19 Trendy Ways to Find Best PPC Keyword Ideas for Business
PPC marketing starts with keyword research. It is an integral part of any PPC campaign. If you want to learn more about PPC, you must first learn about keyword research and its importance in PPC. When you use them in your PPC campaigns, you can decide where your ads will appear on the web.
What are Keywords?
In PPC, a keyword is a word or set of words used in Google Ads campaigns. When you talk about keywords, it is crucial to understand how keywords are categorized based on their types.
These are:
- Branded Keywords: Keywords that include brand/company names such as Amazon or Walmart.
- Generic Keywords: These are generally short-tail keywords with no definite search intentions, such as “walking shoes” or “gardening.”
- Transactional Keywords: These are keywords that have purchase intent, such as “Nike running shoes” or “babysitting services.”
- Locational Keywords: These are location-based keywords, such as “car repair in UAE.”
- Long-tail Keywords: These are keywords that are composed of 3-4 words. These keywords have high intent and search volume, such as “plumbing services near me.”
- Informational Keywords: These are keywords people use when searching for information, such as “how to unclog a pipe.”
Core Keyword Vs. Keyword Modifier
When discussing PPC keywords, you should learn the difference between a core keyword and a keyword modifier. A core keyword is the main keyword that you use, such as “walking shoes,” whereas keyword modifiers are terms that make a search more specific. In this case, the keyword modifiers for “walking shoes” can be “cheap walking shoes” or “white walking shoes,” etc.
Keyword Match Types
Keywords can also be categorized into four match types. We’ll learn more about them below:
Broad Match
A broad match keyword will match all searches of the exact, equivalent and related keywords. For example, a broad match keyword like “weight loss supplement” can also appear for searches like “diet supplement,” “gym supplement,” etc. Broad match keywords receive several impressions and clicks compared to other match types, making you lose a lot of money on irrelevant searches.
Broad Match Modifier
A broad match modifier gives you more control than broad match keywords. Unlike broad matches, it won’t show your ad for synonyms or related searches. Include a keyword in a broad match modifier with a plus (+) sign.
For example, if you add broad match modifiers such as +women’s + shoes, it will appear for searches related to women’s shoes, women’s white shoes, and buy women’s black shoes. However, it will not appear for searches like ladies’ shoes or buy red ladies’ shoes since the term “ladies” is not added as a broad match modifier.
Phrase Match
A phrase match keyword will let Google only match your ads with phrases you’ve designated. For example, if you choose “running shoes,” your ad may appear for search terms like “red running shoes” or “buy running shoes.” However, it will not appear for searches like “shoes for running.” A phrase match is more targeted than a broad match.
Exact Match
An exact match keyword will appear for ads that use the same search term or phrase you are bidding for. An exact match keyword is added in brackets: [running shoes]. The exact match keyword has a very low search volume.
Since you are now aware of the four keyword types by match type, you should also know about negative keywords. These are terms for which your ads don’t appear in the search.
For example, if you run a chain of restaurants and don’t serve a particular location, you can exclude that location to increase the performance of your Google Ad campaigns.
After launching your ad campaign, you can analyze which unrelated search terms are triggering your ads and add them to your PPC negative keyword list.
Why Are Keywords Important in PPC?
PPC campaigns are powered by keyword research, and here are the reasons why you should prioritize them:
- It helps budget your CPC
With keyword research, you can rightly budget your PPC marketing campaigns, figure out how much you can or cannot spend, and work your way around alternative keywords. It allows you to prevent overspending and saves your money in the long run.
- It helps you achieve campaign goals
PPC campaign goals are achieved with the help of solid planning and strategy involving keyword research.
- Increase ROI
Keyword research increases the chances of boosting your return on investment.
19 Smart Ways to Find PPC Keyword Ideas in 2022
Finding new PPC keyword ideas will help you with better conversions, which is one of the core targets of PPC campaigns. In this section of the content, you’ll learn about ideas to conduct PPC keyword research and utilize them for your PPC campaigns’ success.
1. Discover New Keywords With Google Ads Search Terms
Let’s start with the basics because Google Ads accounts are often untapped grounds for keyword mining. Explore your ads’ search term report to discover new keyword opportunities and filter out negative keywords.
