There are three ways to access the AdWords Keyword Tool: from within one of your ad groups; from your AdWords account's Tools menu and from an external URL. Using the Keyword Tool from within your ad group will give results based on your campaign settings and your account's performance history. You'll find instructions below for using this tool.
The Keyword Tool in your account's Tools menu and the external Keyword Tool do not consider either of these factors. You can find instructions for accessing these at the bottom of the page.
To access the Keyword Tool from within one of your ad groups:
- Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.co.uk.
- Select the appropriate campaign and ad group.
- Select the Keywords tab.
- Click Keyword tool.
- In the field labelled How would you like to generate keyword ideas?, use the options labelled Descriptive words or phrases, Website content or Existing keyword to create a keyword list. You can switch between options without losing your work. You'll find detailed instructions below for using each option.
- Show or hide columns in the statistics table for each group with the Choose columns to display drop-down menu.
- Select a column that you'd like to show or hide. Once the table is updated, you can select another column to show or hide and so on.
- Select Show All to see all columns.
- Select Show Defaults to restore the three columns that were showing originally: Advertiser Competition, Last Month's Search Volume and Avg Search Volume.
- Build your keyword list in the shaded box.
- Match Type: Use the drop-down menu in the Match Type column if you'd like to change the match type for all your keyword results. The keywords are a broad match by default.
- Add: Click Add next to a particular keyword to move it to the keyword list in the shaded box. The keyword will be added as a broad match. If you'd like to add it as a phrase, exact or negative match, select your preferred match type from the drop-down menu next to Add. Keywords that are already in your ad group will be marked as In ad group and you won't be able to move them to your keyword list. (Important: Keywords that are in your account will not be marked if you access the Keyword Tool from the Tools menu or from the external URL. If you access the tool in one of these ways, be careful not to add keywords to an ad group where they already exist. If you do, you'll overwrite the keywords' Destination URLs and cost-per-click (CPC) bids.)
- Add all: Click this link at the bottom of the table to add all keyword results to the shaded box. Remember that you only want to add targeted keywords to your ad group. If the Keyword Tool has given you a long list of keywords that do not all closely relate to your product or service, you most likely do not want to click Add all. Instead, add individual keywords per the instructions above.
- Remove/Remove all: Click Remove next to each keyword in the shaded box that you no longer wish to include in your ad group. Alternatively, click Remove all to clear all the selected keywords from your ad group.
- Click Add your own keywords to expand a field and add any more keywords that you think of. Click Add to List when you've finished.
- Download keywords by clicking text, .csv (for Excel) or .csv. You'll need a spreadsheet programme to open a .csv file.
- Click Save to a different ad group if you'd like to save your keywords to a different ad group from the one where you accessed the tool. Choose your preferred campaign and ad group from the drop-down menus.
- Click Estimate Search Traffic to see traffic estimates for the keyword list that you've built.
- Click delete next to any keywords that you no longer want.
- Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page when you're satisfied with your keyword list.
- Your new keywords will be lost if you click Cancel. We recommend that you do not click Estimate Search Traffic until you've finished building your keyword list.
- If you didn't go to the Estimate Search Traffic page, save your keywords by clicking Save to Ad Group in the shaded box.
