If you run Google Ads for a kitchen or bath remodel business, your results come down to two lists: the keywords you bid on and the keywords you block. This is the full PPC keyword list for kitchen and bath remodelers, plus 120 negative keywords to stop wasted spend before it starts. Bid on high-intent service terms like “kitchen remodeling contractor,” “bathroom remodeler near me,” and “kitchen remodel cost,” grouped by service and buyer intent. Then block the searches that drain a budget: DIY guides, job seekers, bargain hunters, and the adjacent misfires like “bathroom cleaning service” that broad match will send your way. Copy the lists below into your account and you’ll launch a campaign that talks to homeowners ready to hire, not people researching a weekend project.
I’ve built and cleaned up these accounts for remodelers across 18 markets. The same two mistakes show up almost every time: too many keywords, and no negative list at all. Both are fixable in an afternoon.
What Are PPC Keywords for Kitchen and Bath Remodelers?
PPC keywords for kitchen and bath remodelers are the search terms you bid on in Google Ads so your ad shows when a homeowner looks for a remodel. They fall into three buckets: service terms like “kitchen remodeling contractor,” local terms like “bathroom remodeler near me,” and buyer-intent terms like “kitchen remodel cost.” A good list matches searches to hire, not searches to browse.
That last part is where most accounts go wrong. A homeowner typing “kitchen cabinet ideas” is 6 months from calling anyone. A homeowner typing “kitchen remodeler near me” might call 3 companies this afternoon. Your keyword list decides which one sees your ad.
The Keyword List: What to Bid On
Start narrow. A kitchen and bath remodeler needs 40 to 60 keywords to launch, not 400. Here is the list I use as a starting point, grouped the same way our 2,400-term remodeling keyword database is: by service, by location, and by buyer intent.
Core service keywords (your money terms)
- kitchen remodeling contractor
- kitchen remodeler
- kitchen renovation company
- kitchen remodeling company
- bathroom remodeling contractor
- bathroom remodeler
- bath remodeling company
- bathroom renovation contractor
- kitchen and bath remodeling
- kitchen and bath remodeler
Near me and local keywords (add your city and nearby towns)
- kitchen remodeler near me
- bathroom remodeler near me
- kitchen remodeling near me
- bathroom remodeling near me
- kitchen renovation near me
Append your real service area to every core term. A Denver remodeler bids on “kitchen remodeler denver” and “bathroom remodeler aurora,” not just “near me.” City terms convert better because they signal a local searcher, and they usually cost less per click than the generic version.
Cost, quote, and estimate keywords (high ticket, planning stage)
- kitchen remodel cost
- kitchen renovation cost
- bathroom remodel cost
- cost to remodel a kitchen
- kitchen remodel estimate
- kitchen remodel quote
- bathroom remodel estimate
Cost searches split people. Some are tire-kickers. Many are serious buyers who need a number before they call, especially on a $40,000 to $80,000 project. Bid on these, but send them to a page that actually talks about price ranges. If your landing page dodges the cost question, you paid for the click and lost the lead.
Kitchen-specific keywords
- kitchen cabinet refacing
- kitchen island installation
- kitchen countertop replacement
- custom kitchen cabinets
- galley kitchen remodel
- open concept kitchen remodel
Bathroom-specific keywords
- shower remodel
- tub to shower conversion
- walk in shower installation
- small bathroom remodel
- master bathroom remodel
- accessible bathroom remodel
Outdoor kitchen keywords (seasonal, spring and summer)
- outdoor kitchen builder
- outdoor kitchen contractor
- outdoor kitchen installation
Outdoor kitchen searches are lower volume and heavily seasonal, so run them as their own ad group with their own budget cap. That way a slow winter for outdoor work doesn’t quietly eat the budget your indoor kitchen ads need.
What Match Types Should You Use?
Use phrase match for most of your account and exact match for your proven terms. Skip broad match until you have a working negative list and conversion tracking in place.
| Match type | How you write it | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Exact | [kitchen remodeler] | Your proven, high-converting terms |
| Phrase | “bathroom remodel cost” | The bulk of your campaign |
| Broad | kitchen remodeling | Only with tight negatives, conversion tracking, and smart bidding |
Broad match isn’t evil in 2026. With a full negative list, real conversion tracking, and a smart bidding strategy feeding on that data, it can find searches you’d never think to add. Without those three things, it’s a hole in your account. New advertisers should earn their way into broad match, not start there.
The 120 Negative Keywords to Add Before You Launch
A negative keyword tells Google not to show your ad when a search contains that word. This is where a kitchen and bath campaign is won or lost, and it’s the step most contractors skip.
