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Panning for Keyword Gold (continued)
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About the Author
Kevin Gold (78 Posts)
Kevin Gold is Director of Internet Marketing at iNET Interactive, a social media company operating prominent online communities for technology professionals and technology enthusiasts. Kevin is a frequent contributing author to multiple publications including Search Marketing Standard, Practical eCommerce, DIRECT, Entrepreneur.com, ConversionChronicles.com, About.com, and On Target (Yahoo! Search Marketing newsletter).
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An accounts success depends on Keyword Expansion. Keyword Expansion is not simply adding Keywords to your account, it is researching the best Keywords that describe your products/services and knowing what your competitors are bidding on that Keyword that makes a solid Keyword List.
There are a lot of Keyword Research Tools in the market, some for free some on a monthly subscription basis which can be used to generate a solid Keyword List. Search for Keyword Research Tools on Google, Yahoo, or MSN & you should see a lot of options to choose from.
Segmenting Keyword Expansion:
* Keyword Research: Always research traffic volume for Keywords related to your product/service before adding them to your account – Caution: High volume Keywords are good to bid on, however, be aware of your accounts Conversion Rate, & don’t expect 100% Conversion – which means it is good to be a little conservative when setting Max. CPCs for such high volume terms as they have a tendency to burn through budgets quickly and before you know it, you will end up with a high Negative ROI
* Misspellings: It is good practice to add misspellings to your Keyword List – Example: I have seen conversions from Keywords like caars (cars); & motgage (mortgage)
* Competitive Research: Some Keyword Research Tools show what competitors are bidding on. Good place to begin this would be to use Google Keyword Research Tool and simply adding your competitors domain to generate a lit of Keywords from their website
* Short Tail & Long Tail Keywords: Good strategy to include both, even though more often than not Long Tail Keywords tend to have less volume and therefore lower conversions
Couple of other Keyword Expansion Tactics:
1. Google’s Search Query Report: This report shows any and every possible variation of Keywords that triggered your add and generated traffic.
- This report can be used to identify potential keyword that could be added to your negative keywords list.
- This report also helps identify potentially new keywords that triggered your ads and generated traffic but are not a part of your current keyword list.
2. Keyword Expansion based on Conversion Rate: Identify keywords with the heighest conversion rate and try to make variations of those keywords. Example:
- Keyword: Search Engine Marketing
- Variations: Search Marketing, Engine Search Marketing, Marketing Search Engine etc.