Keyword Research & Match Types

Where keyword ideas actually come from

The best keyword list rarely starts inside a keyword tool — it starts with the language your own customers actually use. Read past enquiries, support tickets, reviews and sales calls for the exact phrases people use to describe their problem, not the phrases you use internally to describe your service. A customer rarely searches using the polished language on your homepage; they search the way they'd describe the problem to a friend. Then expand from there using Google's own autocomplete and "related searches," the Keyword Planner inside Google Ads, and simply searching your likely terms to see what kind of results and ads currently appear.

Group keywords by the specific service or product they represent, and by the stage of intent behind them — someone searching a broad category name is in a very different place than someone searching a specific branded or "near me" phrase. A well-organised keyword list usually has one ad group per tightly related theme, not one giant ad group covering everything a business does — the tighter the theme, the easier it becomes to write ad copy (Chapter 4) that feels written specifically for that search.

Match types today: broad, phrase and exact

Google Ads has three keyword match types, and it's worth understanding how they behave in the current system rather than how they were originally described years ago:

• Broad match (no symbols, e.g. plumber trivandrum) is the most flexible — Google can match it to related searches beyond the literal words, using signals like your other keywords, your landing page, and your account's conversion history. It has the widest reach and the widest room for irrelevant matches; it performs best when paired with Smart Bidding and solid conversion tracking, since the algorithm needs a real signal of what "success" looks like.
• Phrase match (in quotes, e.g. "plumber trivandrum") matches searches that include the meaning of your phrase, with words potentially added before or after — a middle ground between reach and control.
• Exact match (in brackets, e.g. [plumber trivandrum]) is the tightest option, but even "exact" today matches searches with the same intent or meaning as your keyword, not only the identical string — Google will still match close variants such as plurals, synonyms, and reworded phrases it judges to mean the same thing.

In practice: none of the three match types guarantee you only get the searches you expect. That's exactly why the next two sections matter as much as match type selection itself. A reasonable approach for a new account is to start with a mix of phrase and exact match on your highest-intent terms, where control matters most, and test broad match separately, with its own budget and close monitoring, rather than mixing all three match types on the same keyword inside the same ad group.

Negative keywords: the other half of the strategy

Negative keywords tell Google which searches to exclude, at either the campaign or ad group level, or via a shared negative keyword list applied across campaigns. They aren't an optional cleanup step — they're the mechanism that makes broad and phrase match usable at all.

Start a negative list with the obvious categories: searches containing "jobs," "salary" or "career" if you're not hiring; "free" or "DIY" if you sell a paid service; locations clearly outside your service area; and competitor brand names you haven't deliberately chosen to target. Keep adding to this list continuously — it should never be treated as finished. A shared negative keyword list applied at the account level is worth building early for the categories that will never be relevant to any campaign you run, so you're not re-adding the same negatives to every new campaign by hand.

The Search Terms report: your continuous feedback loop

The Search Terms report shows the actual searches that triggered your ads — which, thanks to broad and phrase match, will always include some searches you never explicitly added as keywords. Reviewing it regularly is how you find both new negative keywords and new keyword opportunities you hadn't thought of.

A simple, repeatable process: pull the report, mark clearly irrelevant terms as negatives, and flag any surprisingly relevant term as a candidate for its own keyword — and, if it's converting well, its own dedicated ad group with tightly matched ad copy. In a new account, this report deserves a weekly look for at least the first month; once the negative list matures and match types are dialled in, a lighter monthly review is usually enough to keep the account clean.

Matching keywords to search intent

Not every keyword deserves the same match type or the same landing page. Broadly, searches fall into a few intent buckets: informational ("what does a plumber do"), navigational (a brand name), and transactional ("plumber trivandrum same day"). Your budget should weight heavily toward transactional and clearly commercial searches, with informational terms reserved for content or remarketing rather than your main lead-generation campaigns.

It helps to physically sort a first keyword list into these buckets before building campaigns. Transactional and "near me" style terms usually deserve exact or phrase match and their own tightly focused ad group, because getting the ad and landing page right for them has the most direct impact on revenue. Informational terms, if you bid on them at all, are better served by a separate campaign with a lower budget and different goals — building awareness or capturing an email address rather than expecting an immediate sale.

• Employment terms — jobs, hiring, salary, career, internship
• Free / DIY terms — free, template, how to do it yourself
• Locations clearly outside your service area
• Competitor brand names, unless deliberately targeted
• Unrelated product or service lines you don't offer