Why is Google Search Term Data Important?

It is important to start with what Google Search Terms are, and why they are so important to a business online marketing strategy.

A "search term" or a "search query", is the word or phrase someone uses to find something in a search engine, like Bing, DuckDuckGo or Google. A search term often contains (or is itself) a keyword: a word or phrase search marketers bid on in their search campaigns and try to rank for in the organic search results.

Google shares this data with marketing agencies like Squid Group on query data, ensuring Google Ad and SEO keywords are used appropriately. With Google's recent update, Google Ads announced that it will begin sharing more search term data with advertisers.

This comes almost exactly one year after the original decision to begin hiding search term data with “insignificant data”, which took important data away for search terms that would still generate leads.

Google believes search term data is considered personal data but that it has been working toward solutions to help maintain privacy while still sharing data back to advertisers. While advertisers still won’t receive all search term data, Google is working to increase visibility into search term data.

How Much Search Term Data Will Advertisers Receive?

Google estimates that advertisers could see 6.5x more search term data, on average. Advertisers will begin to see more search term data. What’s more, search term data will be retroactively populated back to February 1, 2021 for applicable search terms.

How Do Search Terms Relate To Google Ads?

The ads which appear for both Google Shopping and Search Ads, are based on the term used in the search engine. Specific 'keywords' will then activate certain ads to be placed according to what marketing agencies and businesses choose to promote.

The benefit of using Google Ads, alongside SEO is you can track direct conversions for what is generating sales and leads... even if you do not appear organically. This means that over time, new search terms can be included into the keywords a business targets as they generate new leads.

Can Social Media Benefit Keyword Research?

The average person spends over three hours a day on social media! Where often you can see a increasingly high level of intent from Facebook Ads due to the relevant lookalike and retargeting audiences available.

Facebook Ads

• Facebook gathers all that data for targeted ads, where this can also be used for keyword research and finding related topics.
• Analyse keywords associated to the location, age, gender and interests of your audience. As this is broken down you can also review relationship status, employment and education demographics to understand who is engaging the most with paid ads.

Instagram Hashtags

• It can be a quick and easy way to find relevant search terms, as popular hashtags are consitent with what people use in search engines
• If you search for the main topic, you can then find other keywords used in hashtags for the same Instagram posts

Youtube Autocomplete Search Functionality

• YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world behind Google, so use the data available!
• It is simple, type in your main topic and then enjoy the data available which people a searching relevant to this topic