Keyword research is one of the most important parts of a pay per click campaign so how do you go about identifying as many relevant words and phrases as possible? Here are some techniques:
- Use your existing resources
You know your own business and you will have access to a list of your most relevant keywords. Your brain is a good place to start! Here are some resources that will be useful
- Your website
- Your product brochures, ad creative, email campaigns and any other marketing and sales collateral
- Your knowledge of the business – brainstorm!
- Your network of friends, family and customers – ask them for words and phrases they would use to find your business
- Your website’s log files. See what people search for when they come to your site.
- Look at your competitors’ websites
Do the same with competitors’ websites. Have a look at the words and phrases they use and extract ones relevant to your business that you haven’t listed yet.
- Use the Keyword Tools to expand the list
There are a number of free keyword suggestion tools. Put in the phrases you have uncovered so far and see what else comes up that is relevant.
- adWords keyword tool if you have a Google adWords account
- wordtracker
- keyword discovery
- Include variations of your keywords
Consider the following:
- spelling mistakes
- relevant qualifiers / adjectives (eg cheap car loans)
- geo locations (car loans Sydney etc)
- single and plural versions of each word where it makes sense (eg use hotel and hotels)
- common abbreviations
- variations of verbs (eg learning Spanish and learn spanish
- separated and hyphenated words (eg pay per click and pay-per-click)
- Maintain a seasonal calendar
One-off or seasonal events relevant to your business can present good opportunities for keywords in the time leading up the event. These keywords can be very cheap, and good for branding opportunities, if there is little competition for them.
- Use all suitable combinations of words to uncover all phrases
Aaron Wall has an excellent keyword list generator that does this really well.