Here’s what skipping it looks like. We took over a bathroom remodeler’s account in the Mid-Atlantic that ran entirely on broad match with zero negatives. The term “bathroom remodel” was pulling in clicks for “bathroom cleaning service,” “bathroom accessories,” even “bathroom scale.” The owner was paying for every one of those clicks and wondering why the phone wasn’t ringing. It took us 3 weeks of cleanup to get accurate baseline data, and once we paused the junk and added a real negative list, we cut monthly ad spend from $4,200 to $1,800 with the same number of real leads. Same leads, less than half the spend. That’s what a negative list is worth.
Google lets you save these as a reusable negative keyword list and apply it across campaigns. Build it once. Here are 120 to start, grouped so you can paste them in by category.
Group 1, DIY and research intent (15)
diy, do it yourself, how to, how do you, tutorial, youtube, video, reddit, forum, quora, wikihow, pinterest, ideas, inspiration, images
Group 2, jobs and careers (15)
jobs, job, careers, hiring, employment, salary, wage, resume, apprentice, apprenticeship, journeyman, union, staffing, recruiter, internship
Group 3, cheap and bargain hunters (15)
cheap, cheapest, affordable, budget, discount, coupon, deal, deals, low cost, bargain, inexpensive, wholesale, clearance, secondhand, used
Group 4, free tools, software, and planners (15)
software, app, design tool, design software, free software, free template, 3d planner, room planner, cost calculator, estimate calculator, spreadsheet, quote template, checklist, printable, layout tool
Group 5, repair, handyman, and small jobs (15)
repair, repairs, fix, handyman, patch, touch up, small job, odd jobs, maintenance, service call, punch list, grab bar, caulking, regrout, regrouting
Group 6, wrong service and adjacent misfires (15)
cleaning, cleaner, cleaning service, maid, janitorial, accessories, decor, curtains, rugs, appliances, appliance repair, pest control, wallpaper, organizer, staging
Group 7, retailers and product-only shoppers (15)
home depot, lowes, lowe’s, ikea, wayfair, menards, costco, amazon, cabinets to go, prefab, flat pack, ready to assemble, cabinet store, showroom, catalog
Group 8, rental, commercial, and real estate (15)
rental, rentals, apartment, landlord, tenant, hoa, commercial, office, restaurant, hotel, mobile home, rv, for sale, real estate, flip
One warning before you paste. Do not add “free” as a single negative keyword. “Free estimate” and “free consultation” are two of the best buyer searches you have. Block “free software,” “free template,” and “free design tool” as full phrases instead, which is why they sit in Group 4 as phrases and not as the bare word. This one mistake quietly kills good campaigns, because the owner blocks their strongest terms and never knows it.
Why the Negative List Matters More Than the Bid List
Most contractors spend an hour picking keywords and 5 minutes on negatives. Flip that. Your negative list decides whether the campaign makes money, not your bid list.
The math is simple. Kitchen and bath clicks run roughly $5 to $9 each (more on the numbers below). A broad campaign with no negatives can pull 100 to 200 junk clicks a week. At $7 a click, that’s $700 to $1,400 a week paying for cleaning services, DIY videos, and job seekers. Over a month, you’ve spent $3,000 to $5,000 to find out your ads “don’t work.” They worked fine. You just paid to answer the wrong searches.
In that Mid-Atlantic account, pausing 60% of the keywords that had produced zero conversions in 6 months is what freed the budget, not adding more keywords. Subtraction beat addition. It almost always does in remodeling PPC.
How Do Kitchen and Bath Keywords Differ?
Kitchen and bath keywords behave differently in two ways: seasonality and search volume. Kitchen terms run bigger and lumpier; bath terms run steadier.
Kitchen searches swing hard with the calendar. In our seasonality tracking, “kitchen remodel cost” searches peak in January, when people come off the holidays and start planning the year’s big project, even though the volume of ready-to-hire searches across remodeling drops 20% to 30% from November through January. So January is a planning spike, not a hiring spike. Smart remodelers bid on cost and planning terms in that window while competitors pull back, then shift budget toward “near me” and “contractor” terms as spring hiring picks up.
Bathroom projects are smaller and more frequent, which makes bath keywords a steadier source of leads through the year. A bath remodel is often the first project a homeowner does before committing to a kitchen, so bath campaigns tend to fill the pipeline while kitchen campaigns land the bigger tickets. Run them as separate campaigns so you can set budgets that match how differently they behave.
How Much Do These Keywords Cost in 2026?
