Academy › Publish › Get found on Google
The phrase you pay for isn't the name of your trade
You'll walk away with the exact list of phrases you're going to bid on and the list of words you're ruling out, so you don't burn budget on people who are just browsing.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026
You sit down to set up the ad and you hit the keyword box. You type your trade: plumber, hair salon, yoga classes. It seems obvious. It's also the fastest way to burn your budget on people who don't even know yet if they want to hire anyone.
Before you pick keywords, work out how much you can afford to pay per click and how many days you're willing to run the test before you check the numbers. What's missing is deciding what someone types into Google when they're about to book, versus what they type when they're just browsing. That's the phrase you want to buy. Your trade's name, not so much. And here's one Google Ads detail that changes everything: if you type the keyword as is, it defaults to broad match, and your ad can also show up in searches that are only loosely related. To make it show up only in searches with the same meaning as your phrase, mark it as exact match, in brackets: [hair salon balayage Saturday afternoon].
The phrase that already has its wallet open
Two people type different things into the search bar even though they end up wanting the same thing. One types "hair salon" because they just moved to the neighborhood and want to see what's around. The other types "hair salon balayage Saturday afternoon [neighborhood]" because they already know what they want, when they want it, and where. The first person will check out five websites before deciding anything. The second will book with whichever one answers first.
You pay for the click, not for the visit. If you pay for "hair salon" by itself, you'll pay for that same curiosity more than once before that person decides anything, and they might decide on another website. If you pay for the phrase with the service, the time, and the neighborhood, in exact match, you're paying for someone who already has the appointment in mind.
The rule isn't "the more people who search the keyword, the better." It's the opposite: the more specific the phrase, the fewer people type it, but the ones who do have already decided. With one limit: if the phrase is so specific that almost nobody searches it, Google Ads flags it with low search volume and leaves it inactive until more people search for it. If that happens, drop a detail, like the time, and try something like "balayage [neighborhood]".
- Anyone searches it, even people who won't hire for weeks
- You compete with businesses across the whole city, not just your area
- The click tends to cost more because a lot of people are competing for the same keyword
- It's typed by someone who already knows what they need and when
- You compete with fewer businesses, the ones that are actually nearby
- The click tends to cost less and convert better because the person has already decided
Which one to pick: Always start with the specific phrase. Only move up to the broad trade keyword once you've got weeks of data showing which specific phrases bring in appointments, and you have budget left over to test higher up.
This doesn't mean the trade word is off-limits forever. If you've been paying for specific phrases for a while, you know which ones convert, and you still have unspent budget, you can test higher up. But that's the last box you fill in, not the first. Before that, you need to build the list of specific phrases, and that list isn't something you guess: it comes from how your customer talks, not how you talk about your own business.
How to build the list, without guessing
The most reliable way to find those phrases isn't to think like a business, it's to remember the last time someone messaged or called you with their mind already made up. What specific word did they use for the problem, what urgency did they mention, what area did they name. Those are the phrases you pay for.
And there's another half of the list that always gets forgotten: the keywords you mark so you don't pay for them. If someone searches "how to replace a faucet washer" they don't want to hire anyone, they want a tutorial. If someone searches "cheap hair salon" and your business competes on service, not price, that's not your customer. Every one of those keywords you leave unmarked as negative is budget that goes out and doesn't come back. And be careful how you mark it: a regular negative keyword removes your ad from every search that includes all of its terms, so "plumber" as a regular negative would also block it from "emergency plumber." To rule out only the standalone keyword, mark it as a negative exact match, in brackets: [plumber].
You already know which phrase you pay for and which you rule out. But none of it matters if the click you just paid for lands on the same old homepage: next up is the exact page it needs to land on.
- Your list of phrases to bid on: service, time, and area, in exact match
- Your list of negative keywords, the ones you won't pay for even though they seem related
- The broad trade word stays on hold until you have data, it's not the starting point