PPC Keyword Lists

July 22, 2008

There are many techniques that PPC advertisers use to ensure successful campaigns. It is partly science, partly art and there are no quick fix tricks. It takes time and an attention to detail to create an effective PPC campaign.

The keyword tool can be useful when used correctly however; it must be taken with a pinch of salt as it is inevitably not that accurate.

Automated bid management software is another tool that advertisers use to aid them. The truth is that these short cut methods will not develop highly optimized campaigns, nor bring in high traffic volumes and therefore doesn’t allow the best ROI. I would not advise this software being used.

The keyword list is the starting point for the build of your campaign and one of the most important parts of the campaign to get right. You must think of every possible term or phrase that a potential customer will search on, especially if it’s likely to convert into a sale. The keyword enables the advertiser to bid on keywords that are used by the target audience and therefore more likely to convert.

The target market is likely to be diverse and the keywords can be broken down to ensure market penetration of each sector of the market. By using different adgroups for different sectors i.e. having an adgroup targeting ‘cheap’, ‘discount’ and ’sale’ type keywords, then perhaps ‘quality’, ‘luxury’ and then what about ‘cutting edge’, or ‘retro’. These words not only target a wider market but also make the search keyword more long tail, therefore reducing the CPC and increasing the chances of a conversion through the user being further down the buying cycle.

Segmenting the target market into adgroups enables different adtext in each advert. In doing this the ads can appeal to different sectors of the market and research can be done to see which sectors, keywords and ads are performing best.

To ensure that all keywords are encompassed in the campaign it is best to start out in excel. Begin with a list of all generic keywords i.e. products and services you are wanting to advertise. Then to the left write a list of descriptive keywords that relate to different segments of your target market such as luxury or cheap. To the right could be a list of geographic locations if it was applicable to be even more specific.? Then once the lists were concatenated a full list of key phrases has been developed in a systematic way.

The best advice is to be as methodical as possible in your build, that way there is less chance of missing keywords or phrases out.