What do you do, when you’ve got a long, heterogenous list of keywords? You don’t place it all in the same Ad Group, right? No. Be it from AdWords’ KeyWord Tool, from the list of suggested keywords when you create a new ad, or downloaded from Google Analytics, you need to split it into smaller, targeted groups of keywords.
One way is to put it in a text editor, and start copying and pasting until you’re done. Loooong after you’ve started.
Another way would be to use the AdWords Editor and its keyword grouper, and let it split it into smaller groups, and placing them in ad groups. But that does not offer you enough control.
How about using a tool which acts pretty much like your brain does, i.e. it looks at a keyword, and based on the presence or absence of a certain word in it, decides if it should go to one list or another? You can use it to separate keywords into ad groups, and also to separate useful keywords from negative keywords.
The tool I’m talking about is pretty easy to build, and I’ve built it using both Excel and Google Spreadsheets. You can check it out , and if you like it, save it as an Excel file and use it offline as well. I did it because it was requested by a fellow AdWords Community member here, and found myself using it soon after.
It features the long keywords list in the first column, and the words to split it by in the first line.
Then, each cell, in each column featuring a “split by” keyword as a header, is either filled with the keyword containing the splitter, if the splitter is found in it, or with blanks, if the splitter is not found.
In the end, if you select one of the columns with the splitter in a header, you will have all the keywords in the long list which contain the splitter. Easy, right? It has a word in it, it goes in that group. It doesn’t have it, it stays put. The same process applies to every splitter.
If you liked it, feel free to comment on this blog and tell me how much time it saved you. If there’s anything you feel it can be done better, feel free to improve it, and post a better version, or a link to it, here.
I’m a complete fan. I love the synchrony of two seemingly incompatible products yet used towards improving one’s productivity and efficiency.
I’m only grateful these ideas occur to a sharer as yourself: I’d have guarded it zealously and make it my trump card. Thank the heavens there are people like you who share, thank you Calin!
I could not agree more with Bindu. Thanks a lot for sharing useful info, tips, tricks that cant be found anywhere else on the web. On the easy splitter, it’d be even better, if keywords are not repeated. For example, If you have a keyword “Bone Ankle” it’ll listed in two different columns B and C. If the column C drops a keyword that’s already been taken in B and so on, It’d be cool.
And Once Again Thanks The Heaven Calin!
Thank you, Vivek.
Of course, if you’re splitting by words which are both part of a keyword, you may end up having a keyword showing on two lists. And thus maybe a list comparison would be advisable, once the smaller lists are built.
One could save each list in a separate file, and then compare files, for instance. Making the splitter check for this would be much more complicated, in a Google Spreadsheet or Excel.
Another check could be to put all lists one under the other in Excel and then remove duplicates. If the list with no duplicates is shorter than the concatenated one, then you have duplicates. If they have an equal number of keywords, you’re safe.
You just give me link from adword community. It very good toll to help save my lots of time. Yes there is issue with duplicate keywords but still it helps a lot.
Thank you
You’re welcome, Anil. I’m glad it’s useful.
just tried your tool.It is good for splitting long tail keywords, but it need further improvement. Like i had a keyword- “car safety inspection” so for word “car” it split into “car safely” which is irrelevant to site.
I’m not sure I understand what happened. If you have a list of keywords, such as “car safety inspection” and “vehicle safety inspection”, and you split by “car”, then underneath car you should only see “car safety inspection”, because the other keyword does not contain the word “car” in it. What the tool does is take a list of keywords and separate those containing a part (or more) from those that do not.
The splitting is not “string splitting”, but actually the splitting of a list into smaller lists, which contain the “splitter”.
Here is the few example of keywords which I tried
KEYWORDS CAR
——————————————–
car inspection >> car inspection
car state inspection >> car state inspection
car inspection station >> car inspection station
car safety inspection >> car safety inspection
I tried with below list, you can also give it a try
state inspection station
auto inspection stations
car inspection
car state inspection
car inspection station
car safety inspection
vehicle inspection station
vehicle state inspection
motor vehicle inspection station
automobile inspection station
state vehicle inspection
state car inspection
motor vehicle inspection
state inspection
car inspections
vehicle inspections
car inspection stations
automobile inspection stations
state inspection stations
car state inspections
car safety inspections
vehicle inspection stations
motor vehicle inspection stations
state vehicle inspections
state car inspections
motor vehicle inspections
state inspections
vehicle inspection
inspection stations
vehicle safety inspection
car inspection services
vehicle inspection services
inspection station
auto inspection
auto state inspection
car inspection places
state auto inspection
state inspection car
automobile inspection
auto inspection services
inspection automobile
car vehicle inspection
Yeah.. It was my mistake, I tried it again and its working fine as you explained. Thank you…