Paid advertising, particularly pay-per-click advertising has become one of the most utilised forms of advertising available to businesses today. But even though you are paying for your site to feature, you still need to have an understanding of what your potential customers are searching for. Keyword research for paid ads is an important tool.
Ensuring that you are using relevant, yet cost effective keywords in your paid advertising is essential to being successful. Ultimately it helps your CPC remain low, your results rank above your competitors and your offering is presented to an audience that is looking for it.
It is unlikely that you will magically be given all the best and most effective keywords out there. Which means you need to research the best terms, phrases and ideas to find your ‘golden’ keywords.
Review your Analytics
The best place to start researching keywords is to have a look at what is already working, or not working on your website. Looking over your Google Analytics and Google Ads can help you. You can determine where your successful pages are and which campaigns are generating a good click through rate.
Once you have an understanding of which pages are working well, you should use them as a landscape to find keywords that you can leverage.
Ultimately you should be looking for keywords including: branded terms, competitive terms, product or service terms and industry terms (peripheral terms).
- Branded Terms: these are keywords and terms that include your brand name and trademarked terms.
- Competitive Terms: these are phrases that include your competitors names and their trademarked terms. While you cannot use these terms in your ad copy, you can bid on them and use them on your landing pages.
- Product or Service Terms: terms that are related to your product or service. These are very important as they are the terms that most users will use to describe your product or service.
- Peripheral Terms: these are terms that are related to your industry. They are not necessarily your brand, product or service, or competition.
Find Long-Tail Keywords
Once you have an idea of the keywords you want to use, a great idea is to research some long-tail keyword variations. Long-tail keywords are a great way to expand your keyword list. It also helps you keep in mind a comprehensive view of search terms.
A great way to find long-tail keywords is by using keyword research tools such as Semrush, Moz Keyword Explorer or Google Keyword Planner.
These tools are a good way to find similar keywords. Keywords that you may not necessarily have thought of, but that present a good opportunity.
Remember to include Negative keywords
Negative keywords are words or phrases that you do not want your ad to respond to. It is imperative that you understand and set up your ads with negative keywords in mind.
Using negative keywords can be highly beneficial as you are able to exclude users who lack the right intent. Keywords such as ‘free’ or ‘cheap’ generally indicate a user that is not interested in paying for goods or services. So while you are paying per click on your ad, directing your ads to users who lack the correct intent.
Conclusion: Set your Ads up
Once you have found all the keywords you can go ahead and set up your ads. It is important to remember that your ads, keyword research and analytics are not a once off adventure. You need to be consistent about analysing what is and is not working. You should know which keywords are bring you the most success and which pages are converting.
After your ads have been set up and you are confident that they are bringing in the desired results, it is time to start the process again.
If you enjoyed this article or found it helpful, check out more e-commerce marketing content on the inSyte blog or listen to the inSyte Podcast.
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