Intent Sorted First
Terms grouped by what the searcher wants — comparing, buying, or just reading.
Google Ads Keyword Research
Google Ads Keyword Research That Starts With Intent, Not Volume
A keyword list sorted by search volume is a list of the most expensive ways to reach people who were not buying. Google Ads keyword research sorts by intent instead — what someone typing this actually wants — and treats the negative list as half the job, because what you exclude decides what the budget reaches as much as what you include.
The Negative List Is Half the Research
Most keyword research produces what to bid on. The expensive omission is what not to.
Negatives Built In
Free, jobs, DIY, courses, and the adjacent categories that look relevant to a matching algorithm.
Match Types Assigned
Each term given the match type its risk justifies rather than one setting for the list.
Grouped for Control
Ad groups tight enough that the ad can speak to the query.
Read From Real Data
Where an account exists, the search terms report tells you more than any planner.
Keyword Research, Explained
Why Do Big Keyword Lists Perform Badly?
Four reasons, and volume is implicated in all of them.
Review My Keywords →- 1
Volume Is Not Intent
The highest-volume term in most categories is informational. It produces traffic and no enquiries.
- 2
No Negatives
A list with no exclusions matches anything adjacent, and the search terms report fills with queries nobody wanted.
- 3
Everything on Broad
The widest match type applied uniformly, so the account cannot control what it pays for.
- 4
Groups Too Large
Forty keywords in one ad group means the ad cannot be relevant to most of them.
What Keyword Research Covers
What to bid on, how, in what group, and what to exclude.
Organic and paid keyword work answer different questions — see SEO keyword research.
How We Build a Keyword Set
If an account exists we start with what it already paid for. That is better evidence than any estimate.
Read What Exists
The search terms report, showing actual queries rather than projected ones.
Classify Intent
Terms sorted into buying, comparing and researching.
Build Negatives
Exclusions written alongside the inclusions, not after.
Assign Match Types
Control where it matters, reach where it is safe.
Structure and Map
Ad groups tight, each pointing at the right page.
Match Types
What Match Types Actually Control
The single most consequential setting in a search account, and the one most often left on its default.
When should you use broad match?
When the account has enough conversion data for Google to judge relevance well, and enough budget that exploration is affordable. Both conditions matter, and small accounts usually meet neither.
Broad match with a well-maintained negative list and strong conversion tracking can find queries a keyword list would never have contained. Broad match without those is an expensive way to discover what you did not want.
The practical sequence is to start on phrase and exact, build the conversion history, then test broad in a separate campaign where its spend can be seen and stopped.
How many keywords should an ad group contain?
Few enough that one ad can be genuinely relevant to all of them. In practice that is usually a handful of close variants rather than a theme.
Large ad groups force generic ad copy, which lowers relevance and click-through and raises what you pay. The account still works; it just costs more than it needs to for the same result.
The test is simple: could you write an ad that a person searching any keyword in this group would find directly relevant? If not, the group should be split.
Questions,answered.
Google Ads keyword research identifies which searches to bid on, with what match type, in which ad group — and, equally important, which searches to exclude.
Because you pay per click. A high-volume informational term produces expensive traffic that does not convert. In organic search that traffic is free and may still be worth having; in paid search it is a bill.
As many as the search terms report justifies, which grows continuously. Negatives are not a one-off list but an ongoing programme — see account optimisation.
It depends on whether competitors appear on it and how strongly you rank organically. If nobody else is bidding and you hold the top result, brand bidding often buys clicks you were already getting.
Partly, but the selection criteria differ. Paid search favours commercial intent because every click costs; organic can afford to target informational terms that build authority over time.
Still deciding if google ads keyword research is right for you?
Talk to UsThe Search Terms Report Already Did the Research
Keyword research is usually presented as forecasting: estimate what people will search, project volumes, build a list.
For any account that has been running, most of that work is already done and sitting in the search terms report. It lists, in plain text, the actual queries the account paid for — not an estimate, not a projection, the real thing.
It is the least used document in Google Ads. On most accounts we are asked to review, nobody has opened it since the campaigns were built, and it contains both the keywords worth adding and the negatives that should have been added months ago.
Free Keyword Review
See What Your Account Is Actually Paying For
Give us read-only access. We will read the search terms report and show you which queries are producing enquiries and which are quietly consuming budget.
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