Here’s how to do it.
Select the “Keywords” tab and then select “Search Terms” in your Google Ads account to view the search terms that have triggered ad impressions for a defined date range. If your ads have been running for some time now, you will get an extensive list of the search terms googled by different people that triggered one of your keywords.
You can add the “Keyword” column to your report to view what keywords were triggered by different search terms.
If you discover a well-performing search term, you can add it as a keyword by copy-pasting it to your keyword spreadsheet or selecting the search term and clicking on “Add as Keyword” to add it to that ad group.
2. Build Your Own Broad Match Keyword Repository
Broad match campaigns can be a great source to dig out PPC keyword ideas because Google Ads has more freedom to determine which searches will trigger your keywords. However, you must be careful to avoid spending too much on irrelevant search terms.
You can set up a campaign with a minimal budget and target a few broad match keywords. Once your campaign runs for a while, you can dig into the search term report and start picking good keyword ideas. You might find certain search terms that you never thought could perform well.
3. Take the help of Dynamic Search Ads
Dynamic search ads are not a popular campaign choice for PPC ads, but they can help fill the gaps in your PPC campaigns. Dynamic search ads use Google’s web crawling technique to target relevant search queries based on your website content or target relevant queries based on a predefined set of categories.
When Google discovers new search queries that match your Dynamic ad targets, it automatically generates the ad headline and landing page URL.
4. Follow Your Intuition
While PPC research tools and techniques help find keyword opportunities, there are ways in which you can find new keyword ideas without using any tool or techniques by trusting your intuition!
Yes, you are already familiar with your industry’s jargon and what makes your business unique. Keeping this in mind, jot down some obvious keywords that best describe your products.
You can brainstorm keyword ideas with your team too. Once you have a list of prospective keywords for pay-per-click campaigns, analyze each in detail to find out if they are worth adding to your PPC campaign keyword list.
5. Get Plenty of Keyword ideas With the Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is undisputedly the best PPC keyword research tool. To find keyword ideas using this tool, log into your Google Ads account and click on Tools and Settings> Planning> Keyword Planner.
You’ll get two different options to proceed with. Choose the first option, i.e., “Discover New Keywords,” and enter a phrase to get keyword ideas. Consider the average monthly search volume of the suggested keywords and filter out the best ones. You can also filter keywords based on specific categories, such as branded vs. non-branded.
6. Gear Up for SEO Research
SEO research has a strong familiarity with keyword research for PPC. In both cases, you look for the best keyword opportunities to drive more customers to your business. There are plenty of SEO keyword research tools that you can use to search for keyword opportunities for PPC. Most of them will give you similar insights as Google Keyword Planner, so utilize them to your advantage and never run out of keyword ideas again!
7. Spy on the Keywords Your Competitors Use
Are you not getting enough keyword ideas with the keyword research tools at your disposal? Don’t worry; peek into your competitors’ keywords when you think you’re running out of keyword ideas. Tools like Semrush and SpyFu allow you to analyze the keywords your competitors use in their PPC campaigns, which you can utilize to your benefit.
8. Observe Your Competitors’ Landing Pages and Blog Content
Another interesting way to discover PPC keyword ideas is to shortlist a few competitors at a time and find out their best landing pages and top-performing blog posts. Observe how they describe their products and services and get keyword ideas to implement from their landing page copies.
For blog posts, you can look around the keywords they use in the headlines of their best-performing blog posts and scroll through the content to ensure that you don’t miss out on any new keyword opportunities for your PPC marketing campaigns.
9. Don’t Ignore Your Own Landing Pages and Blog Content
Do you know that your own landing pages and blogs are a repository of awesome keywords for pay-per-click? There are two ways in which you can utilize the keyword ideas from your landing pages and blog posts; one, analyze them to get new keyword ideas for your PPC campaigns and second, create new low-threat PPC campaigns to drive people to your blogs instead of asking them to buy something.
10. Uncover Amazing Content Ideas using BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo lets you uncover the most-shared content across different social media channels and domains. However, you have to be aware of the intent of the keywords since content-driving keywords are different from commercial keywords.
