Finding Keywords To Fit Your B2B & SaaS Goals
When people talk about running a Google Ads account, more likely than not, they are referring to Search Ads (although Google’s Ad platform supports other placements).
When people talk about running search ads, what they are REALLY talking about is what keywords they are targeting and how much they cost.
I wanted to make this post because there are far fewer resources for search advertisers outside of B2C eCommerce. So all of the examples and strategies in this post are shifted to apply to B2B.
I’m excited to talk about the foundation of any successful search ads campaign in this post. It isn’t long, and I am trying to stay away from going too deep into any structural or intent theories.
If you’re looking for more on search keyword intents, we have content for you here.
The first thing that any good keyword selection starts with is research.
KW Tools
You hear people spitting off their favorite keyword tools for SEO and Google Ads all the time. Everyone has a favorite and their costs are all over the place. Here’s a list of some of the big ones, but before that, here’s a spoiler. You don’t really need any of them to run a GREAT search ads campaign.
- Spyfu ($)
- SEM Rush ($$$)
- AHRef ($$)
- Google’s KW Planner (In the Google Ads platform)
- Ubersuggest
For the most part, these tools are good for finding new keyword ideas, guessing search volume, and guessing CPC. Double down on the word “guessing” because each of those tools (even Google’s) only samples from something like 30% of the actual data out there. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that they are ALWAYS wrong. They’re intended to give you an idea of the market, not predict it perfectly.
So in the end, I really only use Google’s Keyword Planner to figure out if there is enough search volume to target any given keyword.
Here’s the real secret though… when starting new keywords in Google Ads, I almost always rely solely on the Google search results. More on my process later.
Now let’s look into the different categorizations keywords can fall under.
Different Types Of Keywords
So now let’s talk about what kind of keywords you want to target. To be honest, this will be a gross under-description, but it’s a good place to start. I will make a “keyword intent” post in the future.
I frame each keyword with these two questions.
- What the searcher MOST LIKELY means with the search term.
- Where the aforementioned meaning puts your customer in the sales funnel.
Generally, my mentally-drawn funnel has three segments. Keywords that fit in the top typically have high volume. However, they are typically pain-related searches and don’t display much buying intent. Sometimes they are also just shorter terms in either phrase match or broad match (more on match types later). This means that the search terms that trigger your keyword could vary more.
The lowest section of the funnel typically has the lowest volume of all your keywords but the terms are by far the most valuable.
The middle funnel is for keywords that have medium value and medium search volume.
It’s important to understand the differences because they can help you judge how much you want to pay for each keyword click and what ad copy and landing page to use for them.
Here are a few quick examples for my B2B people out there.
| Bus. Type | Keyword | Meaning | Relative Cost/Volume | Landing Page | Funnel Stage |
| Task Management Software | Task Management | Could be someone looking for task management software, or someone trying to learn more about task management | $$/++ | Describe The Fundamentals Of Task Management, Offer Free Trial | Middle |
| Meeting Scheduling Software | Meeting Invite Tool For Business | You’ve qualified the search with “for business,” phrase match makes sure you get relevant searches. There’s not much question about what this means. | $$$/+ | Bring user to a landing page with account creation available, pricing, lead capture or whatever your most valuable conv. is | Low |
| Software Dev. | Need Customer Portal For Website | You could say this is a qualified search but the searcher isn’t asking for any service specifically and is therefore in a research stage still | $/+++ | An informational page that informs the user of the process of figuring out what your portal needs and at most, a light conversion like a newsletter | High |
That’s should help frame the period a little better!
Now let’s bring this all together.
My Process
The first three steps of my process are about building a quality keyword list. With a good list, you can decide how many of those keywords you want to run right away and how many to run later (if your budget is $1,000/month, you don’t want to be running 100 keywords, you’l never optimize from there).
Website/Conversations
The first step is to break down your website to see how things are worded there. Pull some keywords that seem solid and create a list of your core services. Most B2B companies only have one service offering. So in that case, think of the benefits and features that are included in your software.
The next thing to do is ask yourself what keywords are valuable to you. This could include a mix words from all over the funnel. Targeting high-funnel keywords isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you’re just going to bid less on them.
Google search suggestions
Now, take that list and enter the keywords in one at a time, pause to check the suggestions. The suggestions in bolded font can give you an idea of what other people search and can help you figure out terms you might want to target (and terms you might want to avoid).
Make sure to also look at the wording in the results and check the suggestions at the bottom of the page.
If you do this for each of your seed keywords, you might discover some extra qualifiers that make your good keywords even better.
KW Planner
This is where you can get a little more scientific. The keyword planner is a free tool in your Ads account that lets you plug in keywords and it will spit out a list of similar keywords and tell you their potential search volume and ccost.
Again, you can toss away all those paid versions of keyword research tools. This one is about as good as it gets and it’s free.
It’s tempting to get sucked in to all the features offered on the SEM Rushes of the world but I wouldn’t suggest getting one of those if you aren’t an agency.
Structure
Now take all those keywords and sort them into themed groups. Typically my themes are by service and then by funnel stage.
So I might have a “Task Manager” group, a “To-Do List” group and a “Project Management” group. In each of those groups I will have “for business,” “easy,” and so on appended to the seed terms to target specific features and values.
Conclusion
I think it’s important to not go too wild at this stage, a couple of 2-word seed terms can sometimes be enough to get started.
There are so many levers to pull in Google Ads, that if you make anything too complicated, you will soon be overwhelmed. Not to mention, with how heavy Google Ads relies on automation these days, trying to over-control your account wil just put you at ends with the platform.
Thanks for reading!