STUDENTS
arnold on Feb 24, 2019
***Updated 6/18/2020***
(This is part 2 of a 3 part series about getting a Google Ads Campaign up and running. If you want to go to part 1 then please click here to learn how to set up a Google Ads account.)
This guide also assumes you have some knowledge of the main Google Ads terms. If you completed the Google Ads Search Cert you should be fine.
Intro:
For this guide we are going to set up an advertising campaign in Google Ads. We will then create two ad groups with some keywords you want to bid on. Our budget is $20 and our time-frame is only 2 or 3 days.
I am going to run through this guide using the Lawn Care Website as an example. I will also shoot a video that shows me setting up a campaign for a hair salon business so you can see what an account set up looks like. For this written guide I am going to do a campaign for Tree Trimming in Fort Collins, Colorado.
There are several different ways of coming up with keywords. If I have an existing website with plenty of data I will often use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to find my most important keywords. Sometimes, depending on the website and my experience with the industry, I rely more heavily on the Google Ads Keyword Tool as my primary method.
The method I am demonstrating in this guide is to help you come up with keywords from scratch when you do not have a lot of data to rely on. The best way to learn is to start setting up multiple Google Ads campaigns for different businesses and non-profits.
Before we set up our Google Ads campaign, we need some information including the name of our campaign, the name and purpose of our groups, and our keywords.
How To Pick a Campaign, Ad Groups, and Keywords.
Campaign Name:
Since we have such a small budget and short time-frame to work with we are going to keep this assignment very simple so that you can see the basics of Google Ads. I am only going to use one campaign and the objective will be to get potential customers from Fort Collins who are looking for tree trimming to click on my ads to visit my website and inquire about the service offered. I will call my campaign “Fort Collins Tree Trimming” for Short.
Ad Group:
For my ad groups I am only going to use one for now and maybe split it into two later on if I get keywords that overlap. My group is going to be “Hire Tree Trimmer” where I will target keywords that show an ad for people who want to hire a tree trimmer.
For your ad groups you can set up one or two groups as long as they are specifically targeted to your landing page. For example, you wouldn’t want to put tree trimming and landscaping keywords in the same group. You would put each set of keywords in its own group so that each would have its own ad and go to its own landing page.
Keyword Selection:
For keywords, I never use broad match keywords and neither should you unless you have a very specific reason for it (after a couple years of Google Ads experience). With broad match keywords Google shows your ads for a wide variety of synonyms to your keyword. From past experience the way it matches is far too broad and leads to a lot of junk clicks.
I personally use a lot of exact match and phrase match keywords. I manage Google Ads accounts with very expensive keywords ($50+ per click) so I have grown accustomed to very targeted keywords. With Phrase and Exact match keywords I keep very specific control over the queries that trigger my ads. However, I do lose out on longer tail keywords that might have jumbled keywords. This will make more sense in a minute. Lastly, broad match modifiers are a great way to set up keywords but I will not go over those in this guide to keep things simple.
***Important Note. Every professional who sets up Google Ads accounts does it a different way. My way is very conservative. I would recommend watching a few YouTube videos and watching different people set up accounts. The way I use Google Ads works great for my clients but may not be the best for other industries. ***
Using A Keyword Tool To Find Keywords
To get started with some keyword ideas for my Ad Group I can plug TREE TRIMMING into the Google Ads Keyword Tool as shown below:
https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home
Based on the information I obtain from the keyword tool, my base keywords will be Tree trimmer, Tree trimming , tree cutting , tree pruning. The most actionable keywords or BUYER KEYWORDS (where I know people are looking to hire a company) are HIRE, HIRE A, BEST and FORT COLLINS. There are more but that is enough to get me started with this example. I also notice that people look for company in different ways. These ways include SERVICE, SERVICES and COMPANY. I like to use keyword mixers to come up with variations that I can phrase match. The example below illustrates this and you can see all the keywords I selected at the end of this document. One website I used to merge keywords is called http://mergewords.com/.
It is important to note if I just used a broad matched (or broad match modifier) keyword such as “Tree trimming” then all the keyword below would show. However, “Tree Trimming” as a broad match keyword would also trigger my ad for random searches such as prune flowers, nursery , and prune juice among thousands of other possible synonyms. What I am doing with the phrase match and the mixer is trying to come up with a good spread of keywords that won’t trigger my ads for irrelevant clicks.
Based on this mix I have 48 very specific phrase matched keywords for my Ad Group as shown below.