Expect to pay roughly $5 to $9 per click and $150 to $200 per lead for kitchen and bath remodeling in most markets. There’s no public benchmark broken out for kitchen remodeling specifically, so here are the closest published figures.
| Category | Average CPC | Average CPL | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home and home improvement (2026) | $8.33 | $90.92 | WordStream, 2026 |
| Construction and contractors | $5.31 | $165.67 | LocaliQ, 2024 to 2025 |
| Doors and windows | $8.76 | $200.34 | LocaliQ, 2024 to 2025 |
WordStream’s 2026 Google Ads benchmarks put the broad home and home improvement category at an $8.33 average cost per click. That $90.92 cost per lead looks low for remodeling because the category folds in cheap, high-volume services. For project-based work, the home services benchmark data from LocaliQ is closer to reality: contractors sit at a $165.67 cost per lead and doors and windows at $200.34. Kitchen and bath remodeling lives in that $150 to $200 range, not the $90 range. Budget accordingly. At those numbers, a $3,000 monthly budget buys roughly 15 to 20 real leads, and on a $40,000 average ticket, one closed job pays for the whole quarter.
How Often Should You Update Your Negative Keywords?
Check your search terms report weekly for the first month, then monthly after that. The 120 words above are a starting point, not a finished list. The real waste is always specific to your market, and you only find it by reading what people actually typed.
Open the search terms report in Google Ads, sort by cost, and look for anything that spent money without a conversion. Add the bad ones as negatives. In a new account you’ll add 10 to 20 negatives a week at first, then it slows to a trickle. That weekly habit is the difference between a campaign that gets cheaper over time and one that stays expensive forever.
If you’d rather have someone build the campaign and run that cleanup for you, a remodeling PPC campaign is one of the things we set up for clients, alongside Google Ads for remodeling companies and the landing pages that catch the clicks. We work with an agency built only for remodelers mindset, which means one company per city and no shared playbooks. You can tell us about your market and we’ll show you what the search volume looks like where you work.
A note on the bigger picture. Google Ads is the fast faucet: turn it on, get leads this week. But you’re renting that traffic. The leads that eventually cost you nothing come from ranking in the map pack for the same terms, which is why most of our clients run ads while home remodeler SEO services build the asset they own. Ads buy you time; ranking buys you the market. Our guide on how to get remodeling leads from Google walks through both sides.
The PPC keyword list for kitchen and bath remodelers isn’t complicated. Bid on the terms that signal a homeowner ready to hire, block the 120 that signal anything else, and read your search terms report every week. Do that and you’ll spend less to book more.
Frequently Asked Questions
What PPC keywords should kitchen and bath remodelers bid on?
Bid on service terms (“kitchen remodeling contractor,” “bathroom remodeler”), local terms with your city added (“kitchen remodeler near me,” “bathroom remodeler denver”), and buyer-intent terms (“kitchen remodel cost,” “tub to shower conversion”). Start with 40 to 60 keywords in phrase and exact match, grouped by service, rather than a few hundred broad terms.
How many negative keywords do I need for a remodeling campaign?
Start with the 120 in this article, then add 10 to 20 a week from your search terms report during the first month. Most mature kitchen and bath accounts run several hundred negatives. The list is never truly finished, because new wasteful searches show up as your reach grows.
Should I use broad match for kitchen and bath keywords?
Not at launch. Use phrase and exact match until you have a full negative keyword list, conversion tracking, and a smart bidding strategy in place. Broad match without those three protections is the fastest way to burn budget on searches like “bathroom cleaning service” and “cabinet jobs.”
How much does Google Ads cost for a kitchen or bathroom remodeler?
Expect roughly $5 to $9 per click and $150 to $200 per lead in most markets. WordStream’s 2026 data puts home and home improvement at an $8.33 average cost per click, and LocaliQ’s contractor and windows categories show cost per lead from $165 to $200, which is the realistic range for project-based remodeling.
Why is my remodeling Google Ads campaign getting the wrong leads?
Almost always because of missing negative keywords and broad match. Without negatives, Google shows your ad for adjacent searches like repairs, cleaning, accessories, DIY, and job listings. Add a negative keyword list, switch to phrase and exact match, and read your search terms report weekly to catch what’s slipping through.
Do outdoor kitchen keywords need a separate campaign?
Yes. Outdoor kitchen searches are lower volume and peak in spring and summer, so run them in their own campaign with their own budget cap. That keeps seasonal outdoor demand from draining the budget your year-round indoor kitchen and bath ads rely on.
How often should I update my negative keyword list?
Weekly for the first month, then monthly. Sort your search terms report by cost, find anything that spent money without converting, and add it as a negative. This habit is what makes a campaign get cheaper and more accurate over time.
