PPC Keyword Research for Google Ads: A First-Timer’s Guide

One downside of using Google Keyword Planner for PPC keyword research is that it often shows broad search volume ranges, which makes it hard to judge how popular a keyword really is.

For instance, for the keyword “crypto wallet” it shows a broad range of 10k-100k searches.

Tools like Ahrefs (that’s us!) can give you a clearer picture of a keyword’s popularity, making it easier to choose and prioritize the right ones for your campaign.

The Keyword Planner also tends to group similar keywords together, which can result in vague or overly broad suggestions that don’t reflect what people are actually searching for, especially when you’re looking for long-tail or niche keywords.

On top of that, the tool doesn’t provide data on your competitors, so you can’t see who’s bidding on which terms or how tough the competition is. All of this makes it harder to find precise, low-competition keywords that are actually worth your ad budget.

That’s where a combo like Ahrefs and ChatGPT really shines.

With Ahrefs, you can find more keyword ideas, get more precise volume estimates, and paid keyword reports for any competitor’s domain, and even translate for other markets on the spot.

Then, with ChatGPT, you can quickly filter, cluster, and prioritize those keywords based on business value, search intent, or even funnel stage.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to put this process into action step-by-step.

Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer to find affordable keywords that people search for when they’re likely ready to buy, and that your website doesn’t already rank for on Google.

Let’s start with a few broad keywords related to your business (seed keywords). You can brainstorm some yourself and use Ahrefs’ built-in AI to help expand the list.

Next, go to the Matching terms report. Make sure you’re looking at results for the country where your core audience is. If you’re planning on running international or multilingual campaigns, we will translate the keywords in the following steps.

Exclude keywords where you rank in the top 10 and select intents: commercial and transactional. The two intent types typically mean the searcher is close to making a purchase. You can also filter out expensive keywords using the CPC filter.

If you’re not sure how much you should pay for a click, you can figure out your maximum CPC with some simple math:

• Using product price. Max CPC = (Product price x Profit margin x Conversion rate)
• Using your max budget and expected number of conversions. Max CPC = (Budget x Conversion rate)/ Expected number of conversions

Finally, select all keywords and add them to a new keyword list. 

Tip

If your organic rankings are close to the top 10, you can optimize your content to move up. But you could also bid on those keywords in the meantime. Since you already rank for them, your ads will likely get a higher relevance score.

Site Explorer’s Paid keywords report.

Apply your max CPC and exclude the competitor’s brand name. Setting a maximum cost-per-click makes sure you’re only seeing keywords that fit your budget. And removing their brand name helps you avoid bidding on terms like “Competitor X product,” which can be risky and may not convert well.

Add the results to your keyword list. Repeat for each competitor.

Tip

Here at Ahrefs we’ve just released the Paid Keywords 3.0 report. It shows which ads your competitors ran over the past month. Use it if the regular Paid Keywords report doesn’t return enough ads or whenever you want a broader view from the start.

Keywords Explorer. Set it to show ads at the top and bottom of the SERP.

LinkedIn.