📋 What you'll need: Your completed buyer research (Spreadsheet 1), your Google Ads Planner (Spreadsheet 4), your max cost per click from Know Your Numbers, and a free Google Ads account open
⏱ Time: 2–3 hours to research and plan your keywords properly — this is the most important work in the whole module, so don't rush it
✅ Output: A complete keyword plan in Spreadsheet 4 — your search terms grouped into ad groups, tagged by intent, with match types chosen and a starting negative keyword list
⏱ Time: 2–3 hours to research and plan your keywords properly — this is the most important work in the whole module, so don't rush it
✅ Output: A complete keyword plan in Spreadsheet 4 — your search terms grouped into ad groups, tagged by intent, with match types chosen and a starting negative keyword list
This is the heart of Google Ads. On Meta, your creative finds the right person; on Google, your keywords do. Choose the right search terms — the ones your buyers actually type when they're ready to act — and you're halfway to a profitable campaign before you've written a single ad. Choose badly, and no amount of clever ad copy will save you. So this is the work to slow down and get right.
First, How the Auction Rewards Relevance
You already know Google runs an auction for every search, and that relevance — not just budget — decides who wins. Here's the part that matters for your keywords: Google scores how closely your keyword, your ad, and your landing page all match what the person actually searched. The tighter that match, the less you pay per click and the higher you show. Google calls this Quality Score.
What this means in practice is simple, and it shapes everything on this page: a search, an ad, and a page that all say the same thing beat a bigger budget that doesn't. If someone searches "emergency plumber Dublin," the winning setup is a keyword for that exact search, an ad that says "Emergency Plumber in Dublin," and a page about emergency plumbing in Dublin — not a generic "we're a plumbing company" homepage. Relevance is the small founder's biggest advantage, because it's free to be relevant, and it's how you beat competitors spending far more than you.
💡 Keep this in mind as you build: every keyword you choose should have an ad and a landing page that genuinely match it. That's why you group keywords tightly and why you don't just point every ad at your homepage. Relevance lowers your costs — treat it as the thread running through everything you do next.
Research Your Keywords, Step by Step
Work through these six steps in order, filling in your Google Ads Planner (Spreadsheet 4, Keyword & Ad Group Plan tab) as you go. By the end, you'll have a complete, intent-sorted keyword plan ready to build a campaign from.
Step 1 — Start from your tagged Master Keyword List
You've already done most of this work. Back in Module 2, you built a Master Keyword List (Spreadsheet 2, Master Keyword List tab) with every keyword you found — and you tagged each one in the Best Use column as Website, Ads, Both, or Not yet.
Open that tab now and filter for the keywords marked Ads or Both. Those are your starting point here — the high-intent, ready-to-buy terms, including the competitive ones you couldn't realistically rank for organically but flagged as worth paying for. Nothing is wasted; you're picking up exactly where Module 2 left off.
Two things change now that you're bidding, not ranking:
- Ignore the Keyword Difficulty column entirely. It measured how hard a term is to rank for free. You're paying to appear, so difficulty is irrelevant here.
- The Est. Cost Per Click column becomes your most important number. It's what you'll check against your max cost per click from Know Your Numbers to decide whether a keyword is worth bidding on.
Pull the keywords tagged Ads or Both into your Google Ads Planner (Spreadsheet 4, Keyword & Ad Group Plan tab) as your starting list. Then add any high-intent terms you've thought of since. If Google is your first module and you skipped Module 2, no problem — brainstorm your starting terms from your buyer research (Spreadsheet 1), thinking about exactly what someone types when they're ready to buy.
Step 2 — Expand your list and check what each keyword costs
💡 You may already have cost-per-click data for many of these keywords from Module 2 — it's in the Est. Cost Per Click column of your Master Keyword List. Use what's there, and only run the tools below for new keywords or to fill gaps.
Now widen your list and confirm what each term costs per click. You may already have a head start: back in Module 2 you recorded an Est. Cost Per Click for many of these keywords in your Master Keyword List (Spreadsheet 2). Use those numbers where you have them, and only run the tools below for new keywords or to fill gaps.
You'll use the same two free tools you already know from Module 2.
Google Keyword Planner (inside your Google Ads account: Tools → Keyword Planner → "Discover new keywords"). Paste in your terms and it shows related searches you hadn't thought of, rough monthly search volumes, and — the number you now care about most — the "top of page bid," which is roughly what advertisers pay per click for that term. Add any strong new high-intent terms it suggests to your Google Ads Planner (Spreadsheet 4).
Ubersuggest (neilpatel.com/ubersuggest, 3 free searches a day) for a second opinion on cost per click, and its Keyword Ideas tab for more specific variations you may have missed.
As you go, do two things with every keyword:
- Add the relevant terms to your Google Ads Planner (Spreadsheet 4, Keyword & Ad Group Plan tab). Keep the ones that sound like someone ready to act; leave the vague or off-topic ones behind.
- Check each term's cost per click against your max cost per click from Know Your Numbers. If a term costs far more per click than you can afford, flag it — you can still test it, but it will need a strong conversion rate to pay off. This CPC check is the paid-search equivalent of the difficulty check you did for SEO in Module 2: it's how you tell, upfront, whether a keyword is worth putting budget behind.
