Lesson 1.3: What Good Keyword Research Actually Looks Like

By the end of this lesson, you'll know what the output of a good keyword research process looks like, and what it does not look like — so you have a clear target before you build your list.

Most keyword lists are too long. That's the honest starting point.

The instinct is to cast a wide net: the more keywords you have, the more search volume you capture, the more chances you have to show up, right? This is one of the most expensive mistakes in Google Ads.

A long keyword list with a limited budget means your budget spreads thin across dozens of keywords, none of which accumulate enough data to tell you whether they're actually working. The algorithm has no signal to learn from. Your CPA looks terrible. You conclude the keywords aren't performing and start over.

What a good keyword list looks like at launch:

Short. Five to fifteen keywords for most campaigns. If you're a local service business with a clear offer, ten is probably generous. This forces you to be precise about what you're actually trying to capture, and it ensures your budget concentrates on generating real data from a small number of high-confidence terms rather than distributing noise across a large number of uncertain ones.

Intent-qualified. Every keyword on the list should have a clear answer to the question: would someone searching this be ready to contact, buy, or book within a reasonable window? If the honest answer is "probably not" or "some of them," the keyword doesn't belong in your T1 launch list.

Tiered. The best keyword research process doesn't produce one flat list. It produces a tiered list: the keywords you're confident in and will bid on now (T1), the keywords you're interested in but want to test carefully (T2), and the keywords you're noting but leaving out at launch (T3). We'll build this framework in Module 3.

Documented. Every keyword on the list should have a one-sentence rationale. Not a Planner volume estimate. A reason, in plain language, for why this keyword is worth bidding on. If you can't write that sentence, you don't know enough about the keyword yet.

What a good keyword list does not look like: two hundred keywords exported from Planner, pasted in bulk with mixed match types, and launched at $50/day. That's not keyword research. That's keyword procurement, and the difference matters enormously.