Today, we are continuing our AdWords optimization course. Week #1, day #4. We’re talking about the number of keywords you should have in your ad groups in your Adwords campaigns.

What is the maximum number of keywords you should have in any one ad group?

Depending on where you look and who you ask, you will get a number of different answers to this particular question. I’ve heard as high as 50 keywords in an ad group, and I’ve heard as low as 3keywords maximum in any ad group.

So, there really is no specific, correct answer (unfortunately).

But why would there be a maximum number of keywords in an ad group? Why not just throw all the keywords for your campaign in there and just run it like that?

The reason is, we are so limited with our AdWords campaign ads, that based on content, we could not craft effective ads that would encompass more than about 15 or 20 keywords.

Why is that?

Let’s take a look at an example. In this particular ad group for an auto mechanic workshop, out of these 16 keywords, you can see mechanic is in each and every one of them. Or a version of the word mechanic is in each keyword.

Auto mechanic shop, find a mechanic, auto mechanic near me, and so on and so forth. We’re not talking about brake repair. We’re not talking about oil changes. We’re not talking about transmission work. This ad group is specifically built around the key word mechanic.

If that key word does not have mechanic in it, it is not in this ad group. Why is that? Because we can more effectively craft an awesome ad that talks specifically only about mechanics or a mechanic shop, and present that ad to people who are typing in those specific keywords.

If they’re talking about finding an auto mechanic near me, our ad might say something specific like, “Are you looking for an auto mechanic near you?” And that ad is tailored to somebody looking for something specific like that.

We’re not trying to fit everything in our ad that talks about, “Come here for transmission work, oil changes, tire rotations and tuneups.” Because we just don’t have that much room.

We only have 30 characters in the first halfof the headline, 30 characters in the second half, and 80 characters in the description line of the ad. We can only fit so much in an AdWords ad. So, you want to keep these keyword groups, pretty tightly knit together.

You don’t see anything about transmissions in here. You don’t see anything about brakes or oil changes.

So Mike, What’s The Maximum Number of Keywords You Should Have in an Ad Group?

In our agency, we try to keep the maximum number of keywords per ad group to about 20 keywords per group.

Is everything thrown off if there’s 21, or 22, or 23 keywords? Absolutely not. But with that said, if it starts to get more than that, even if they’re pretty tightly knit, we will probably separate them out into two different ad groups just because it makes it easier to manage.

You will hear people also talk about single keyword ad groups. Meaning they will take a keyword like “auto mechanic” and they will put that in it’s own ad group, just titled “Auto Mechanic”. Then they will put three versions of that keyword in that ad group. An exact match, a phrase match, and a modified broad match.

Then they will have a single keyword ad group for every single keyword in their campaign.

One thing that we have found, is when we have a keyword that is operating extremely well, we will usually take it out and put it in it’s own SKAG (or single keyword ad group) and run it like that. But until we hit specific goals with our key words, we typically don’t do that, but that’s just a personal preference but were still testing it out as a number of people we have spoken to LOVE single keyword ad groups.

So, what did we learn? Try to keep the number of keywords in your ad groups to a manageable level. Try to keep all those keywords very tightly knit, around one specific topic, so that when you are ready to craft your ads, you can craft an effective and very targeted advertisement to someone who may be doing a search for what you have to offer.

Hope that helps. We’ll see you next time.

Thanks so much for watching our video titled “How Many Keywords Should I Use In Google Adwords?”

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