One trap to avoid: don't chase search volume. A term searched 100 times a month by people ready to buy is worth more to you than one searched 10,000 times by people just browsing. On paid search, you're buying intent, not traffic.
Step 3 — Sort your keywords by intent
This is the step that separates a profitable campaign from a budget-drain. Not all searches are worth the same, because not all searchers are equally ready to buy. Go through your list and tag each keyword by its intent — Spreadsheet 4 has a dropdown for exactly this:
High intent (ready to buy) — the person wants to act now. These convert best and deserve most of your budget. "Emergency plumber near me," "buy vitamin C serum," "personal trainer [your city]," "book newborn photographer." Notice the buying words: buy, near me, book, hire, best, [location].
Medium intent (comparing) — weighing options, close but not there yet. "Best personal trainer Dublin," "vitamin C vs retinol serum." Worth targeting, but they need more convincing.
Low intent (researching) — gathering information, not ready to buy. "How to fix a leaky tap," "what does a serum do," "home workout tips." These are usually cheaper but convert worst. Most small budgets should skip these entirely at the start — they're where money quietly disappears.
Be honest as you tag. The temptation is to call everything high intent because you want it to be. It isn't. When your budget is small, put it where the buying is — start with your high-intent terms, prove the campaign works, and only then expand into medium intent.
Step 4 — Group your keywords into ad groups
Now organise your keywords into tight ad groups — small clusters of closely related terms that all mean the same thing. This matters because of relevance: every keyword in an ad group will share the same ads, so the terms have to be similar enough that one ad genuinely fits all of them. Tight groups mean relevant ads, which means lower costs and better positions.
The rule: one clear theme per ad group, roughly 5–15 closely related keywords in each. Don't lump unrelated terms together.
For a personal trainer, good ad groups might be:
- Weight loss training — "weight loss personal trainer," "personal trainer to lose weight," "fat loss coach near me"
- Strength training — "strength coach [city]," "personal trainer for building muscle," "weight training coach"
- Wedding fitness — "get fit for wedding," "wedding workout plan personal trainer," "bridal fitness coach"
Each of those groups can have its own ad that speaks directly to that exact goal — which is far more compelling than one generic "personal training" ad trying to speak to everyone. In Spreadsheet 4, put each keyword's ad group name in the Ad Group column so your plan is organised and ready to build from.
Step 5 — Choose your match types
A match type tells Google how closely someone's search has to match your keyword before your ad shows. It's the gate that controls where your budget goes — and getting it right protects a small budget from waste. There are three, and for a founder starting out, the choice is simple.
Phrase match — your primary choice. Shows your ad when someone's search includes the meaning of your keyword. A good balance of reach and control, and the right default for almost every keyword when you're starting. In Google Ads you'll write it in quotes: "personal trainer near me". Start here for most of your list.
Exact match — for your surest, highest-value terms. Shows only for that search and very close variants — the tightest control. Use it for the handful of keywords you're most certain about, where you want no wasted spend. Written in square brackets: [emergency plumber dublin].
Broad match — not yet. Shows for anything Google thinks is related — the widest reach, the least control. It can work well later, but only once you have weeks of conversion data for Google's AI to learn from. On a small budget with no history, it burns money on loosely-related searches. Leave it until you're established.
In Spreadsheet 4, tag each keyword with its match type. A simple starting rule: phrase match for most terms, exact match for a couple of your most valuable ones, and no broad match until you've got real results behind you.
Step 6 — Build your negative keyword list
Negative keywords are searches you never want to show for — and building this list is not optional. It's how you stop your budget leaking on clicks that will never buy. Even phrase and exact match don't show only for the exact words you chose — Google also matches close variations, synonyms, and related searches, so your ads will sometimes trigger for searches you never intended. Each of those is money gone. Negative keywords block them upfront.
Start with the universal ones almost every business should exclude: free, cheap, DIY, how to, jobs, careers, salary, course, training, template. These are people who want to do it themselves, get it for nothing, or work for you — not buy from you. A wedding photographer adding "cheap," "free," and "DIY" instantly stops paying for clicks from people who were never going to book a professional.
Then add your own:
- Terms for things you don't offer. If you're a financial advisor who doesn't do crypto, add "crypto."
- Places you don't serve. A trainer who only works in-person in one city adds nearby cities they can't serve, and "online."
- Wrong audience. A premium candle maker might add "wholesale" if they only sell direct to consumers.
Put these in the Negative Keywords tab of Spreadsheet 4. This list is never finished — you'll add to it every week once you're live, using your search terms report to catch the irrelevant searches that slip through. For now, get a solid starting list down before you launch.
✅ Before you move on, your Google Ads Planner (Spreadsheet 4) should have:
- Your keywords researched and listed
- Each one tagged by intent, grouped into tight ad groups, assigned a match type, and a starting negative keyword list built.
That's your complete keyword plan — the foundation everything else in this module is built on. Next, you'll turn it into a live campaign.
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