Solutions to Problems
Sure, it’s easy to appeal to people who are already familiar with your products by just using product names and SKU numbers as your keywords, but if you just use these types of keywords, you’ll miss the shoppers in your target audience who are earlier in the buying cycle. These shoppers have a problem or a desire and your product can fill their needs and wants, but they don’t know it yet. So instead of just bidding on “Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge,” you should also be bidding on “waterproof smartphones” or “spill proof cell phone.” These types of keywords may be cheaper than their product-specific counterparts and give you an in with consumers from the beginning of their purchase journey.
Variations
While Google has an option to allow your ads to appear for variations on your keywords (plurals, misspellings, etc.), it’s always best to bid on these variations on your own. By adding these keywords yourself, you can see separate data for each variation and more closely control when your ads are appearing. This is important if you sell something that might seem to be related to something else but isn’t. For instance, if you’re the top gun manufacturer in your state, you might claim that you have the top gun, but you wouldn’t want your ads showing up for people searching for Top Gun the movie. Often times it’s hard to determine whether your product names or company name might be closely related to something else that’s popular, which is where looking at search queries comes in handy. If you see a lot of clicks coming from searches that don’t actually related to your offerings, then you’ll know that you should uncheck the box that gives Google permission to show your ads for related searches and just bid on similar terms on your own instead.
Branded Terms
Many advertisers forget that they should be bidding on their own branded terms. I typically hear clients say that they don’t want to spend the money on terms that will already bring up their site organically, but the fact of the matter is that your competitors may be bidding on your name right now. When someone searches for your brand, the last thing you want is for your competitors to come up before you and steal traffic away from your site! This is why it’s so important to include branded terms in your keywords list.
Holiday-itized Terms
Many advertisers will use gift-related keywords around the holidays, and for good reason! Gift-type keywords attract the types of consumers who wouldn’t typically be in your target audience. These people who are shopping for gifts for friends or family or coworkers make up a transient target audience that can help to push the needle on your business from red to black this holiday season!
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, Business Blogging and Web Copywriting. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and son and enjoys cooking, watching sports, and spending time together as a family. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about current marketing trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!