What Are AdWords Keywords? | Calgary
AdWords keywords are the words you tell Google to watch for. Someone types one of them into Google, and your ad becomes eligible to show. That is the whole mechanism. Pick the word, set what you will pay, and your ad enters the running every time that search happens.
The confusing part is the name. AdWords was Google’s advertising product from 2000 until 2018, when it was renamed Google Ads. So “AdWords keywords” and “Google Ads keywords” point at the exact same thing. We have managed paid search for Calgary businesses since 2007, back when it really was called AdWords, and plenty of owners still use the old word. Here is what these keywords actually do, the match types that decide how loosely they fire, and where they part ways from the SEO terms people mix them up with.
What Are Negative Keywords? A Plain Guide for Google Ads
Negative keywords are search terms you tell Google Ads to ignore, so your ad never shows for them. That is the whole idea in one sentence. They are the opposite of the keywords you bid on. For the positive list, and how the same terms work over in organic search, see what SEO keywords are. Regular keywords say show my ad here. Negative keywords say not here, not for this search, not to this person.
Most of the wasted spend we find in a new client’s Google Ads account traces back to missing exclusions. Someone bid on “running shoes” and forgot to block “free,” so half the money went to people typing “free running shoes” who were never going to buy anything. That account did not have a bidding problem. It had a negative keyword problem.
How Much Are Google Ads? Costs, Bids, and Budgets Explained
Between $2 and $5 per click for most local service businesses in Canada. Legal and finance keywords push that to $50 or even $200 per click in competitive markets. The question that comes up on every first call about paid search: “just tell me what I am going to spend.” The answer depends on industry, keyword competition, and how tightly the campaign is set up.
Google Ads runs on a pay-per-click auction. No flat rate, no monthly access fee to the ad inventory. Each search query fires a real-time auction. Position and cost per click depend on how your bid, Quality Score, and landing page compare to everyone else bidding on the same keyword at that moment. Put another way, what it costs to buy keywords on Google is never a sticker price. It is whatever that auction settles at.
What Is PPC? Pay-Per-Click Explained for Calgary
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. It is the advertising model where you only pay when someone actually clicks your ad. Google Ads is the largest PPC platform, but PPC also runs on Microsoft Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and most other ad networks. If your business has ever bought a sponsored result at the top of a Google search, that was PPC.
Quick disambiguation: in Canadian search, PPC also returns results about the People’s Party of Canada. This article is about pay-per-click advertising, not the political party.
Search Engine Optimization with Google Analytics
When it comes to a Search Engine Optimization campaign, most agencies will make use of Google Analytics. With this amazing tool, they can see how their campaign is running. Analytics shows from which areas traffic is coming, how many daily visits a site gets and more other metrics. While The analytics tool from Google is incredibly useful, though, most people only manage to scratch the service and aren’t sure how to make the best use of the platform.
Google Penguin: 3 SEO Tips
SEO Tips will help you to start from within your organization.
If your site lost rankings or you are in the market to upgrade your SEO, here is a help.
Following is advice based on what I am doing with my client partners that not only survived Penguin but are dominating the search engines.
Best Keywords Selection – Getting to the Top of Google.
Effectively designing each web page and marketing your site is what will separate you from probably 99% of all other self-styled “webmasters.” Why? Because, very simply, they don’t have any idea what to do or how important website promotion is while you, in only a few minutes, will know exactly how to get started getting to the top of Google through this straightforward keywords tutorial.

Did you know that there are, literally, trillions of web pages on the Net? Hundreds of millions of websites. Most online pages get little commercial traffic while only a small minority of net pages get large volumes of traffic. (more…)
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