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Importance of Keywords in a PPC Campaign
To a large extent, PPC search engine marketing is about identifying the most effective keywords for your website; keywords in a pay-per-click advertising campaign are just as important here as in a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.
What is a keyword? A keyword is a word or phrase that people (consumers or businesses) would employ to locate information on the products or services or topic that they are interested learning more about or purchasing.
For example: A professional bull rider is interested in purchasing new boots. He turns on his computer and visits his favorite search engine.
In the search box he enters the keyword phrase “cowboy boots”. In addition, he may also enter “men’s cowboy boots”, “western cowboy boots” or “authentic cowboy boots”. Of course, since he is a cowboy, certain brands of boots are important, so he might also enter “designer cowboy boots”, “Justin cowboy boots”, or “Tony Lama cowboy boots”.
Finally, there are different styles of cowboy boots: “round-toe cowboy boots”, “crepe sole cowboy boots” and “narrow or point-toe cowboy boots”.
The core idea behind keywords in search engine marketing is identifying the words or phrases that are important to your target audience and therefore will be the most effective to use on your website. When search engine visitors click on your pay-per-click advertisement, they are sent to a page on your website. As a PPC advertiser, you are only charged when a visitor clicks on your ad to visit your website.
Making sure you are bidding on keywords that people will be searching for is critical to the success of a pay-per-click advertising campaign. Up front, it is all about visibility and the more eyeballs that see your ad; if it is relevant to what they want, the better chance you have of making a sale or getting a lead.
Bidding on the wrong PPC keywords will only frustrate you and waste your hard-earned money. Bidding on the right keywords can bring you rich rewards but be warned, you will need to use bid management tools to research the cost of bids for your keywords, because some good keywords can also break you.
Incorporate some niche keywords into your pay-per-click marketing campaign that might not cost you as much. You will also want to balance the keywords that will bring you visitors at the short-end or the tail of the buying cycle, as well as the long-end of the buying cycle.
Learn more about how to perform proper keyword research to identify what words are being searched for today so that you know which keywords to focus on in your PPC search engine marketing campaign.
Keyword Matching
Once you determine what PPC keywords you want to bid on, the next step is to decide what targeting match to use.
In other words, how do you want the search engines to match them up to user queries?
Do you want your PPC ad served up only if the query is an exact match, or is it OK to have other relevant words in the query string?
If you decide to use broader matching, you might also want to apply a filter to keep out queries for certain words that do not apply to your product or service. For instance, if you are a real estate broker, you might not want your ads showing for queries on “real estate exam” .
Exact Match
Although they may be called by a different name, the idea is the same. The search term exactly matches the keyword from your account to the searchers query, and does not contain any additional words.
Your ad will be triggered and served up only when a user searches for the word or phrase in the exact same order. Exact match is the most targeted option and recommended as the best way to start your pay-per-click advertising campaign, as it provides the greatest level of control.
As you discover what your click-through rate (CTR) is, and you begin to feel comfortable with your PPC search engine marketing campaign, you may want to broaden your match type to include related searches.
Phrase Match
Each search engine handles this type of matching differently. Typically “phrase match” will trigger your ad display if the word or words are present within the query in the exact same order, regardless of what words precede it of follow it. Provides great targeting and control levels.
Broad Match
Broad match is typically the default, but don’t let that fool you, this keyword matching is loose. Ads can be triggered with one keyword match within the search query string, and not necessarily in the same order. If not careful, one can quickly spend a great portion of the PPC marketing allocated budget.
Broad match includes your keyword phrase for singular along with plurals, synonyms and other relevant variations and are sometimes less targeted than the other options. Google has also added a “broad match modifier” option; this feature allows one to define “anchor” keyword(s) and increase the level of exposure to phrases containing the “anchor” word(s) .
Using this feature allows for added control of the keyword(s) with a greater reach than phrase match, and more control than broad match. Adding modified broad-match keywords to a campaign can help attain more clicks and conversions at a cost effective and more attractive ROI, especially if you primarily use exact and phrase match keywords in your existing account.
Negative Keywords
Use negative keywords as a critical component of a successful keyword list, in order to prevent ads from being served on unwanted or irrelevant keyword terms, and to avoid unnecessary depletion of your PPC’s budget.
Adding negative keywords means your ads won’t show for searches containing that keyword term. Negative keywords can be applied at the campaign and/or ad group level. Adding a negative keyword at the ad group level will only affect ads within the ad group. Adding negative keywords at the campaign level will apply to all ads in all ad groups.
When incorporating negative keywords into your account, unwanted impressions will be filtered out, reaching the most relevant prospects, reducing your cost-per-click (CPC) and increasing your ROI.