The bedrock to success with search engines is understanding which search terms to target. Fail in that and your audience may never find you. This session covers ways to undertake search term research that is
crucial to succeeding with your search engine marketing efforts, whether that be via free or paid listings.
Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director of Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch
is moderating this session along with two panelists presenting - Christine
Churchill of KeyRelevance and James
Colborn, Product Manager for
Microsoft adCenter.
Christine is up first and begins by polling the audience on how many are
actually doing keyword research. Keyword research is the process of selecting
relevant keywords to target as well as ones that people are actually searching
for. It is not about the keywords you want to be found for but keywords that you
want users to find you for. It is the number one thing you can do. Good keyword
research lays the foundation for your search marketing campaign.
It is something that needs to evolve as well. If you are using the same keywords
now that you came up with 5 years ago, you may be missing the boat. Early in her
career, she recalls targeting engineering and "techy" types of words for a site
she was working on but the problem was that no one else was actually using those
terms. The lesson learned here is that the keyword we think might draw traffic
my not be ones that are actually being searched for.
She touches on the long tail, keywords that may not generate gobs of searches
but ones that are more targeted and actually convert better.
Keyword research begins with brainstorming with the idea of casting net widely
and generating a broad list. This can involve starting with keywords you already
know about. One thing that is really valuable is looking at the keyword people
search for utilizing your internal site search. There is the possibility of
discovering keywords that you might have never thought of on your own.
Christine suggests looking at online and traditional print magazines for ideas
when developing a keyword list. Company and product reviews are also helpful.
The general idea is to learn what your customers are looking for and how they
would search for it. Customer surveys and focus groups are effective ways to
accomplish this. Forums and discussion forums are additional venues to learn how
people communicate regarding your products and/or services. One of the most
overlooked resources to discover keywords is to mine your log files.
Keyword research tools -
- Wordtracker
- Keyword Discovery
- Google Keyword Tool
- Yahoo/Overture Keyword Tool
- Nichebot
- Miva Keyword Generator Tool
- MSN adCenter Tools
- Vivisimo (Clusty)
- Ask.com
- Quintura
She talks about Wordtracker which pulls its data from meta search engines. She
cautions that when using keyword research tools such as this, common sense has
to be levied as well. She mentions that the Yahoo/Overture Keyword toll has not
been updated since January so its future is not too sure. Yahoo does has a new
keyword tool within the ad management console (Yahoo! Search Marketing). She
then touches on the Google keyword tool. One highlight is that Google will
suggest additional keywords based off your foundational one. Keyword Discovery
is next (my favorite). She talks about how Keyword Discovery pulls data from
toolbars. It can be more reliable as to what people are actually searching for
but the numbers will not represent a large proportion of the Internet. A key
feature of Keyword Discovery is that they have historical data. Google Trends
allows you to monitor branding or watch trends such as seasonal topics of things
that may have been hot but now are not.
Christine talks next about keyword expansion - expanding your initial list of
words and phrases. Adding adjectives for example is one way you can expand your
list of keywords.
In evaluating a keyword list, one must first look at relevancy. The popularity
(how many people are searching for them), where the most popular is not always
the best strategy. The next step is looking at user intent. Understanding the
"why" behind the search will help you to provide a better response. Keywords
will reveal where people are at in the "buying process." There are three types
of searches navigational, informational and transactional. In further
evaluating a keyword list, look at what the competition is doing - what keywords
are they targeting, have they optimized their sites, are they doing paid search,
etc.
A few competitive intelligence tools -
- Hitwise
- Trellian
- AdGooRoo
- SEOmoz's Keyword Difficulty Tool
The ultimate test of a good keyword list is how they end up performing. Are they
drawing traffic and more importantly, are they converting.
Next up is James who starts out by reminding us that keyword research is not a
one time task but an ongoing process as the search lifestyle can change and
evolve. The normal process in running a PPC campaign is selection of keywords,
writing creative (ads) and bidding. However if keyword research is faulty, then
nothing else you do really matters. The keyword research lifecycle consists of
research, launch, review and then revise.
The research process includes searches, costs, age and gender info and searches
intent. Launching includes determining bids, writing copy, etc. The review cycle
includes looking at actual searches, costs and performance against objective.
Finally the revision stage involves modifying keyword list to ensure you are
meeting goals and getting the most out of your campaign.
James polls audience as to what they use to do competitive analysis of keywords
with two choices - the search engines or third party tools such as Wordtracker.
He states that the search engines are one of the best resources, especially now
that they are becoming more transparent in the information they are willing to
share.
James talks about how they track behavioral targeting. A cookie is used but it
generalizes the information. In other words if I am 40 and live in Anthem,
Arizona, the cookie will say I am a male at an average age of 40 - 45 who lives
in the southwest. James shows examples of how advertisers can utilize the
behavior data to streamline campaigns.
James featured a new tool Microsoft is releasing that will allow you to export
keyword data into Excel. There are a variety of options you can select all of
which export into spreadsheet format. It is something you will have to play with
as soon as it is available - it would be kind of difficult to describe exactly
what it does here without seeing screenshots. I'm pretty sure he said that if
you are attending the conference, you can visit the Microsoft booth to see this
new product/feature demoed.
David Wallace - CEO and Founder SearchRank
