In part one of our series on maximizing your search campaigns, we discussed the importance of having an optimized account structure to achieve the best results for your investment. Now that we have a solid understanding of campaigns, ad groups and ads, let's discuss the next piece of the puzzle, keywords!

Keywords

Keywords are the word or phrase entered on Google that will trigger your ad(s) to show for customers. Keyword selection is crucial in developing an effective paid search campaign because targeting ineffective keywords, or incorrect match types, can quickly deplete your marketing budget without driving sales. Before we get into conducting keyword research, let's quickly review keyword match types as this is often one of the largest areas we find for improvement.

Keyword Match Types

Keyword match types define criteria for Google to serve your ads and are broken down into four options:

1. Exact Match - Identified and set by keyword(s) in brackets - [keyword]
2. Phrase Match - Identified and set by keywords in quotation marks - "keyword"
3. Broad Match Modifier - Identified and set by keywords with + symbols - +keyword
4. Broad Match - No special characters added

Exact Match - Will only serve ads when the exact keyword selection is entered by the consumer. For example, if one of your keywords was set to [Michigan Football] as an exact match, the ads would only show if someone searched those exact words. If someone searched for "Michigan Football Tickets" or "Michigan Football Results" the ads would not show because they do not match the term exactly. Exact match keywords are a great way to distinctly target your highest performing search phrases but often will miss out on sales opportunities with similar but not exact searches.

Phrase Match - Will serve ads to close matches of the keyword selection entered by the consumer. For example, if one of your keywords was set to "Michigan Football" as a phrase match, the ads would show if someone searched for "Michigan Football Tickets" or "Best Michigan Football Tickets" along with "Michigan Football". This helps to expand the reach of your ads but also keeps them relevant. As long as "Michigan Football" is present in the search phrase the ads will be shown. Note: The order of the keywords matters, ads will not be shown in this case if the search was "Football Tickets for Michigan" even though "Michigan" and "Football" are in that query.

Broad Match Modifier - Very similar to phrase match. The key difference is that the order of the keywords entered does not impact whether the ad is displayed or not. For example, if we set our keywords as +michigan +football then we will serve ads to "Michigan Football" "Football Michigan" and any other combination of those terms. However, the keywords "Michigan" and "Football" would have to be present in the search in some form. Broad match modifier keywords are a fantastic way to find new high performing keywords that can then be set to exact match or phrase match once they're identified.

Broad Match - Will serve ads to a broad range of matches that resemble the keyword selection entered by the consumer. While broad match can help identify new keyword phrases you may not have thought about, it is important to keep a close eye on them as Google is fairly liberal about what keywords will end up triggering the ad. For example, if your broad match term is Michigan Football, ads could be served for queries such as Michigan Basketball or Michigan State Football.  

So now that we've reviewed all the keyword match types, you may be wondering which match types you should use for your campaigns. The simple answer is all of them! When initially setting up your campaign we recommend starting small and then expanding. Start with some exact and phrase matched terms as well as broad match modifiers. Once you've found what is and is not working with your campaign you can always expand by adding a few broad matched keywords and then follow up by monitoring your search terms report. 

Next, let's review how to research which keywords to use for your campaigns!

Keyword Research

Keyword research is vital to the success of your campaigns as this is how you're going to get traffic AND make sure that traffic is profitable. However, knowing exactly what keywords to choose can be daunting. Thankfully, there are several exceptional tools that can help with the process!

Google Keyword Planner

The best place to start with your keyword research is the Google Keyword Planner tool inside Google Adwords. This incredible tool can be accessed when you're logged into Adwords by clicking on the wrench icon in the upper right hand side of your screen and then selecting "Keyword Planner" under the "Planning" column of the drop-down menu.

I recommend starting with the URL option and entering the URL of the page you're looking to drive traffic to. To continue our example with Michigan Football I would find the URL for their tickets page and enter that into the keyword planner so Google can scan the site and come up with healthy keyword recommendations. Here is an example of the results:

From this one tickets page alone there are over 700 keywords that are ranking and driving traffic that have some sort of competition to them. We don't recommend trying to "boil the ocean" and add every single keyword. However, a good place to start is to look at the column for "Avg. Monthly Searches" and determine which keywords are going to have the most opportunity for your business. The tool also shows you the search volume on a month-by-month basis so you can understand seasonality and when people start to look for terms related to your products and services. 

Once you've picked the top keywords that have a high search volume and are closely related to the product or service you're looking to sell, you can get an idea of how much of a budget you should set for the paid search effort. Simply review the columns for "Top of Page Bid" both on the low side and the high side and add in the monthly average traffic volume and you have some incredible competitive intelligence to move forward with.

Conclusion

Google Adwords paid search can be extremely competitive but the opportunity to grow your business is incredible. By taking the time to structure your account properly from campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords and by conducting proper keyword research, you will be well ahead of the pack. Add in consistent campaign refinement and your return on investment will continue to soar.

In part 3 of this blog series, we will discuss how to analyze performance at a micro-level. Specifically, we will review how to refine performance by geography, time of day, day of week, device types, individual keywords and much more.

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