Rediscovering The Google AdWords Editor Keyword Opportunities Tool

Google’s Keyword Opportunities (Beta) tool is a gem of a keyword idea tool integrated into AdWords Editor. I recently rediscovered this tool and have been tearing through my clients’ accounts, adding keywords. The tool generates suggestions similar to the Web-based tool, but is integrated into Editor quite nicely. Suggested use: Launch AdWords Editor and open […]

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Google’s Keyword Opportunities (Beta) tool is a gem of a keyword idea tool integrated into AdWords Editor. I recently rediscovered this tool and have been tearing through my clients’ accounts, adding keywords. The tool generates suggestions similar to the Web-based tool, but is integrated into Editor quite nicely.

Suggested use:

  • Launch AdWords Editor and open your Account
  • Launch the Tool – keyboard: ALT-T-O (menu: Tools | Keyword Opportunities (Beta))
  • Uncheck the box for “Include Additional Items”
  • Set Match Type to “Exact”
  • Input your seed keyword, and click the “Get Keywords” Button
  • Select & drag/drop keywords into targeted AdGroups

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A Brief History Of The Tool

Google released the Keyword Opportunities (Beta) with Editor 6.5 nearly 5 years ago, as previously reported by Barry Schwartz.

The current version of the tool is quite slick and integrated with Editor. Google’s help on the Keyword Opportunities Tool covers the main Keyword Expansion part of the tool, as well as the other tabs available from Keyword Opportunities. More detailed usage instructions, tips and tricks follow.

Uncheck The Box For “Include Additional Items”

The tool does a nice job generating keywords tightly related to the seed keyword. Check this box if you want to cast a wider net; but, I found that it generates a wide array of results that overlap with a more organized approach seeding more specific keywords.

If you do check the box, “additional items” appear below the more-targeted result set, so you can give it a try and see for yourself what works for you.

Opportunity Tool1

The tool automatically dedupes against your account; It will not suggest keywords that you already have in your account. One gotcha; it checks against your live account, not the local copy. I suggest you Post changes between runs of the tool, so you don’t end up with duplicate keywords to clean up.

Set Match Type To “Exact”

I do this beforehand so I don’t accidentally add all of these keywords on Broad Match. Best practices in our shop dictate that we push toward Exact Match, with limited use of Broad Match to find new search queries we can add on Exact Match. Even then, we usually emphasize Modified Broad Match.

You may, of course, add the keywords with whatever Match Type works for your account. You can also add negatives (instead of keywords), if you find something you don’t want to match for.

Input Your Seed Keyword

Try to be specific enough that you know you can write targeted ads for the results, but broad enough that you are not needlessly limiting your results. The results tend to be pretty tightly targeted around this keyword.

Select & Drag/Drop Keywords Into Targeted AdGroups

This is where the tool really excels. You can filter, select, multi-select, and drag/drop keywords over to your existing AdGroups. Keywords that have already been added are marked with a [+] so you can sort by that and more easily find the keywords that have not yet been added.

You can also filter results, which is really helpful for wading through long lists and getting the keywords into targeted AdGroups. The tool also lets you create a new Campaign or AdGroup shell.

You may find it useful to sort descending by Global Monthly Searches, at least initially. This should help prioritize the value of longer result sets. This deep workflow integration really helps this tool shine because you don’t have to task-switch between tools to complete the job at hand.

You may find it useful to sort-descending by Global Monthly Searches. This should help prioritize the value of longer result sets. One of the best practices we generally recommend to Clients is to push toward exact match keywords. The increased control and precision often do wonderful things for account performance.

However, our aggressive search-query harvesting and keyword expansions don’t always catch everything. This tool helps us add even more keywords on Exact Match, and it is built right in to Editor.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Crosby Grant
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