Digital Marketing Institute

Getting your keywords right is an absolute must for a PPC campaign. The more relevant your keywords are, the more likely they are to get potential customers to click when searching for your products and services. Here are a few pointers to consider when researching and selecting keywords. Good research will have an impact on how many serious customers you reach.

Common Issues with Keyword Selection

• Your potential customersuse  different language and therefore different words than you. You’re probably used to using the correct terms for your own product, but your customers may not be. Step outside of your own world and start to think like your customer.  They may well type in brand names when looking for products, like ‘Hoover’ when they mean ‘vacuum’ or ‘Kleenex’ when they mean ’tissue’.  They might also misspell words or use abbreviations and sometimes try other unexpected variations. Take , for instamce, “cllimate change” versus “global  warming”.  In many respects these means the same thing, but one  of these terms gets about 10 times the search volume that the other (I’ll let you figure which is which!)
• Terminology changes with the times. As markets develop and  update, so too does the associated language. Words that were popular  when you did your first keyword research might not be quite so common now, so continue to do research for new and updated terms.  Remember, iPhone did not exist a few years ago!
• Are your keywords too specific?  You can broaden your keyword list or match type to get more impressions, which is useful early on in a campaign. But it will also get you some less attractive clicks.  You should update and manage your advert copy to ensure that it is up to date and  relevant.   Try to attract customers who will be interested in what you’re selling.

Help with Keywords

Use the Google Keyword Tool to generate keywords that you have  not thought of (but people  are searching for).  Note also that there are a number of commercial keyword research tools (Wordtracker being one  of  the big ones).  Also, don’t forget that there are two other mjaor PPC products  - YSM and Microsoft adCenter - both of which have keyword research tools.