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t 1 of an ongoing series of Best Practices for Google Adwords
Over the years I have managed many paid search accounts for a variety of different clients across multiple industries. However, one thing remains consistent with each of the clients. They all want to know how things work. Inevitably, no matter what topic we talk about, if anyone is participating in an activity they will always want to know the rules and how to win. Paid search is no different. Advertisers all want to know how it works, and how to win the game.
Therefore I’ve decided to start writing a series of different articles targeting the novice Adwords user. It will give you, a better idea of what is being done in your Adwords account, and more importantly, why it’s being done. So first off I want to talk about selecting and managing your keywords.
Coordinating Keywords with Your Business
We need to think in a comprehensive manner to better understand how customers are going to reach us. This will help us better understand and identify the many different search queries that people are going to use in order to find out about our product or service. Of course this leads them to our ads which will bring them to our website.
There are many different ways or sources that you can target to start developing your initial base set of keyword terms that you will want to use. A few of them are Adwords Keyword Planner, SEMRush and SpyFu. There are many more out there but let’s keep in mind that they are all, for the most part, going to give you the same information so there is no need to go “all-in” and purchase multiple monthly plans for different tools. I usually stick with Adwords Keyword Planner and SEMRush myself.
The important thing to remember when using any of these tools is to think comprehensively about all of the different ways that people may search, in order to find you. A good example of what I am talking about might be if we were selling “dog food.” Is everyone that wants to find your product going to search for “dog food?” No. In one instance you can imagine that maybe a veterinarian told a patient that their dog needs to “eat healthier food.” So you can see how, in this case, that this particular person may do a search for “how to feed my dog healthy,” or “healthy food for my dog” and even “food to make my dog healthy.” Get the picture? Good!
So, we have talked about tools that you can use to determine keywords to use for paid search advertising, but those aren’t necessarily the best sources. You’ll find these directly under your nose. The best, and biggest sources to consider when building a keyword base for you paid search accounts are your “Brand,” your “Website,” your “Products,” “Other Advertisers” in your market, and the steps and processes that people may use to research your product and/or services.
Remember Your Brand Carries Value
Even if you are just starting out you need to remember that you are building a brand and that over time that brand is going to carry value and credibility with it. By advertising your brand alongside major keywords, you begin to build value. Don’t let this fall by the wayside. Target your brand as a keyword, and you’ll recognize its value over time as you see its traffic increase each month.
Your website will give you a great starting point. Target your products, brands and services. Then research those terms to get a larger keyword list. Once you have that, use that list, compare it against the content on your website, and find any voids that may have been missed. Then research those terms and continue to build your keyword list.
The Importance of Your Product
Next on the list are your products. We pretty much just covered this when talking about your website. However, you can also identify your competitors product’s here as well. Whereas it may not be ethical to use your competitors name in your ads, but you can put your product in front of people that may not be familiar with you yet. This is a great way to build your customer base and increase overall visibility. If I sell a new type of running shoe that just came out on the market, one of the best ways to gain visibility is to advertise for a keyword off a well-known running shoe like “Nike™ running shoe.”
Finally, try and identify the processes that customers searching for your product or service may use. How many different ways can people possibly try and find you? Try and build a funnel that covers all of these steps and make sure that you can be seen every step of the way. Again, we are building your brand here and the best way to do that is to get your brand in front of people as often as possible, wherever it makes sense, paying attention especially to “wherever it makes sense.” We don’t want to advertise “dog food” when people are searching for “hamster cedar chips.” However, in some cases people searching for “pet store” may result in sales. That may be a very broad example, but I’d like to think that you got the point there. 😉
– Ed Cehi, SEM Manager
With thirteen years of Internet Marketing experience, Ed Cehi joined That Company as a PPC Account Manager in 2008 after previously working at another high profile Florida Web Design and Marketing Agency located in Ocala, Florida for the six years previous. He started his career in Internet Marketing as a Web Designer after graduating from The International Academy of Design and Technology in Orlando Florida with his degree in Web Design. He soon moved on to Search Engine Optimization and then graduated into Paid Advertising following that. Ed now holds the Senior SEM Manager position at Th@t Company. You can find him online with multiple social mediums like Twitter @edsaxman and LinkedIn
