There are a lot of really important features hidden and buried within the AdWords interface. However, Google made a recent change to the interface placing keywords, negative keywords and search terms front and center for improved HVAC AdWords management.
Search terms were also buried under the “details” tab making the process counter-intuitive. Having a button labeled “Search Terms” makes much more sense.
Let’s take a look into these features and why they matter
There are numerous metrics to understand in an HVAC AdWords management account but keywords, negative keywords and search terms are the life blood of your paid search success and here’s why:
Keywords
Paid Search begins and ends with keyword searches. Keywords are people’s thoughts translated into words and your job as an advertiser is to select keywords that match up with your target market.
The keywords in your account determine your success or failure so choosing the right keywords is the foundation to building a successful Google HVAC AdWords account.
If you’re looking for HVAC AdWords help, start with your keywords. Think about how your customer would search for your business or what they may type into a browser in search of solutions.
People search differently so it’s important to capture each of the various ways people search for the same solution. For example, if your air conditioner stops working on a Saturday afternoon in July and you happen to live in Florida, you have a SEVERE problem.
Here are some examples of how people would search online for a solution to this emergency:
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“Where do I find an air conditioning company”
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“AC Repair”
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“Air conditioning Service”
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“Emergency AC Service”
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“AC not working”
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“AC not cooling”
And for those who may be a “DIY” type of personality, they may conduct a search for “How to get AC running ”. There are thousands of ways to search for something online so it’s important to think through all the different ways your customers search the internet.
You certainly do not need to have every keyword in your account as Google’s keyword match types (Broad, Modified broad, Exact and Phrase match) make this process much less cumbersome.
A good place to start your keyword research is by using Google’s free keyword planner. You can find this under the “Tools” menu within your AdWords Account.
See below:
There are also many keyword tools available outside of Google’s free keyword tool.
Here are just a few examples:
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SEMrush
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Keyword Tool.io
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Buzzsumo
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Longtail PRO
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Google Trends
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Ubersuggest
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KWFinder
In addition to finding the right keywords to target, it’s just as important to weed-out, increase, and lower individual keyword bids based on performance.
Negative Match Keywords
These are the terms you do NOT want your ad to show for in the Google search results page. For example, if you’re an HVAC contractor, you don’t want your ad to show if someone searches “air conditioner for Toyota Camry”. It’s very easy to add negative keywords to your account.
Simply go to the negative keywords tab, like this:
Once you click on the “negative keywords tab”, you have two options to add your negative keyword; either at the ad group or campaign level. In this case you would choose the campaign level because the term “air conditioner for Toyota Camry” is irrelevant to your business.
Ad group level negative keywords are used to exclude your ad from showing from that particular ad group only, not your entire campaign.
Why are negative keywords so important? These are terms that prevent your ad from showing to people who aren’t looking for your service or product.
Showing your ad for unqualified searches will lower your click-thru-rate (CTR), which means lower quality scores and higher cost per clicks (CPC). Ultimately, adding this kind of control to your account will help to improve your ROI.
Search Terms Report
This is a valuable report now available right at your fingertips. This AdWords report shows you the exact terms people are typing into their browser to trigger your ad. You can easily find this report by clicking on the tab “search terms” as seen in the below screenshot.
This is a great source for optimizing your account. You can see how your ads performed with each search query. If they performed well, consider adding the term as a new keyword; conversely, if they aren’t relevant or performed poorly, consider excluding them.
From this report you can easily add either keywords and/or negative keywords right into your account. Simply check the box to the left of the search term and then click either the “add keyword” or “negative keyword” like this:
Don’t forget to consider the match type when adding keywords. If you just click the “add as keyword” button, Google will add the keyword to your campaign as a broad match keyword. You may want to consider phrase match, modified broad match or exact match.
You can learn more about the different types of keywords and how each type broadens or restricts your reach in the link below.
Google allows you to make edits and changes before adding it to your campaign. For example, you can pick out the important words and delete the rest or you can add a city name (Geo-term) to the search term. Simply edit and make changes before adding it to your campaign. This is a great source to help you generate new keyword ideas.
Something else to consider when adding negative keywords to your HVAC AdWords account – Google offers two options. First, you can add the negative keyword at the ad group level, which is the default or campaign level.
See below:
I find that I almost always change the default option and click the radio button “Campaign level of each keyword” As in the HVAC contractor example I mentioned earlier, the search “Air conditioner for Toyota Camry” will never apply and should be excluded entirely from the campaign.
However there are instances where you may want to exclude the term just from triggering ads in a specific ad group instead of the entire campaign. Continually monitoring this report will keep your account fresh and wasted spend at a minimum.
Conclusion
You’ll find these recent changes very helpful especially if you’ve been looking for HVAC AdWords help. Anytime Google makes the AdWords interface more user-friendly to the advertiser, the more effectively you’ll be able to manage your account.
The Google AdWords interface is not always intuitive or easy to navigate, but these are welcome changes. Implementing, testing and making changes to your account on a regular basis will help cut out wasteful spend and better target your most productive customer.
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