Building a Foundation with Strong Keywords

Go wide—with a range of specific and general words and phrases

This is an excerpt from Yahoo!’s Smart Start guide, which is packed with helpful content to assist you in making your campaigns as effective as possible. Whether you’re an expert search marketer or just starting out, the tips from Yahoo!’s “Sharon Goodsense” offer practical search marketing insights. Download Smart Start.

Want to increase your conversion numbers? You may need to consider bidding on more specific keywords that contain things like the brands you sell and even specific model numbers. This will appeal to searchers who are closer—or ready—to purchase.

Start by looking online—and thinking like a customer
One of the best and easiest places to begin scouting out keywords is right on your web site. Look through all your pages and pick out the words that are most relevant and interesting to your customers.

Put yourself in searchers’ shoes to come up with all of the possible ways they might be looking for what you offer.
Consider bidding on keywords for your most profitable products and services first to spend most effectively within your budget.
Think about what you want your customers to do (like become better informed or make a purchase).
Review your competitors’ web sites to see what kinds of words they use to talk to customers
Use the Find Keywords panel, on the left side of the Choose Keywords page in your account, to get possible keywords that relate to the products and services you want to promote.
For a more advanced way to find keywords, check your web server logs. These logs can tell you what your site visitors are searching for and how they navigate through your web pages.

Customer mindset changes throughout the buying cycle
1) In the research phase…
Customers are usually just gathering information about product categories, product options and different retailers. They use broad or generic search terms during this phase. Keyword examples: television, camera, video game.

2) In the shopping phase…
Customers are comparing and narrowing their purchase options. They use more specific terms when searching during this phase. Keyword examples: plasma television, digital camera, zombie video game.

3) In the purchase phase…
Customers are ready to buy. They often know exactly what they want, and are going to use very specific search terms to find it. Keyword examples: 42” Brand X plasma TV, 8 megapixel digital camera, Zombieslayer II.

Specific keywords are often more effective than general ones

Broad keywords are great for driving traffic to your web site, but can cause you to go through your budget faster. And unfortunately, because they’re used during the research phase, they don’t lead to purchases or sign-ups as often.

To increase your chances of clicks leading to sales, it’s better to bid on more specific or niche keywords. This can slow your spending and potentially improve your results. As you’ll read later, you will need to continually monitor the performance of your keywords to make sure they’re working for your business.

If your keywords all appear to fall into one phase, now’s the time to make some changes. Look through your list of keywords and determine which phase of the buying cycle they apply to, then round out or amend your list so you’re not just focusing all of your effort and spending on one type of customer.

— The Smart Start Team

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[ Categories: How To's, Tips ]

12 Comments Add your own

1. Clint Dixon | February 4th, 2009 at 12:59 pm

I find it just as easy to pick a few competitors that are well ranked and pluck their keywords then do a consumer intent work up to determine if they should be targeted or dropped…..
2. liz bradley | February 4th, 2009 at 4:25 pm

good info on SEO
3. TeasasTips | February 4th, 2009 at 5:19 pm

Thinking like a consumer is what I am going to work on. In the past my PPC campaigns have not been lucrative. However, I am going to continue reading and researching articles like this in order to get better.
4. ImprintVision | February 4th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

But, I think, keyword must put on anchor text link to get better traffic
5. Kevin Crothers | February 6th, 2009 at 7:45 am

I honestly don’t know the answer to this so I thought I’d ask. What are the ramifications of using a competitor’s name or product name as a keyword to direct traffic to a related, complementary product?
6. MplsWebGuy | February 6th, 2009 at 11:25 am

The last bullet is critical for existing websites:

“For a more advanced way to find keywords, check your web server logs. These logs can tell you what your site visitors are searching for and how they navigate through your web pages.”

You can find several long-tail keywords that would be great for PPC and might consider for SEO & building content around.
7. Guy Hill | February 24th, 2009 at 1:40 pm

“Thinking like a consumer” can be harder than it seems.

Our clients are often very close to their own businesses, so they’ll argue that a given keyword is “too broad” or “too narrow” or “off topic” – before it has even run.

Truth is consumers – in the B2C and B2B world – are often confused as to what they want, or mean, use vague language in searches, etc. They will often search on seemingly unrelated phrases and end up converting as a paying customer.

Take “free” for instance. Many searches that include “free” end up converting to paid sales. This isn’t entirely logical, but neither is consumer behavior.

If you’re looking for volume… don’t pre-judge your keywords. Run them, track ROI, and see what works. No decisions without data. Test!

Cheers,
[Guy
DroidINDUSTRIES.com
8. Sara | February 24th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

After losing a thousand dollars recently, I paused all my PPC campaigns. PPC is a risky business for newbies. I have to spend more time reading articles like this before spending any serious money on PPC again.
9. Online Coupons | February 26th, 2009 at 11:39 am

Besides testing broadmatch keywords to weed out what works, don’t forget the importance of negatives.
10. The Unit | March 3rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm

Go after your specific keywords first to convert sales quicker and then use that money to begin to attack the broad search terms. You have no choice but to do some broad search terms and it may take awhile before some of those terms start to convert. That’s because customers are still trying to figure out what they want in a broad search and then they get specific. They eventually convert, but it may take some time for it to happen.
11. Yahoo! Search Marketing B&hellip | January 5th, 2010 at 10:00 am

[...] 1. Build your foundation with strong keywords When it comes to keywords, one way to get more conversions is to get really nitty-gritty. Consider bidding on more specific keywords that contain things like the brands you sell and even specific model numbers. In other words, think like your customers. [...]
12. Dear Abby for Web Adverti&hellip | January 17th, 2010 at 3:17 am

[...] 1. Build your foundation with strong keywords When it comes to keywords, one way to get more conversions is to get really nitty-gritty. Consider bidding on more specific keywords that contain things like the brands you sell and even specific model numbers. In other words, think like your customers. [...]

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