When doing search engine marketing, keywords are a foundational component. You should be advertising to the right type of potential customers in order to not miss out on any relevant traffic. This starts with accurate keyword research. Remember, keywords are simply the type of words or phrases potential customers are typing into Google Search. Now, when choosing keywords for Google Ads, you don't have to enter every type of keyword exactly. Instead, you can use keyword match types. Keyword match types dictate how closely the keyword needs to match with the user's query. In order for the ad to show, there are three options: broad match, phrase match, and exact match. Broad match will show your ads on phrases that relate to your keyword. They may not include the keyword itself. For example, the phrase "low-carb diet plan" may also appear in searches for "carb-free foods," "low-carb diets," or "low-calorie recipes." To deliver relevant matches, broad match may also take into account the user's recent search activity and the content of the landing page. Yes, the Google Ads algorithm reviews the ad's landing page to better understand the ad itself. The landing page is crucial to success with Google Ads. For broad match types, it's a best practice to pair it with an automated bidding strategy. The second keyword match type is phrase match. These are keywords that include the meaning of your keyword. Phrase match is more flexible than exact match, but it's more targeted than broad match. For example, if the keyword is "tennis shoes," the ad may show searches for "shoes for tennis," "buy tennis shoes on sale," or "red tennis shoes." The ad wouldn't show for searches such as "tennis rackets" or "training shoes" or "can you wear running shoes for tennis?" The third type is exact match. These ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as a keyword. Of the three keyword matching options, exact match gives you the most control over who sees your ad. For example, the keyword "shoes for men" may show on searches for "shoes men," "men shoes," or "men shoe." The ad wouldn't show for "men's tennis shoes" or "shoes for boys." Understand how that's very focused? See, all match types are able to match to cause the variance of the keyword, such as plurals, misspelling, synonyms, and reordered words. That means there is usually no need to build long, exhaustive, keyword lists and include all of these variations in your campaigns. When determining keywords for your Google Ads, you should also consider negative keywords. When you add negative keywords, you exclude search terms from your ad campaigns. It helps avoid irrelevant searches that you know won't perform well. Google Ad focuses on keywords and increase your account performance. You can use negative keywords for any of the matching options discussed earlier in the video. Let's cover one example for broad match keywords. With this match type, your ad may still show if this search contains some of your keyword terms. But it's important to note that, unlike positive keywords, negative keywords won't match to close variants. For example, let's imagine "running shoes" is a negative broad match keyword. The ad may show for "blue tennis shoes" or "running shoe," but it won't show for "blue running shoes" or "shoes running" or "running shoes." Now, why are we covering all this information about keywords? It's very important that your keywords match for content of your ads and the landing page for something called the ad auction. The ad auction is how Google determines which ads to show in what order for each search results that contain text ads. Where your ads show on a particular search is called ad rank, which is a value Google uses to determine your ad's position. There are three main factors that determine ad rank. The first is your bid. The bid is how much you're willing to pay each time a potential customer clicks on the ad. The more you're willing to pay, the higher it may show in the SERPs. The second factor is the quality of your ads and landing page. With each auction, Google assesses the relevance of your ads and landing page to the user's query, as well as the likelihood a user will click your ad. A diagnostic tool called quality score is your Google Ads account can help you identify areas for improving ad quality. Quality score is shown on a scale of 1-10. The score acts as a guide for improving your ad effectiveness, and it's not used in the auction. The third factor that determines ad rank are ad extensions. This is the additional information you provide in the Google Ad, such as a phone number or additional links to your website. You should use all ad extensions that are relevant to your business. Together, these three factors help determine when and if your ad will appear to potential customers. It's important to note that there are other ad rank factors as well, including contents of the search and other results on the page. So as you can understand, it's crucial to align your ad with the right keywords and if you don't, your ads may show to the wrong type of searchers and this may affect your ad rank. With closely matching keywords, the right bid, a quality ad, and a helpful landing page, you will be much more likely to get your ad at the top of a Google search.