AdWords Account for Google Grants: Expansion

In our previous blog post, we reviewed some optimization tips for AdWords Google Grants accounts. This blog post is dedicated to expanding your Google Grants account.

After working on few Google Grants accounts, we noticed a similar problem. Initially, before we started to manage them, these accounts did not cover all relevant topics. As a result, they did not utilize the available budget. Expanding AdWords Google Grants accounts to cover all relevant (for your organization) topics is a crucial step.

There are two important points to keep in mind:

1. Maximum allowed bid is $2.00 (AdWords changed the maximum allowed bid from $1 to $2 in January 2013). This means some highly competitive keywords could be out of reach. That is why in many cases it makes sense to build your account expansion strategy around long-tail keywords. These keywords usually are less competitive and, as a result, have lower cost-per-click.
2. It is recommended to have small and tightly themed ad groups. Each ad group should have ads focused on one ad group theme. The ads should be pointed to the landing pages highly relevant to the theme of the ad group themes. Keywords, ads and landing pages within each ad group should be tailored to focus on one theme and work together to improve Quality Score.

Let’s take a look at some ideas for finding relevant quality keywords for your Google Grants account.

Your Website

The most powerful tool to find some keyword ideas is your website. Just go through your website content and check if all the topics are covered within your AdWords account. Do not limit yourself by top level pages such as categories. Make sure you check all the pages on your website and covered all the topics.

AdWords Keyword Tool

You can use AdWords Keyword Tool to find new keywords and add them your account.

Search Query Report

It makes sense to review a ‘Keyword Details – All’ report to see what search queries triggered your ad impressions and clicks. These search queries could provide some interesting insights on new keyword ideas relevant to your offering. Then you can expand these keyword topics by using the Keyword Tool (see above).

Opportunities Tab

You can find some new keyword suggestions in the Opportunities Tab.

Google Autocomplete

Using the Google search bar to see suggested requests could be a good way for keyword research brainstorming.

As an extension to Google’s Autocomplete idea, there is a very handy tool – Ubersuggest

Competitor Research

Find out what keyword other organizations (similar to yours) use in their AdWords accounts.

There are some tools available for this research such as SpyFu and KeywordSpy

Google Analytics: Organic Search Keywords

Check your Google Analytics stats to find out organic search keywords that convert well – they could provide some ideas on expanding your existing campaigns and ad groups.

Google Analytics: Site Search Report

Find out what your visitors are searching for on your website – it could provide you some ideas on the expansion ideas. There is a ‘Content –> Site Search –> Search Terms’ report in Google Analytics to provide such information.

We hope these ideas will help you expand your AdWords Google Grants accounts to utilize them to their full potential.

Always remember: each ad group should be focused on a single, very tight, theme.