Narrowing the Keyword Field for PPC Advertising

One of the most common mistakes committed by PPC advertisers is building a capaign based on relatively broad keywords.  In fact, the SEOMoz listed this tendency as its #1 pay per click mistake.  It’s that common–and that potentially devastating.

If you’re only bidding on the giant keywords in your niche, you’re undoubtedly paying top dollar for traffic.  You’re also missing out on ways to get more targeted (read:  more valuable visitors for a fraction of the price by uncovering and bidding on good long tail keywords.  This blunder made it up to #3 on the Karcher Group’s top ten list of PPC goofs.  

How should you narrow the field of PPC keywords?  First, take a look at your stat sites.  Find out what search engine terms people are using to find your site and use those as a jumping off point.  You may uncover a few hidden gems that way.  Second, get serious about your keyword research.

If you’re not using professional keyword tools and you aren’t doing your homework, you’re probably throwing away more money than you need to on your PPC campaign.  Focus on finding keywords that are intimately related to your niche and site–particularly those that communicate a buyer’s mindset.  Don’t just dig one level deep, either.  The most cost-effective keywords (and those that frequently offer the greatest return on investment) are of the long-tail variety.  

Pay per click advertising is a rock solid way to profitably promote your web interests, but the whole process can often be misleading for new participants.  There’s a instinct to bid for the most popular keywords, pitting  you against more competitors.  Owning a good spot for a huge keyword will bring you traffic, but the price per click may turn the cost of acquiring it against you.  The bet way to make PPC truly profitable is to isolate equally relevant, but less competitive keywords.

The Funny PPC Mistake that’s so Easy to Avoid

If you’re buying PPC advertising, you know that the process really revolves around your ability to research and bid upon the right keywords. PPC is keyword driven and having the right search terms can spell the difference between a great ROI and a complete waste of cash.

Often, PPC buyers will maintain a list of keywords in a spreadsheet. That makes perfect sense. It’s a great way to organize them and to manipulate them, as necessary. When the time comes to insert those keywords into the pay per click interface, it’s easy to quickly copy and paste them.

It might be too easy. There’s a fairly funny and fairly common PPC bidding error that results from that simple Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V on a keyword spreadsheet. PPC campaign managers have a nasty tendency of grabbing all of the content in the keyword column. Including the column header. That header usually consists of a single word: Keyword.

Look at the picture accompanying this post. That picture is taken from a screenshot resulting from a simple Google search for “keyword”. It appears as if someone handling the health insurance company’s pay per click campaign is bidding on the term “keyword”.

I doubt anyone at Assurant really believes that folks searching for “keyword” are prime insurance prospects, do you?

Others have noticed this blunder before. Bill Hartzer refers to it as “the funniest pay per click mistake”. He argues that it’s indicative of a lack of attention to detail and states that “a lack of attention to detail causes companies thousands of dollars every month.” The blunder won the #2 slot on Apple Pie & Custard’s “3 Silly Mistakes You Might be Making When Optimising Your PPC Campaign”.

The moral to the story? If you don’t want someone dredging up your bidding error and/or having a chuckle at your expense, check your keyword list from top to bottom.