Keywords have great power. Being an innate part of PPC, they can either make or break your campaign. The process might look long drawn but the beauty of it is you get to know your customer better and improve your performance excessively.
To know how valuable a keyword is, there are keyword research tools available. Every search engine has its own keyword planner. But, since we began our campaign with Google AdWords, I will recommend Google Keyword Planner (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner).
The website/landing page of your ad has enough relevant keywords of the product you sell. However, to understand its relevance you must very well know your website first, make some notes, try, test, fail, and then win.
If you are selling Puma jogging pants divide your keywords in sets as follows:
• Brand keywords: keywords that contain your brand name.
Eg: Puma jogging pants, Puma Products, Puma online store
• Generic Keywords: Keywords that relate to your product in general
Eg: Jogging Pants, Sports Wear, Track Pants
• Competitor Keywords: Keywords used by your competitors.
Eg: Adidas Jogging pants, Woodland track pants.
Competitor keywords can cost you a bit more so be careful when you are on a small budget. Else, it is not much of a fuss to go for them.
Everything settled and concluded, let’s come to the main course. These are a few techniques, which will help you generate an exhaustive list of keywords.
Know your customers
When you know who your customer is, what their buying behavior and habits are, you can predict how they will search for the products you are selling. This is essential because unless you put yourself in your customer’s place, you won’t be able to serve them better.
List generic as well as detailed keywords
For your convenience, start with a list of generic keywords and slow down to the detailed ones. For eg: Sports Wear—Jogging Pants—Women’s Jogging Pants—Full length Women’s Jogging Pants
Consider long-tail Keywords
Short and specific keywords like “pants” might have a high search volume but will everyone searching for pants want jogging pants in particular? Hard to define. They might want short pants, women’s pants, men’s pants, formal pants, etc. Thus, you must consider long-tail keywords. For eg: Women’s size 10 black jogging pants. In addition, a generic keyword has a lower probability for conversion as compared to a long-tail keyword.
Use different spellings for a keyword.
Some words in English can be written in more than one way. For eg: center-centre, theatre- theater, fiber-fibre, color-colour. If such keywords are on your list, make sure you use both the spellings. Also, many times, words are popularly misspelled. Create separate adgroups for these misspelled words, so that you don’t miss people who search for them.
Use keywords that people search through voice.
With growing technology, mobiles phones have become more and more responsive. These days, people do not type in the search box, they speak in it. The way people speak is very different from what they type. If I want to type in the search box, I will type- “best hotels in Mumbai city”, but when I am speaking, I will say- “Which is the best hotel in Mumbai city”. So include words like “which is”, “How are”, “Where is”, etc in your list of keywords.
Use Keyword Planner Tools
Now that you have a widespread list of keywords, keyword tools will help you keep the important ones and scrap out the rest. In the entire stats of your keyword planner, you have to particularly look at the search volume of a keyword. The higher the volume, the more search queries it has every month. The Google keyword planner provides a column to the right under the name Competition. If a keyword has high competition, it means more people are bidding on it. Thus, to place your ad at a higher position you have to pay more. Again, with a high budget, this shouldn’t be a problem for you. But, if it comes off as an issue, then what you must look for is a high volume- low competition keyword.
Include Negative Keywords
There are times when your ad gets clicks for vague, irrelevant terms, which cost you unnecessary riches. To avoid this, identify the phrases or keywords for which you do not want your ad to be shown. For example: The most prevailing misconception in India is calling a restaurant, a hotel. So if you are advertising for hotels, you will not want clicks for restaurant searches. Thus, you will have to include restaurant as your negative keyword. This will save your wealth massively.
So here we are, at the end of this article! By now, you know you cannot triumph over keyword research instantly. It requires substantial amount of practicing and regular research. The more time you devote towards this activity, the stronger your account will be. And, as and when you do it, you will get a hang of it. The process might just freak you out but eventually you will learn to master this art.
