as adding to cart, initiating checkout, adding payment information, and placing orders, it is necessary to control the traffic by lowering the bid and further control the customer acquisition cost.

Similarly, for keywords with too high CPA, you should also control the conversion cost by lowering the bid to achieve the expected value. Observe data such as click-through rate and spending. If the advertising effect does not improve after adjustment, for example, if the spending exceeds 2-3 times the CPA but still does not get the expected conversion, it is recommended that the merchant suspend the advertising.

4. Choose the right matching format to further improve click-through rate and ad relevance

Q: What is the role of keyword matching and what are the matching forms? What is the difference between the different matching forms?

A: Keywords are used to locate user searches, and matching refers to the triggering logic that controls these keywords.

Keyword matching includes "exact match", "phrase match" and "broad match". The differences between the three matching forms are as follows:

Matching form

principle

advantage

Broad Match

Show ads to users when they search for relevant variations of your business keywords (synonyms, singular and plural forms, possible misspellings, stemming variations, etc.)

Wider coverage

Phrase Match

Show ads to users when they search for the keywords you specify or close variations of your keywords (singular/plural forms, acronyms, stemming, abbreviations, etc.)

More targeted than broad match and more flexible than exact match

Exact match

Show ads to users when they search for your keywords exactly or with close variants (singular/plural, acronyms, stemming, abbreviations, etc.)

Fully control traffic and achieve higher click-through rates

Generally, the broader the match form, the lower the click-through rate and the worse the conversion effect, but the traffic is relatively large; the tighter the match form, the higher the click-through rate and the higher the conversion rate, but the traffic is smaller.

By changing from broad match to exact match, you can better manage high-value keyword traffic. Conversely, switching from phrase/exact match to broad match can increase traffic.

As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too. It is difficult to achieve high traffic and low-cost conversions at the same time. Therefore, merchants need to constantly adjust their optimization strategies to find a balance point to achieve the most ideal conversion effect.

If the search terms and bids have been optimized, that is, the bids are already very high and the display share has reached more than 70%-80%; but the traffic is still small, then you need to relax the matching format to increase traffic.

For example, change the exact match to phrase match to increase the chances of display and exposure. At the same time, don't forget to add negative words to exclude irrelevant traffic. On the contrary, if the click-through rate is still low and the conversion effect is still poor after performing the first two actions, you can change the broad match to an exact match or phrase match to further narrow the scope of the audience.

The above is all about keyword optimization today. By optimizing keywords to maintain relevance and constantly evaluating changes in indicators such as click-through rate and conversion rate, the merchant’s ideal advertising effect will surely begin to show results.

Author: Shoplazza

Source: Shoplazza