Keywords for Your Campaign

Jim Jansen

College of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University

jjansen@ist.psu.edu

Why is Key Phrase Identification So Important?

• This is the most important step in successful Search Engine Marketing (SEM)!

• The keywords that you decide to target will be used throughout the entire SEM process choosing the right keywords is essential.

• If you choose the wrong keywords you will not be found in the search engines. If you are not found in the search engines how will anyone find your site and buy your products?

• Everything else (i.e., campaign success, budget management, effective ads, etc.) depend on you being successful in the keyword phase!

Think "specific keyword phrases" not just "keywords".

• Due to the extreme amount of competition for general terms in the search engines, if your keyword phrases are too general it is very unlikely you will rank well in the search engines.

• You stand a far better chance to rank well for specific phrases where there is less competition. The resulting traffic, since it is more highly targeted, should also be much higher quality too!

• Here's an example for a site selling shoes:

Too General Much Better!shoes fashionable Italian shoes men's shoes men's leather dress shoeswomen's shoes women's aerobic shoes

Why Key Phrases andNot Just Key Words?

• Key phrases with 2 - 3 words generate the most traffic.

• Key phrases reduce ambiguity (e.g., keyword “bed”- can mean “bed of roses”, “bed and breakfast”, “water bed”, and much more)

13.4%

29.6%

27.6%

16.2%

7.6%

3.2%

1.3%

0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 30.0% 35.0%

1 Word

2 Words

3 Words

4 Words

5 Words

6 Words

7 Words

Length of queries in terms Source: onestat.com, July 2005

A Suggested Strategy:Use Long Tail Keywords

• Long tail keywords are keyword terms which are less popular, less competitive and less searched for, but when taken collectively, long tail keyword phrases can be responsible for driving significant levels of website traffic. – Example: Doing a phrase match search for “web hosting”

shows that there are 297,000,000 Google results (Head). But doing a phrase match search for “web hosting orlando FL” only shows 314 results (Long Tail)!

– The benefit of using long tail keywords in your Search Engine Marketing is the reduced cost per lead with a higher conversion rate.

More Keyword Tips• Plural and singular forms

– car, cars• Verb forms, related nouns, related idioms

– fix, fixing, fix up, fixing up, how to fix up, fix-it-, fixer upper, fixer• Spelling mistakes or spelling variations

– address, adress; email and e-mail; UK and U.K.– sub, submarine, sandwich, grinder, hoagie, poor boy

• Numbers and codes – years, product numbers, other weird uses

• Hyphenated and unhyphenated versions – soup ladle, soup-ladle

• One word versus two words – teacup, tea cup

• Abbreviations and acronyms– The Pennsylvania State University, Penn State, PSU, Nittany Lions

• Phrases with who, what, when to capture people who type a question into a search engine. – For example, how do I repair a kite or how to launch a new online business might be

common queries and might convert well.• Do NOT use competitors’ trademarks! … or at least not in the Challenge!

– Don’t use “Nike” if you are not Nike, but you can use “Nike” if you are a distributor of Nike products.

A few online tools to help with the development of a pool of key phrases

Keyword Discovery by Trellian – http://www.keyworddiscovery.com Free trial limits you to 10 results; paid version gets 100 results

Word Tracker (free trial) - http://www.wordtracker.com Addme Keyword Suggestion - http://www.addme.com/keywordsuggest.htm Google Keyword Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool

Shows advertiser competition and search volume Google Trends - http://www.google.com/trends

Great for localization efforts You can compare searches by separating with commas.

Example: florida restaurants, orlando restaurants Google Insights - http://www.google.com/insights Google Search-based Keyword Tool - http://www.google.com/sktool/#

Think of this as Product or Service lines.

Think of this as your company.

Think of this as individual Products or Services.

If your client has a good Website, you can model your campaigns off the major sections

of the Website!

Link each AdGroup to a specific Webpage on your client’s Website!

How to select the most effective keywords

1. Expand - Your first step is to come up with as many relevant keywords as possible.

2. Match - Now it’s time to choose your keywords match type: broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative match.

3. Scrub - After creating, expanding, and targeting your keyword list, it’s time to refine (‘scrub’) it

4. Group - Organize keywords into similar themes, products, or types so you can write ads targeted to each group.

5. Test and Refine - Search advertising is dynamic – advertisers are constantly revising their ad campaigns, and searchers are constantly searching for different things.

Exercise for Designing an Effective Keyword Campaign

1. The team captain sets up a campaign in AdWords (or use the one you did last class).

2. Each team member creates an Ad Group for their theme (3 - 5 keywords or phrases; quick on the Ad). Or, use the one you did last class.

3. When all team members are done, team members individually evaluate the other 4 Ad Group keyword list. List positives and negatives (best you write them down somewhere).

• Does each Ad Group fit with the overall campaign? – they should.• Are the keywords logically grouped? – they should be.• Are there duplicate keywords across Ad Groups? – there

shouldn’t be).4. Discuss findings as a team. (Team leader, note lessons learned for

real campaign. … Be thinking about selecting an AdWords Coordinator for your team!)

5. Once done with #4, individually, correct issues with your Ad Group.

Exercise for Designing an Effective Keyword Campaign

Individually, using your Ad Group, do:

1. What is the estimated daily traffic for your Ad Group?2. What is an estimated daily cost for your Ad Group?

(See Tools -> Traffic Estimator.)

3. Add one broad match keyword.4. Add one match exact phrase.5. Add one exact match keyword.6. Add one phrase with a negative keyword.

7. As a team, what is the cost for running this campaign (i.e., all Ad Groups) for 21 days (based on the calculations in #2)?

8. As a team, work your account to a total spent of $9 per day (assume only this one campaign).

Thank you!(reminder to do your daily logs)

Jim Jansen

College of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University

jjansen@ist.psu.edu