PART 5 - ‘Best’ Keywords for Your Campaign

This is Part 5 of a 9 part series dealing with the planning and steps required to build a successful Sponsored Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaign. In Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 we explored and identified:

• Your products/services,

• Your main target customer group and what they want from your site/products/services,

• Your main online competition,

• Your Unique Selling Feature, and

• Your main sponsored SEM campaign goals

In Part 5 we will use the information you have gathered to identify the ‘best’ keywords for your sponsored search / PPC campaign.

Keywords

The term ‘keywords’ refers to the search terms that internet searchers use in search engines to find what they are looking for. Keywords can refer to a single word or a phrase. The term ‘keyphrase’ is often used synonymously with ‘keyword’ or ‘search term’. As people become familiar with searches on the internet, they tend to use a greater number of words in their search phrases to more clearly identify what they are looking for.

A sponsored Search Engine Marketing campaign allows the advertiser to pay for placement on search engine results pages (SERPs) for a given keyword – or in the case of content matching – to be shown on a page that is about a related topic. This article will be focusing on search engine PPC - buying ad placement on SERPs. Most notably, the Google AdWords network which includes Google, AOL and AskJeeves (approx 50% of all North America searches) and the Yahoo! Search Marketing network (formerly Overture) which includes Yahoo! and MSN (approx 48% of all North America searches).

Relevancy

Finding the right keywords means keeping several important factors in mind – but the most important concept in choosing the any keyword is:

RELEVANCY

If you identify keywords that are relevant to your products/services, relevant to your target audience and relevant to your industry then you are well on your way to choosing the best keywords for your campaign. In other words, if your site carries original Gucci designer sunglasses – but it does not carry Chanel designer sunglasses – then you should be bidding on appropriate terms for Gucci designer sunglasses and not on terms for Chanel designer sunglasses. If you have identified your target market as being upper-income shoppers interested in the prestige of owning authentic Gucci sunglasses and not too concerned about price then you would not likely be bidding on a keyword like ‘cheap Gucci sunglasses’. Your knowledge of your target customer will help you to identify the keywords you should be pursuing.

Be honest with your potential customers - only bid on terms that actually represent what you carry on your site. It will pay dividends to you in the long run. Many advertisers fall into the trap of thinking that their target market will click on an ad for a product they don’t carry, and then be so charmed by what they find that they will stay and buy something else. What happened the last time you clicked on a link that promised a specific product but that did not carry it? Were you charmed? Or did you leave the site in less than 5 seconds as most disappointed searchers do?

“...the most important concept in choosing the right keywords is RELEVANCY.”

When you are dealing with a brand-name keyword as in the above Gucci example, it is fairly easy to see the keywords you should be considering, but once you move into more general terms it can become less clear. The search term ‘sunglasses’ is relevant to the above example, however, is this term too broad? What percentage of the people who type in ‘sunglasses’ are interested in purchasing a high-end pair of Gucci sunglasses? It would be safe to assume only a very small portion would be interested in purchasing Gucci. This means that you are dramatically increasing the possibility of paying for visitors to your site that are not your target market, not interested in your products and wasting your valuable sponsored search budget.

It is very tempting to choose broad terms because they are so popular and will likely drive lots of traffic to your site – but a too-broad term will simply drive traffic rather than the target customer you want to visit your site.

This does not mean that you should never experiment with broad terms – you definitely should! Broad terms can still result in conversions. However, for your initial campaign it might be best to keep to more targeted terms. Once your campaign is up and running, you can experiment (based on careful metrics and monitoring) with broader terms. Remember, no matter how broad the term, it must still be relevant.

Keywords need not only to be relevant – they also need to be used by searchers in sufficient numbers to warrant bidding on them. The easiest way to find out how often a search term is being used by searchers is to use the handy Keyword Selector Tool from Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ . This straight-forward tool will show you the number of searches done on a given keyword during the previous month in the Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) network – which includes Yahoo!, MSN and other search engines.

Since Yahoo! and MSN handle approximately 48% of all searches done in North America, the search numbers available from this quick, easy and free source is an excellent representation of the internet. A proviso: The Yahoo! Search Marketing system does not differentiate between single a plural terms – it treats ‘tires’ the same as ‘tire’ – however – the Google AdWord system does differentiate.

The search numbers you see on the Keyword Selector Tool are the total number of searches for that keyword, however you can only reasonably expect to get a small portion (usually 3%-5%) of those searchers to click on your ad, so a search term with 100 searches in a month might only deliver 3 to 5 clicks/visitors to your site.

Experimenting with the Keyword Selector Tool will also allow you to expand your potential keyword list, as displays the top 100 terms that include your selected keyword – and it will allow you to dig deeper by clicking on the individual returned terms.

An important note: keep accurate track of all the keywords you identify in a spreadsheet showing the keyword and the Yahoo! Search Marking (Overture) count. This spreadsheet will form a valuable foundation in the rest of your campaign design.

Other Sources

If your work in Parts 1 through 4 does not seem to have provided you with ideas on where to start your keyword search, or if you would like to find more ways to increase your keyword list, here are several ways to expand your keyword list:

• Check your log records to see which search terms people are using to find your site now

• If you have an internal search on your site, check to see what your visitors are searching for

• Visit online magazines about your products/services and see what the current buzz words are

• Start with your actual products and walk through the process, you might find it opens up the keyword selection for you

• Try out Google AdWords Keyword Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox – it does not provide search counts – but it does provide specific keywords that contain the keywords you input, similar keywords, and other keywords to consider (you will still need to check the counts out for these terms)

• Try a visit to a synonym site like http://www.synonym.com where you will find more ways to expand your keywords

Summary

In Part 5, we have utilized the information we gathered in Parts 1-4 to allow us to choose keywords. The search for PPC keywords is never complete – it is an ongoing process that campaign metrics and monitoring will allow you to constantly improve.

In Part 6 we will begin the process of building a strategy for your Sponsored Search Engine Marketing Campaign, which will include establishing a campaign budget.

**PART 1 - Campaign Goal Building, Focus and Product Identification
**PART 2 - Target Audience – Identification and Understanding
**PART 3 - Online Competition & Your Unique Selling Feature
**PART 4 - Setting Campaign Goals & Success Metrics
**PART 5 - ‘Best’ Keywords for Your Campaign
**PART 6 - Campaign Strategy
**PART 7 - Successful Landing Pages
**PART 8 - Successful Sponsored/PPC Ad Creation
**PART 9 - Campaign Management - Monitoring Your Success