PPC (Pay-Per-Click) can be challenging for beginners and choosing keywords can be one of the hardest parts of starting a PPC campaign. If you’re struggling to build a keyword list so that you can get started with PPC, these tips will give you some advice on where to find keywords:
Product Names
Using your products’ names as keywords is a good place to start building your keyword list. The names of your products are likely going to be what most of your audience is searching for so you want to make sure to incorporate these titles into your keyword list. Keep in mind though that simply using product names won’t set you apart from your competition so you don’t want to stop here.
Google Recommendations
When you start typing a keyword into Google, instant suggestions will appear to complete your search query. These are potential keywords that you might want to incorporate into your list if it makes sense to do so. When you search for each of your keywords, Google will also provide related suggestions at the bottom of the page. Again, these are opportunities that you can use for your keyword list.
Google Keyword Tool
Within Google AdWords there’s a free keyword tool that you can use to generate additional keywords based on the text on your website or your existing keyword list. It’s important though to really go through the suggestions with a critical eye because Google will often toss in highly generalized keywords that aren’t great to use in your PPC efforts because they will spend your budget too quickly.
Industry Terms
Every vertical has some industry-related terms that are good to incorporate into your keyword list as well. These types of terms include common abbreviations and slang that industry insiders may use. Using these special terms as keywords allows your ad to appear to a more advanced audience, which is important because a well-educated audience is often more likely to convert.
Locally Based Terms
If your company has a local presence, adding geographically-based words to your keyword list will allow you to appear to local searchers. Having a good balance between locally based terms and regular terms will allow you to test both strategies and see which one performs better. It will also let you focus on multiple conversion goals at once (for example online sales and local brand awareness).
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Consulting for small businesses, Copywriting and Local Online Marketing. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and enjoys cooking, watching sports and spending time outdoors. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about marketing theory and SEM trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!
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