Free tool · Google Ads
Keyword grouping tool: from a list to ad groups
24 unique keywords. Match-type symbols are stripped. Up to a few thousand lines works fine.
Suggested structure
11ad groups
Shared core term: real estate attorney
Core: real estate attorney
Core · 2- real estate lawyer
- real estate attorney
Landlord
Theme · 2- landlord tenant attorney
- landlord attorney riverside
Quiet Title
Theme · 2- quiet title attorney
- quiet title lawyer sacramento
Cost and price
Intent · 3- real estate lawyer fees
- real estate attorney cost
- how much does a real estate attorney cost
Best and reviews
Intent · 2- top rated real estate lawyer
- best real estate attorney los angeles
Near me
Intent · 2- real estate lawyer near me
- real estate attorney near me
Los Angeles
Theme · 2- los angeles real estate lawyer
- real estate attorney los angeles
Sacramento
Theme · 3- real estate lawyer sacramento
- real estate attorney sacramento
- sacramento real estate attorney
Contract
Theme · 2- real estate contract lawyer
- real estate contract review attorney
Riverside
Theme · 2- riverside real estate lawyer
- real estate attorney riverside
Singles to review
Review · 2- boundary dispute lawyer
- partition action attorney
Core keywords only contain the shared term. Intent groups share a buying signal such as cost or near me. Theme groups share a service or place. Review holds one-offs to place by hand. Runs in your browser.
The guide
Why ad group structure still matters
When I build an account, the keyword list is the easy part. The hard part is deciding which keywords live together. Get it right and every ad reads like a direct answer to the search. Get it wrong and the same generic ad shows for "real estate attorney cost" and "quiet title lawyer Sacramento", and neither person feels it was written for them.
The real estate law firm I work with runs 12 Search campaigns across Sacramento, Riverside, Los Angeles and Nevada. Between Dec 1, 2025 and Jun 17, 2026 those campaigns had a 7.45% click-through rate and a 10.26% conversion rate. Structure isn't the only reason, but it's the foundation: each group has ads and a landing page that match what was searched.
Sorting a few hundred keywords by hand takes an afternoon. This tool does the first pass in a second, using the same logic I'd use: set aside the words every keyword shares, then split on the words that change what the searcher wants.
How the grouping works
1. Find the core
If a word, or a synonym of it, appears in most of your keywords, it describes the whole campaign, not a group. In the example, that's real estate attorney. Keywords with nothing but the core go into a Core group.
2. Split off other services
Keywords missing part of the core are usually a different service: quiet title attorney, landlord tenant attorney. These are grouped first by their own theme, so a city name doesn't pull them into a location group.
3. Group by intent and place
The rest split on buying signals (cost, near me, best, emergency, affordable) and then on the words left, which are usually places or sub-services. Lawyer and attorney, or price, cost and fees, count as one.
4. Leave the odd ones for you
A keyword that shares a theme with nothing else goes into Singles to review. It might deserve its own group, belong in an existing one, or not be worth bidding on.
Reading the example list
The list already in the tool has 24 real estate law keywords. Here is what comes out and why. Real estate attorney is the core, because lawyer and attorney count as the same word and nearly every keyword has them. The two plain versions, "real estate attorney" and "real estate lawyer", form the Core group.
Quiet title and landlord become their own groups even though one of each mentions a city. They don't contain "real estate", so the tool treats them as separate services first. That's the right call: someone searching for a quiet title lawyer in Sacramento needs a quiet title ad, not a Sacramento ad.
Then come the intent groups: cost (cost, fees and "how much"), best (best and top rated) and near me. The rest split by city, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Riverside, plus a contract group. "Boundary dispute lawyer" and "partition action attorney" share nothing with anything else, so they wait in the review group. In a real account I'd probably give each its own ad group, because they are distinct services with their own landing pages.
Turning groups into a good account
One message per group
If you can't write one ad that fits every keyword in a group, split it. The Google Ads headline generator is quickest when you feed it one group at a time.
Match the landing page
A cost group should land on a page that talks about fees. A city group should land on a page that mentions that city. That's where most of the conversion rate comes from.
Decide what is a campaign
Locations with different budgets or bids are often better as separate campaigns than as ad groups. Intent groups usually sit happily inside one campaign.
Add negatives between groups
When two groups overlap, a negative in one can push a search to the other. Start with the negative keyword list generator for the obvious waste.
Start with phrase or exact
On a new account, phrase and exact match keep spend on searches you chose. Broad match works better once conversion tracking is solid and Smart Bidding has data.
Check the review group
One-off keywords are often the long tail that converts best. Don't delete them without a look.
Where automatic grouping needs your judgement
- Same words, different meaning. "Contract review attorney" is a service; "attorney reviews" is someone reading testimonials. The tool treats reviews as a "best" signal and review as a service word, but check groups like these.
- Places it doesn't know. City names are grouped because they repeat, not because the tool knows they're cities. Two different suburbs that appear once each end up in the review group.
- Very mixed lists. If you paste keywords for five unrelated services, there's no shared core, so it groups by service first. That's usually right, but intent groups like "cost" then sit inside each service.
- Very short lists. With fewer than about ten keywords there isn't enough repetition to find themes. Group those by hand.
What I'd do next
Once you have groups, work out what each click is worth before setting bids. The max CPC calculator turns your sale value and conversion rate into the highest bid that still makes money. If you track ads in a CRM or GA4, tag your final URLs with the bulk UTM builder.
Every account I run starts with this kind of structure. You can read how I approach the rest on my Google Ads management page, or see the numbers from the law firm account in the real estate attorney case study.
FAQ
Keyword grouping questions
What is keyword grouping?
Sorting a long list of keywords into small sets that share a theme, so each set can have its own ad group, ads and landing page. Someone searching "real estate attorney cost" wants a different message from someone searching "quiet title lawyer", and grouping lets you give each one the right ad.
How does this tool decide the groups?
It first finds the term almost every keyword shares, such as "real estate attorney", and sets it aside. Then it looks for the words that separate the rest: a different service ("quiet title"), a buying signal ("cost", "near me", "best") or a place ("Sacramento"). Synonyms like lawyer and attorney, or price, cost and fees, are treated as the same. Keywords that fit nowhere go into a review group for you to place by hand.
How many keywords should an ad group have?
There’s no fixed number. I aim for keywords close enough that one set of ads reads naturally for every one of them. In practice that is often 5 to 20. The max-per-group setting splits anything larger.
Are single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) still worth it?
Rarely. Close-variant matching means an exact match keyword already catches many similar searches, and Smart Bidding needs enough data per ad group to learn. Themed groups of related keywords usually perform as well with far less work.
Does it use AI or send my keywords anywhere?
No. It runs entirely in your browser with a fixed set of rules, so the same list always gives the same groups. Nothing is uploaded.
Can I import the result into Google Ads?
Yes. Download the CSV and use Google Ads Editor’s Import from file, or paste it with Make multiple changes. It has Campaign, Ad group, Keyword and Criterion Type columns, using the match type you choose.
More free tools
Want a second opinion on your account structure?
Send me your keyword list or account access and I'll tell you how I'd restructure it. The review is free.