Therefore, most of these keywords may not yield fruitful results when used for your PPC campaigns. For example, if you are an online shoe retailer, you may be interested in keywords like “buy shoes online” or “best online shoe store .”In such a case, you must avoid targeting keywords like “shoe styling guide.”
11. Get Google to Your Rescue
Have you ever run into a high-volume keyword that none of your competitors have bet on? There could be two reasons for that.
- The search intent doesn’t match with what you have to offer, and
- Your luck has been in your favor!
Once you find a high-search volume keyword, simply type it in the search bar and check the SERP results or related searches. You can also get Keyword suggestion ideas from Google autocomplete. All of them will give an idea of whether the keyword has a commercial intent. You can also try to expand the keyword and make it long-tail to be more specific in finding the intent.
12. Use the ISearch From
People see up to 4 Google ads when they search for a keyword. However, the ad text is not the only important thing in deciding which ad to click. Instead, you must ensure that the entire ad looks attractive and presentable to the buyers.
For this, you can use the I Search From tool to determine how your ad will appear in different languages, locations or devices when it appears for a given keyword. Once you enter the details, the app will generate a preview that will look exactly how your potential buyers would see it.
13. Seek Out Help From AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is an underdog when it comes to keyword research ideas for PPC. Using this tool, you can enter a search term and country to get an elaborate visualization of hundreds of keyword variations. You can also view question-based keyword ideas, an alphabetic list of word pairs containing your target keyword and more.
14. Browse Through Product Catalogs
This strategy is exclusively helpful for sites that sell a lot of ecommerce products. When conducting keyword research for PPC, browse through your product catalogs as well as your competitors’. For example, if you are a shoe retailer, you can check out popular brands in your niche like Nike and Adidas and get an idea of their product categories. Then you can use a keyword research tool to expand on them and find new keyword opportunities.
15. Read Forum Discussions
Finding forums in your niche is very simple. For example, you can conduct a Google search with: “Your target keyword” + “forums” to find a list and explore each of them to discover different sections and the topics within them.
You can read a few threads under each topic to see what words your target audience uses the most to discuss your product and services. These can be your potential keyword opportunities for PPC campaigns.
16. Discover Popular Keywords on Reddit and Quora
Reddit and Quora can serve similar purposes as forums to discover new keyword opportunities. For example, on Reddit, you can search for your keyword and navigate to a relevant subreddit to see what people are talking about. Find top threads with several comments to find keyword ideas for your PPC campaigns.
Long-tail keywords increase the likelihood of conversions for your PPC campaigns. You can utilize Quora to find such keyword ideas. Just type in a keyword on Quora and look at the related questions. Going through these questions will give you tons of insight into:
- What are people talking about?
- Which questions are the most popular and receive a lot of answers
- What products or services are most recommended in your niche, and
- Which words frequently describe a product or service in your niche?
It is important to note that no matter how many long-tail keyword ideas you find, their search intent should match what you have to offer and also suit your target audience.
17. Enjoy Smart Insights From Wikipedia
Believe it or not but Wikipedia is a powerful tool to find keywords for PPC. The platform content is curated by many industry experts and other highly-knowledgeable individuals. You can start by searching for a keyword on Google and visiting the Wikipedia page to look at the Contents section of the page. Some of them can be great niche keywords for you to explore.
18. Look for Synonyms
Every keyword idea is a gateway to many synonyms you may have overlooked. An online thesaurus can recommend hundreds of variations for a seed keyword. You can filter them by nouns, verbs or phrases to filter irrelevant results and choose the best ones for your PPC campaigns.
19. Explore Seasonal Opportunities
If you run a business where seasonality matters, it is something you can take advantage of during your PPC keyword targeting strategy. Google Trends is the best tool to analyze trending and upcoming seasonal keywords, check their popularity and find keyword opportunities for your upcoming PPC campaigns.
Conclusion
If you’ve exhausted your PPC keyword ideas sourced from your current strategy, this article could help you explore some more avenues for PPC keyword research.
Before we wrap up, you should remember that no matter what your source or inspiration of the PPC keyword is, it won’t deliver results until it matches the users’ search intent. Therefore, it is wise to let go of certain keywords that don’t align with what you have to offer.
Which strategy do you follow to find PPC keywords? Let us know in the comments.