“hire Tree Trimmer service”
“hire Tree Trimmer services”
“hire Tree Trimmer company”
“hire Tree Trimming service”
“hire Tree Trimming services”
“hire Tree Trimming company”
“hire Tree Cutting service”
“hire Tree Cutting services”
“hire Tree Cutting company”
“hire Tree Pruning service”
“hire Tree Pruning services”
“hire Tree Pruning company”
“hire a Tree Trimmer service”
“hire a Tree Trimmer services”
“hire a Tree Trimmer company”
“hire a Tree Trimming service”
“hire a Tree Trimming services”
“hire a Tree Trimming company”
“hire a Tree Cutting service”
“hire a Tree Cutting services”
“hire a Tree Cutting company”
“hire a Tree Pruning service”
“hire a Tree Pruning services”
“hire a Tree Pruning company”
“Fort Collins Tree Trimmer service”
“Fort Collins Tree Trimmer services”
“Fort Collins Tree Trimmer company”
“Fort Collins Tree Trimming service”
“Fort Collins Tree Trimming services”
“Fort Collins Tree Trimming company”
“Fort Collins Tree Cutting service”
“Fort Collins Tree Cutting services”
“Fort Collins Tree Cutting company”
“Fort Collins Tree Pruning service”
“Fort Collins Tree Pruning services”
“Fort Collins Tree Pruning company”
“Best Tree Trimmer service”
“Best Tree Trimmer services”
“Best Tree Trimmer company”
“Best Tree Trimming service”
“Best Tree Trimming services”
“Best Tree Trimming company”
“Best Tree Cutting service”
“Best Tree Cutting services”
“Best Tree Cutting company”
“Best Tree Pruning service”
“Best Tree Pruning services”
“Best Tree Pruning company”
With my keywords wrapped in quotes, they will only trigger ads when they are searched for in that order. However, they can still show in searches that are longer. So if my keyword was “Hire Tree Trimmer” and someone searched for HIRE TREE TRIMMER FORT COLLINS my ad would still be triggered.
The initial list I came up with is not perfect nor is it fully comprehensive but it is a decent start. The biggest risk with my method is that I am leaving some searches on the tables. However, with Google Ads we are looking at our keywords every week if not every day and constantly making changes and adding and taking away from our keyword list.
Negative Keywords:
The last thing I did while looking through the Google Keyword Tool is come up with some initial negative keywords. With negative keywords, if someone searches for my keywords and also includes any of the negative keywords in the their search, my ad will not be triggered.
Here are my initial negative keywords:
- removal
- diy
- yourself
- how
- when
- grinder
- equipment
- saw
- cost
- tools
- cheap
As an example if someone searches for DIY Tree trimming or tree trimming equipment, then they are looking to do it themselves and would not be looking to hire a company. Because of this I block my ads from showing on searches that includes these negative keywords. This list is also not comprehensive. On any campaign I run I generally do not have less than 200 negative keywords and I am constantly adding to the list every week.
Creating A Landing Page
The last thing I like to have organized before I start my campaign is to have my landing page ready. The landing page is the page of your website that a person will land on when they click on your Ad.
With Google Ads, it is ideal to have landing pages that are specifically created for each campaign or group. The main reason for this is simple. If I were to run a campaign that targets tree trimming and I sent them to the homepage of my website, they are going to see four different services. They will have to dig around the page and by the time they find tree trimming, they will have had to put in too much effort and there will not be a lot written about my service. There are many other links and places where I can lose that lead around the homepage of my website. Potential customers are not putting in a lot of cognitive effort and you need to make the process of contacting you as easy as possible.
Another major reason for specific landing pages is quality score. Google Ads is going to give me a grade for each keyword I am bidding on as it relates to the relevance to the page that is loaded when the ad is clicked on. This grade is a quality score. The more relevant my keyword is to the page the higher my score and the less I potentially have to pay for that keyword. If I am Bidding on Tree trimming, I want the URL of my page to have Tree trimming, I want the titles of my page to have the phrase tree trimming. I want Tree trimming images that have tree trimming in the title and tree trimming as the alt tag. The ad that is shown should also have tree trimming in the main title. The point is, I need to let Google Ads know that my page is relevant to what keywords I am bidding on.
With Google Ads I almost never use existing pages on websites to run my Google Ads campaigns. I always create landing pages that are specifically created for each campaign or group. Even when I am working with a full-fledged website I still create landing pages that run in the background (with no links to them from the website).
Now that I have all my basic information ready for Google Ads my next step is to put this info into my Google Ads Account by setting up a Campaign and our first Ad Group.
Please visit the following link to continue:
http://thedigitalmarketingprofessor.com/setting-up-your-first-google-ads-campaign-groups-and-keywords/