One of the first things you need to consider when starting a new Google Search Ad Campaign is what keywords and what match types to use to get the best results. How exactly do you go about selecting the best keywords? That's what everyone wants to know.

After spending the last 6-7 years managing Google Ad Campaigns for countless clients as a freelancer, I've developed a system that gets great results and allows me to spend little time and mental energy selecting and managing keywords, including match types.

So to start, I always just review the client's website or landing page and ask myself, "what keyword would I use to search Google for this type of service or product?". That's the keyword I start with.

If the client has multiple different pages on their website, each targeted towards a different service/product/topic, you would just create a new Google Ad Group for each page and ask the same question, "what keyword would I use to search Google for to find a service/product/topic like this?"

You want to group your keywords in different themed ad groups as much as possible. This helps you to create more targeted ad copy and spot patterns in the data faster.

Regarding match types, I always start off with broad match along with either Max Conversions Bid Strategy or Max Clicks Bid Strategy.

Once the campaign starts generating clicks, I go into each ad group and use Google's keyword recommendation tool to add any other keywords I think are relevant to the ad group.

I also keep a close eye on the Search Terms Report for 2 things:

1. Keywords that I think will convert and have yet to be added to an ad group.
2. Keywords that I don't want to get clicks from anymore, to be added as negative keywords

Over time, as we start to get click and conversion data on keywords. I will switch keywords from broad match to phrase match if they are generating a high cost with little to no conversions.  

I determine this by looking at the campaign average cost per conversion. If a keyword's cost per conversion is higher than the campaign average, I switch it from broad match to phrase match.

I do the same thing if a phrase match keyword ends up generating a high cost with little to no conversions. I turn it into an exact match keyword.

That's about it! If you follow this system and you have a great product or service you're advertising, I'm confident you'll get great results.

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