Some Keyword Insights
First in a series responding to readers requests (if you have any requests/suggestions for discussion topics, please say so), lets talk about keywords.
First off, my philosophy on keywords is that anything can be valid as long as it converts at an appropriate rate to be profitable. So test even things that are just tangentially related to your field, who knows there might be a goldmine you have not yet discovered. If you are not tracking to the keyword level, then you are not paying very close attention. Tracking should be a major focus.
Second - match types. I start just about everything on broad match and then move the stuff that works to [Exact] match. I dont use “phrase” matching at all. I used to, but found it typically did not add incremental revenues. I set-up a report in Google to be sent at the first day of every month to show me all the match types from the previous month. I typically take the top 20-50 (depending on click volume) and make those exact match keywords.
Third - Number of keywords - I dont really care about many more than my top 30-50 keywords. Over time that number has grown steadily but it still relatively small. With spreadsheets and Adwords Editor there is almost no incremental cost to have 10,000 keywords vs just a few dozen. Keep the ones that work and kill the ones that do not work.
Fourth - negative keywords - use the monthly report from above to filter out things you dont want or that do not convert. I cannot sell my product anywhere other than the US. So searches for UK or Canadian or Austrailian “keyword” are wasted and I dont want to pay for them. Same thing with credit cards - you have to have one for me to get paid, so I negative match keywords like “no credit card” etc. Lastly there are some search terms that just will not ever convert regularly like “customer service” and “scam”. Get rid of what does not work for your over time. Save just a few dollars a day and that will add up to money in your pocket.
Five - iterations - dont forget plurals, misspellings, competitors brand names, URL’s and other things that will have lots of different ways to be searched for. (think www keyword com vs keyword.com vs keyword com and about 20 other URL variations some are obvious some will be seen through the monthly report)
Six - new keywords - I no longer pay for any keyword tools, they all pretty much were some variant of the overture tool or otherwise flawed in data provided. The overture tool is no longer anywhere as near as useful as it used to be. lately, the way I get keywords is to type in the premium keywords in a vertical and see the top 5-10 URL’s. I then go into the Google keyword suggestion tool and click on site-related keywords. Type in the URL’s of the big guys and be sure to check the box Include other pages linked from this site. Then just scroll to the bottom select all, rinse and repeat and save into a CSV. then wash against the keywords I already have in Adwords Editor and then hand check to make sure to eliminate the obviously wrong keywords. I can usually add 500-1000 keywords every time I do this. As Google’s tool learns it produces better results, so be sure to come back once a month. One account earns $500 a day from my Google Suggestions AdGroup and that excludes the keywords I have graduated out of there into other adgroups. Ignore Google’s volume, CPC and position guesses they are not even close both high and low.
Seven - Organization - I have Campaigns for broad match, exact match, misspelling, and Misc (google suggestions etc). In this way I can easily locate what I am looking for. Content always goes into its own Campaign. I dont mind putting related words in the same ad group, but anything getting any traction in the way of clicks gets put into a 1 keyword adgroup.
Eight - Match ad copy and landing pages to key ad groups - you can make subtle changes to landing pages that will barely touch conversion but that might significantly improve quality score and thus CPC. Try putting the keyword in the landing page title (not dynamically) or in the URL (either subdomains or interior URLs), or work it into the ad copy, even paying attention to plurals can make huge differences. Anymore, the little details are becoming more and more important.
That is everything I can think of in relation to keywords - a lot of rehashing and my personal opinion - your results may vary.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
You might want to read this first http://smartstartup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/07/a-fable-doing-b.html
July 10th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
You said you used the google report to help determine your keywords? How? In my adwords reports, I don’t see exactly what they searched unless I was bidding on that exact term.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
@ Charleston - not sure of exact name of report but it is something like Search Query Report and is 2nd or 3rd from the bottom of my reports screen. I get placed in a lot of non-public betas without even knowing it, so if you dont have it ask your Adwords rep for access to it. But it will outline what was searched and if it matched broad, phrase or exact match keywords.
@Franklin - Your link is a nice generalization. There are in fact affiliates out there paying 3x for every conversion. There are also very successful people making hundreds of thousands per month in profits solely off of PPC. I write more for the people that have a few thousand a month in revenue and are looking for a little bit of guidance to grow. A few posts back I blatantly said I would probably not start over in affiliate marketing at this day and time, so I dont think I am blindly hyping this as the Golden Egg for any person off the street.
July 11th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Thanks diorex, great stuff as always.
Very interesting report on Adwords there. I’ve run it but seem to get “x other unique queries” in the Search Query column quite a bit. In some rows it lists the actual search query for this column but for others it lists that phrase. Maybe I’m misinterpreting the data but I was under the impression that this should be an explicit list of the search queries that matched the keywords.
Any other ideas what this “other unique queries” data is about or how to set up the report to show just the actual search query matches?
July 11th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Franklin, thanks for the great link. At first I thought it was spam but it turned out to be a gem. Unfortunately the only way to enjoy the humor of the article is AFTER you experienced crazy ivan, and at that point, you either get it or you don’t.
Now would you kindly tell us what the next “viable promotional strategies known only to a few” is? I promise not to write a ebook on it for 180 days
July 13th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Diorex,
I really enjoy your blog. Some really sharp stuff. One question (and I am not sure if the comments here is where you want to address it if at all) - when you say you wouldn’t start all over in affiliate marketing again, care to elaborate?
i have been getting my feet wet with ppc -> aff offers for the past 6 months, have had some mildly profitable campaigns, but am ramping up heavily very soon on spending and trying out new offers. also promoting some offers through some BH stuff…
just interested in your thoughts on the state of the industry and the viability of it as a long term investment / career.
tj
July 14th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
This question goes along with the above one from timjohn.
You seem to always be getting into the hot industries, from floor trader, to hedge fund, and now internet marketing. Its getting harder for floor trading and hedge funds to make easy money with the new technology, saturation, new restrictions and now as you have stated a few times internet marketing is on the same path.
How are you able to get ahead of the curve and get into industries before the low hanging fruit is all gone? Can you share some advice on the process you go through when trying to find the next venture to get into or shed some light on what you see as the next best industry to get into.
Thanks
July 15th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Good info! Thanks!
Are you saying that having separate campaigns for exact & broad works better than same campaign & different adgroups for different matches?
Thanks
July 19th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I doubled my income since this post was made.
Thanks man!
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:42 am
“I start just about everything on broad match and then move the stuff that works to [Exact] match. ”
Huh? This seems backwards to me, if you have something that works on broad match why do you want to cut out some traffic by going to exact only? Could you elaborate on this a little? Thanks.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
“One account earns $500 a day from my Google Suggestions AdGroup and that excludes the keywords I have graduated out of there into other adgroups”
150K a year from one adgroup. I hate you. Um - do you do any consulting… if so what’s your fee?
August 21st, 2007 at 12:58 pm
[...] place to find pay per click vouchers. Enjoy! *Diorexis kind of a big deal, and he made a great post about using Adwords External Keyword tool to find more keywords. *Although 2nd and 3rd Tier search [...]
September 12th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Excellent post … just read it for the second time.
More! More! More!
October 1st, 2007 at 3:24 pm
[...] Keyword Insights Keyword Research Secrets (I’m not the Paul in the post, lol) [...]
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:37 pm
The crazy ivan blog post seems to be written by someone who just couldn’t figure out how to make AdWords work for them and their business. Oh well for them. Plenty of people continue to make plenty of money with AdWords, and will do so for as long as it exists. And the cool thing is that there IS room at the top, IF a person is willing to do what it takes to get (and stay) there.