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One of the most frequent questions from people who are just starting out in pay per click advertising is "what search phrases should I select?". This is not only a very common question, but also a very important question. In this article I will give you advice on how to go about selecting search phrases to bid on.
The first part of the process is selecting an initial search phrase (keyword) to use. A good way to get started is to ask yourself "what keywords would people looking for my service/product/information use?" For example, if you own a website about chocolate, then obviously your main keyword would be "chocolate".
Now that you have you main search phrase decided, the next thing you
should do is brainstorm some extra search phrases are extensions of
your main keyword. Again, using the "chocolate" keyword as an example,
you could choose search phrases such as "white chocolate", "dark
chocolate" and so on. You should do this for multiple keywords. You
could even take this strategy one step further and come up with even
more variations of your additional search phrases e.g. "buy white
chocolate", "best white chocolate" etc. The more variations you think
of, the more traffic you will get. Similarly, these variations tend to
not have as much competition amongst advertisers, therefore you will
generally pay less per click.
Consider add-on words such as "buy", "best", "cheap" etc. Many people
rely on search engines to provide them with information on topics which
they may not know a lot about. When someone searches for "best
chocolate", and sees your website listed in the search results, the
user will regard your website as either a site that sells the best
chocolates, has information on the best chocolates or a site that will
help to satisfy the users need for information on the topic. Similarly,
if the searcher is searching for "buy chocolate" then they are in a
buying mood and are more likely to buy when visiting your website. This
will improve ROI.
Some important factors to take into consideration when selecting search phrases to bid on:
* Is the search phrase relevant? You should only ever bid on search
phrases that are relevant to your website. Visitors who are not
interested in your website's topic will almost certainly leave straight
away. Therefore, it would be a waste of money to bid on non-relevant
search phrases.
* Are there any variations of your search phrase that you haven't
thought of yet? If you bid on the search phrase "chocolate", why not
consider bidding on the search phrase "chocolates" etc.
* Is your search phrase spelt correctly, and does it use proper
grammar? Spelling mistakes can be embarrassing. If you spell your
search phrases incorrectly then you will not be listed for the correct
spelling (and miss out on traffic)!
* Know your market. What search terms do you use when searching for
related topics/themes on search engines? If you search for a particular
relevant keyword, than most likely your visitors will to.
* If your website is an ecommerce site, you only want to pay for
visitors that are interested in buying your product. Will the searcher
buy your product if they are not searching with the intent to buy? Some
people may only be looking for information and not someone to buy. If
your main focus is selling, be sure to only select keywords that will
lure searchers looking to buy.
Selecting search phrases (keywords) is the most important part of any
pay per click advertising campaign. Good search phrase selection will
improve the performance of your pay per click advertising campaign.
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