The Importance Of Keyword Research In PPC Marketing

Whether you are trying to get ranks in the organic results of a search engine or whether you are running a PPC campaign, it is critical that you select the right keywords. This is because it is the keywords that will bring you the web traffic. However it is even more important that you select the right keywords in PPC because remember, you have to pay for it.

How To Select The Keywords For Your PPC Marketing Campaign

The best way to select the keywords is by using the keyword tool of Google. It is quite simple to use. Just enter the keyword in the search box, tick the synonyms box and click. Google will not only provide you keyword suggestions, but you will also receive indicators on advertiser competition, search volumes, estimated average CPC (cost per click), estimated advertisement position and the average number of clicks you can expect from the keyword. Of course the more you decide to spend on a keyword, the better position you will attain for your advertisement and the more clicks you will receive.

Should You Select Primary Keywords, Secondary Keywords Or Long Tail Keywords

This is a question that comes up quite often. Most PPC marketing executives will tell you that you must of course select the primary keywords because these are the keywords that will bring you the majority web traffic. But you should know that these keywords will cost much more as well. The cost will depend on how popular the keyword is, and the position you seek for your advertisement. And sometimes these keywords can be so competitive that the cost per click can be as high as $5.00 or even more.

So to get 100 visitors for this keyword, you will have to spend $500.00. Now let us assume that your conversion rate is 1% (for most websites the average conversion rate is between .5% and 2%). So this means that at 1%, you will have just a single person out of 100 who converts, and your cost per conversion would be $500.00. This is simply too high and very few websites can afford this. Thus it might be best not to target this keyword at all. Avoid all such costly primary keywords - there is a strategy that you can employ to still receive traffic from your PPC marketing campaign.

Instead, try selecting a lot of secondary and long tail keywords. Yes, these keywords will cost much less, but they will bring in less traffic too. But if you can select a lot of them, you can offset the traffic that you are losing by not selecting primary keywords. For instance, if you can select 1000 such keywords and if you receive just 1 visitor from each one of them in a month, then you will probably be spending less than $500.00 and you will be receiving 1000 visitors over 30 days. The average bid price may be around .20 cents or so for them, and for 1000 clicks, you will just be spending $200.00.

Once you have saved your $300.00, you can buy more secondary and long tail keywords with this, or you may also buy a few primary keywords worth this money.

Always Select Negative Keywords

Always bring out reports of your PPC campaign for a detailed analysis. The report will tell you the keywords from which you have received traffic. You will almost always see that there are a number of unrelated keywords for which you are spending money. These are your negative keywords. Research this every month and include them as your negative keywords in the PPC marketing campaign. Once you have done this, you will not receive any traffic for them, and can thus save money.