How many keywords per Ad Group?
Most Frequently Asked AdWords Questions
A while back, I promised to answer any AdWords question that our users would send me. I am still going to go and do that, but it is going to take a little while since I got hundreds of questions via the blog and our newsletter.
In any case, one of the questions that I kept hearing again and again is:
“How many keywords should I ad per Ad Group?”
I see just about anyone that is new with AdWords struggling with this and just the other day, I was listening to a StomperNet video by Frank Kern and I was shocked that in the video even the advice that Frank Kern was giving was not what I would have recommended.
So, here is the rules that I follow each and every time I create a set of new Ad Group.
For example, here is what I did while I was building a keyword list for our new keyword tool www.WordButler.com. While I won’t go over the entire keyword list that I build, I will dive into a specific example to answer “how many keywords per Ad Group?”
So, lets pick the keyword phrase “keyword tool” as an example.
Step 1: Check the traffic. The phrase “keyword tool” is a very popular keyword phrase. According to Google’s keyword tool it gets over 90,500 searches per month.
So what do I do?
I create 1 Ad Group where I put only 1 keyword phrase into the Ad Group using exact match.
In other words, if the keyword phrase gets a lot of searches and is very important to you, then I would recommend to use exact match and create 1 Ad Group with only that 1 keyword.
Step 2: Now I use our keyword tool WordButler to build a comprehensive keyword list of all the searches that are done online that contain the keyword phrase “keyword tool” and I put all of these into Another Ad Group. In this case I found over 150 keyword phrases that contain the word “keyword tool” and I added all of them into a separate Ad Group.
Lets repeat – How many keywords per Ad Group?
- Step 1: I create an Ad Group with 1 keyword only using exact match
- Step 2: I create an Ad Group with all of the keywords that contain the root (in this case “keyword tool)
Lastly, I will then go deeper. If you go to Google’s keyword suggestions and look at the traffic estimates, you will see that there is lots of keywords that get over 10,000 searches per month.
keyword tool – 90,500
overture keyword tool – 9,900
keyword research tool – 8,100
keyword search tool – 8,100
keyword selector tool – 8,100
adwords keyword tool – 6,600
free keyword tool – 6,600
Since the above keyword phrases all get over 5,000 searches per month, I will repeat the same steps and create 2 Ad Groups for each of the above keyword phrase. The first will have only 1 keyword with exact match and the other will have all of the keywords search queries that I can find. I will start with broad match and then add phrase match down the line.
Here is another tip. Whatever you do…. NEVER ever add different keyword phrases into the same Ad Group. For example, I would never put “keyword tool” and “keyword software” into the same Ad Group. If you do that, then there is no way you can compete with the top guys out there because your Ads will never be very targeted.
I hope that helps and if you like to check out our new keyword tool you can do so here at www.WordButler.com
Hey Mike:
Thank you very much for this advice, I’m gonna test it, it souns quite good, it’s about time that I optimize my adwords campaigns, they are doing nice but they’re not optimized and I feel I’m leaving money on the table.
Thanks again.
Hey Mike:
Thank you very much for this advice, I’m gonna test it, it souns quite good, it’s about time that I optimize my adwords campaigns, they are doing nice but they’re not optimized and I feel I’m leaving money on the table.
Thanks again.
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
Do you use separate accounts for different sites or incorporate all websites into one adwords account?
Do you use separate accounts for different sites or incorporate all websites into one adwords account?
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
[...] MindValleyLabs provides some helpful advice on how many keywords to add per ad group. [...]
I always use separate AdWords accounts for separate sites and then I setup an MCC account (My Client Center) to easily get access to all of them.
I always use separate AdWords accounts for separate sites and then I setup an MCC account (My Client Center) to easily get access to all of them.
hi there. I understand what you are saying (am a newbie!) but why do you do your campaigns like this? is it so you can see how efficient the ad group 1 keyword is?
hi there. I understand what you are saying (am a newbie!) but why do you do your campaigns like this? is it so you can see how efficient the ad group 1 keyword is?
Great post Mike,
I’ve also found that you’ll get better results if your ad copy can be as specific as possible to the keyword you’re targeting.
I like your approach of starting with 1 keyword with 1 ad group. This allows you to write an ad that is very specific to your exact match keyword (better CTR’s in the long run if you’re split testing your ads). I also like your note about only putting related keywords into your second ad group. So many times I see dozens of unrelated keywords in an ad group and this is usually the cause of low CTR’s.
Thanks again Mike,
Jeremiah
Great post Mike,
I’ve also found that you’ll get better results if your ad copy can be as specific as possible to the keyword you’re targeting.
I like your approach of starting with 1 keyword with 1 ad group. This allows you to write an ad that is very specific to your exact match keyword (better CTR’s in the long run if you’re split testing your ads). I also like your note about only putting related keywords into your second ad group. So many times I see dozens of unrelated keywords in an ad group and this is usually the cause of low CTR’s.
Thanks again Mike,
Jeremiah
So are you saying that 1 keyword per ad group is a best practice? How many ad groups do you average per campaign?
So are you saying that 1 keyword per ad group is a best practice? How many ad groups do you average per campaign?
Great website and great information. You might be very educated about this matter and i can’t wait until I come back and visit your web site again! Please make some extra posts about this
Great website and great information. You might be very educated about this matter and i can’t wait until I come back and visit your web site again! Please make some extra posts about this