Keyword Foundations: Research

Paid Search Advertising – PPC Keyword Research Essentials

Identifying what keywords and phrases searchers use to find your products and/or services in major search engines like Google, Yahoo! or MSN (now “Bing!”), can transform your online business into a more vital revenue or client lead channel. This critical step when overlooked, or given minimal attention, misses important, highly relevant web traffic that could otherwise be headed toward your website.

The more targeted and relevant your keywords are, the more likely you’re reaching a potential customer willing and ready to buy or ‘engage’. Less traffic is generated from more specific terms (the ‘long tail’ keywords), but with that usually comes less competition and a lower cost-per-click expense. We use a blended strategy for both ‘head’ term keywords – those with high traffic and high competition, and the long tail keywords to achieve the ROI needed for your paid search advertising initiatives.

CarbonFoot Interactive utilizes best-in-class keyword research tools and services that most top SEM agencies use. We do not rely on a single data source, but rather – engage in a deep ‘data dive’ from your site’s log files and data from other web analytics services. Competitor’s visitor search behavior is also incorporated and we begin assembling a paid search ad campaign structure for the list of keywords to group into related categories. This PPC account structure is part of a strategy to increase Quality Scores assigned by the engines which look at your grouping of keywords, ad text and landing pages to determine how relevant all those components are to a search query. The more relevant, the higher the Quality Score, and the lower your Cost-Per-Click. We view search behaviors throughout the decision-making process – from research, to comparison, consideration and ultimate intent to buy or ‘engage’.

Example:
THE EVOLUTION OF A SEARCH ENGINE QUERY: “SUV”

For the auto industry, the term “SUV” was a hugely valuable search term, but back in the 1980’s, an SUV – or sports utility vehicle – was still simply an off-road type vehicle that had no connection to soccer moms and mainstream American car market audience.

In the 1990’s, the SUV market exploded and all manner of U.S. and foreign car manufacturers pushed manufacturing capacity to its limits to churn out ONROAD SUV’s. At breakneck speed “SUVs” were purchased by soccer moms and all types of car buyers using the now trendy “SUV” to get to work, shuttle kids to soccer practice, or recreate on weekends, etc. In it’s heyday the average search engine keyword “SUV: cost on average $15.00 per click. Today, with the spike in crude oil prices and resulting implosion of cheap gas – demand for the search term “SUV” has lost it’s luster and the move toward cleaner, less-polluting vehicles like hybrid combination gas and electric engines, strictly electric and/or hydrogen powered cares have pushed the value (and cost to an advertiser) of SUV down to an average first page placement cost of approximately $1.50 per click.

Our experienced certified paid search advertising specialists have managed medium and large-scale campaigns with keyword expansions in excess of 100,000 keyword and with monthly media spends of over one million dollars. We have strong personal relationships with the search engines and stay current on new features and functionality rolled out by Google, Yahoo! and Bing (among others) advantageous to improving conversion rates and reducing cost per conversions (orders or leads).

Let CarbonFoot Interactive build, and/or manage and optimize your paid search advertising campaigns and let you focus on what you do best. Contact a Search Engine PPC Specialist today.