Choose Google Ads keywords by the customer task they express, then connect each group to a relevant advertisement and destination. Use discovery estimates to build a shortlist and actual search terms to revise it. A keyword list should explain what you offer, who needs it and which requests belong elsewhere.
Start with the offer rather than a spreadsheet full of similar words. Write down the service, the action a customer can take and the questions the destination answers. A large list is difficult to judge if nobody can explain why its terms belong together. The useful output is a small set of coherent promises with explicit boundaries.
This guide concentrates on that grouping decision. For campaign context, see Google Ads. The mechanics of broad, phrase and exact matching deserve a separate review after the intended demand is clear. Choosing a match type cannot resolve an ambiguous service offer or make an unrelated landing page relevant.
How do you discover keywords without confusing estimates with demand?
Keyword Planner provides keyword suggestions related to products, services or a website. Keyword Planner reports estimated monthly searches. These are documented planning functions; treat an idea as a candidate for review, rather than a request your business has actually received. Preserve the market and language settings with the exported research so colleagues can interpret the figures later.
An existing keyword list can be uploaded for search volume and forecasts. Keyword ideas can be narrowed using filters and categories. Use those Planner options to review your own offer systematically. For example, retain a reason beside each rejected category: a service you do not provide, a different customer task or a destination you have not prepared.
Do not rank the final list by volume alone. Ask whether a person using the term would recognise the proposed advertisement as a useful answer. Then inspect whether the destination supports that answer. A popular term with no credible next step creates a planning problem; a less obvious term may express the service very clearly.
What belongs in the same intent group?
A useful group shares a customer need and a destination capable of answering it. The original planning method below uses three tests: the requested outcome, the promised response and the available evidence on the page. Apply them before deciding how many keywords the group should contain. There is no invented universal group-size target.
The documented automatic ad-group organisation feature is English only. Google’s Planner instructions also provide for reviewing and editing suggestions. Inspect those suggestions against your offer rather than accepting a theme because the words look similar. Where another language is involved, retain the intended meaning in your notes and have an appropriate reader check it.
A search term is what a person enters when searching. That distinction in the search terms documentation matters because your planned keyword and a customer’s wording are separate pieces of evidence. Write the group’s intended meaning in a plain sentence, so later searches can be assessed against it without relying on an exact spelling match.
Original intent-to-destination worksheet
Consider this hypothetical example: a business installs office networks and also repairs existing network faults. It does not recruit technicians or provide training courses. The table is an authored planning exercise, with proposed phrases rather than measured search results or observed campaign outcomes.
| Candidate wording | Customer task | Proposed destination | Planning decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| office network installation | Arrange a new installation | Installation scope and enquiry page | Keep in the installation group |
| network installation company | Find someone to carry out installation | Same installation page | Review against the same service promise |
| office network troubleshooting | Diagnose an existing fault | Fault investigation page | Give the repair task a separate response |
| network technician jobs | Find employment | No relevant service destination | Record an exclusion candidate |
| networking course | Learn networking skills | No training offer | Record an exclusion candidate |
| office network diagram | Obtain design information | Depends on the actual offer | Investigate before assigning |
For each retained row, write the advertisement’s central promise beneath the table. Then underline the passage on the destination that supports it. If you cannot find that passage, either improve the destination, narrow the promise or defer the row. This makes the worksheet a practical content brief rather than a collection of labels.
The ambiguous diagram request deserves attention. Someone might want a free learning resource, a design service or help documenting an existing installation. Do not force every interpretation into the sales group. Record the uncertainty and the evidence needed to resolve it. A colleague should be able to understand why the row remains undecided.
Add fields for the group owner, proposed keyword match setting, exclusion scope and review note. Keep these separate: the meaning of the group can remain stable while its matching settings change. The worksheet should let a reviewer trace a change back to a customer task, not merely see that a keyword was added.
How do actual searches change the plan?
The Keyword column identifies the keyword that matched a search term. Use that report field to trace an unexpected query back to the planned group. Capture the search wording, the matched keyword, the destination and your interpretation. An unexpected word is a prompt to investigate, not proof that the entire group is wrong.
Some low-activity search terms are omitted for privacy. The report explanation therefore does not support treating the visible list as a complete transcript of every search. State that limitation inside the working analysis. Avoid presenting an empty visible category as evidence that nobody ever searched that way.
Search-term data can inform creative and landing-page content. For the fictional network business, a relevant question about installation disruption might justify clearer page content rather than an exclusion. First establish that the business can answer the question honestly. The purpose is to improve the connection between the request and the offer, not to add every observed phrase to an advertisement.
When should a term become an exclusion?
Google recommends considering irrelevant search terms as negative keywords. Its example-led guidance connects exclusion to products or services that are not offered. Apply that principle to the fictional jobs and training rows, while reviewing the exact negative setting and where it will apply before making a change.
Separate an irrelevant request from an inconvenient question. A person asking about repair eligibility may still be a suitable customer; the destination may simply need a clearer explanation. Conversely, an employment query should not be retained just because it shares the word technician with the service. Record the business reason for the decision.
Review exclusions alongside positive examples of searches you still want. Ask a second person to read both lists and explain the intended boundary. If a proposed exclusion also removes a desired task, revise its scope before approval. Retain the previous version so the owner can understand and reverse a mistaken decision.
End the exercise with a brief for each group: customer task, destination, supported promise, matching setting to assess and exclusions to check. Connect unresolved destination work to your website planning and SEO requirements. To discuss the brief, get started with the worksheet and the decisions still awaiting evidence.
By Spout Team. AI-assisted drafting by Codex using the linked primary documentation.