High & low volume search keywords and their selection

Pay per Click (PPC) advertising remains Google’s flagship product. It’s the one area of their business that continues to reap the most rewards for the search giant and, if used effectively, can be the one thing that reaps the most rewards for your business too.

What’s the secret to using PPC effectively?

Keywords.

The very heart and soul of pay per click advertising, keywords determine how web users find your business or your products and services, and could even determine whether or a potential customer makes that all-important click-through from Google’s search results to your website.

To really make the most of keywords, it’s vital that you understand the difference between high and low volume keywords, and which ones are going to produce the best results.

To develop that understanding, let’s first look at one of the most powerful PPC tools you have at your disposal:

Google Keyword Planner:

Google’s keyword planner analysis your website and recent search trends to make suggestions about the keywords that might benefit your business the most.

Determining whether or not to follow Google’s suggestions depends on a number of factors, with three major factors determining whether or not your selected keyword is likely to work.

These are:

• Your keyword volume searches
• Your landing page
• Your ad text.

Let’s look at each one in turn:

Volume Searches

If a targeted keyword has been suggested for your business but the volume of searches for that keyword is typically low, then this means that you’re likely to only receive a low volume of click-through for ads using that targeted keyword.

However, this also means that you’ll have to spend less to attract those keywords than you would if you were bidding against others in your industry for high-volume keywords.

Landing Page

Of course, you could have the best keyword in the world, but if your landing page isn’t compelling enough to attract visitors and drive conversions, it could lead to a high bounce-rate (visitors leaving your site without taking action).

So, before starting your campaign, we recommend streamlining your landing pages and making them as compelling as possible by including several key features:

• Calls to Action
• Captivating copy
• Attractive and useful graphics, images and rich media
• Unique Selling Points (USPS) that really hook the visitor.

Ad Text

Finally, your ad text should also include a compelling USP that draws in visitors and persuades them to click on your ad. This USP could be a special offer, a discount, a free trial or other sign-up bonuses.

Now that we know the three key ingredients to a successful PPC campaign, let’s get back to that all-important question:

How do you select your keywords?

Looking at your keyword planner, you will generally observe both short and long-tail keywords, with short tail keywords having high a high volume of searches and long tail having low volumes.

Need an example? Let’s analyses the following two keywords:

• SEO London
• SEO packages London

As you’ll see in the image below, these two keywords have search volumes of 2,900 and 20 respectively.

Why such a big difference between SEO London and SEO packages London?

The answer lies in what customers are actually hoping to find as a result of their search.

Those typing in the long-tail keyword SEO packages London will usually be looking for an upfront price on a pre-set package of SEO services, whilst those using the short-tail keyword will typically be doing a general search for the main companies providing those services in the London area.

You can now see the difference between the two very similar keywords

So far so good, but how do we know which one is the best fit for our campaign, and how do we know we’ve not picked the wrong keyword?

Let’s say you pick the long-tail keyword

SEO packages London

You pick this because it’s less competition and lower cost, but then you direct people to a landing page which doesn’t actually mention specific SEO packages or their costs.

What happens next?

Visitors leave just as quickly as they arrived, resulting in a higher bounce rate and a lower Return on Investment (ROI).

 What can we learn from this?

 Mainly that it even if a keyword looks like it will produce the best results, we could still end up with unexpected bounces if that keyword drives people to a landing page that lacks vital details or features.

 Let’s take another example

The difference between the two keywords

SEO

SEO Company

SEO is a generic, short-tail keyword with a high volume of searches totaling 33k per month

Which users are using that particular search term?

Likely, it’s those who are looking to learn about SEO as a product and service, to broaden their own knowledge or carry out their own DIY-SEO work. It may also include those looking to invest in SEO from an external company.

On the other hand

SEO Company….

….Is a keyword typically searched only by those who are to purchase SEO from a company from a specific geolocation

BOTTOM LINE

Before finalizing your keyword, use the following checklist:

• Analyze the keyword and its volume searches
• Analyze the strength and capacity of those keywords
• Create a compelling reason for visitors to emotionally connect with your brand
• Think carefully about the region or geolocation of your service.

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