So you’ve decided to setup your first Google Adwords campaign, but are struggling when it comes to selecting the perfect keywords. Make no mistake: these choices are very important, leading to the ultimate success or failure of your ad campaign. The process itself is fairly simple, though, as you will be striving to think like your customers and come up with search queries where your displayed ads will receive the most attention. For those who are new to this, we have outlined several steps you can take to maximize efficiency of your Adwords campaigns and get you on the right track when it comes to your marketing efforts.

Enter the Mind of the Customer

If you are marketing a product or service, then who exactly is your target audience? This must be considered before doing any advertising campaign: you want to know who it is you are trying to reach. Once you determine this, consider the shopping habits and thought patterns of someone searching for queries similar to your offering. If you are selling women’s athletic equipment, then terms such as ‘women’s running shoes’, ‘athletic shorts for women’ and ‘sports bras’ may all be valid keywords with which to be pinging search engines.

Narrow Down the Results

With broader categories selected, now begins an effort to create more niche areas in which to advertise. Some people have great success with this, but only when they zero in on the most effective queries. Frankly, this takes practice, and no one is bound to have complete success the first time they attempt this marketing effort. Instead of using terms like ‘women’s running shoes’, have a list of queries that focus on specific shoes like ‘New Balance 700’. Most people report having less nominal success with search queries like this, but more success in terms of cost versus exposure when tailored properly.

Group Like Phrases Together

Google Adwords offers you the ability to group select keywords together into ad groups that can then be used to target specific products, services, customers or search queries. This pairing helps Google show relevant ads to a number of search queries and keep your marketing efforts grouped together in ways that you see fit. If you are operating a store with many unique yet similar products, ad grouping can help you create different sets of ads for various categories, such as ‘hiking shoes’, ‘running shoes’, and ‘biking shoes’.

Selecting the Appropriate Number of Keywords

Before you start pinging search engines with your ad campaigns, consider the recent ad groups you have just built. How many keywords have you grouped together in each? Research suggests that ad groups work best when they consist of 15-20 unique keywords or phrases, so if you have just a few thus far, it’s probably a good idea to sit down and create some more before initiating your campaign. You also can omit variations/misspellings of popular keywords, since Google has a pretty good sense of correcting and interpreting misspellings. You will need some experience tinkering with the number of keywords that works best for you, but there are virtually no limitations – you can have up to 20,000 individual keywords per ad group, if need be.