My Viral Blog

Posts Tagged ‘keyword research’

As the title suggests in this post I am covering Keyword research, a task that can be frustrating and time consuming, however it is important that you research the keywords used in your site, marketing and advertising properly .

To start with you are going to need a good keyword research tool, one that can check and compare results from several different sources is best as while you may be aiming to score well on Google you cannot afford to ignore results from other engines like Yahoo or Msn Live etc as these will also play a huge part in how well your campaign fares on Google.

Often Search companies will supply these tools for users and Easysearchlive.com is no different  you will find an extensive tools page here http://velocitymarketerhosting.com/seo-tools/ (Velocity Marketer Hosting is owned by Easy Search Live).

To start your keyword research you first need to decide what niche your site fits best in try to drill this down as accurately as possible for Velocity Hosting this would look something like this Web Hosting>low cost>unmetered. this establishes the core keywords most relevant to your site or campaign, we would then use the keyword tool to compare the top 10 results on the major search engines this will then leave you with a generated list of keyword/phrases that the top 10 listings on the search engines have used, (sometimes this list can be quite extensive) and the number of seaches performed using those keywords/phrases.

Keeping in mind the top few results are likely to be quite expensive in a PPC campaign and competition on various search engines will also be extensive select a few that have reasonable traffic (it is better to have a few keywords rather try to compete for the top keyword phrase).

By this time you will definitely be looking for a cup of coffee and that niggling sensation is the start of the headache so it may also be time to reach for the Tylenol.

Having selected your keywords/Phrases it is time to check what it is going to cost you to run those keywords in a PPC campaign, you need this information because if they are outside of your budget then it is pointless using them on your site (Marketing and Advertising campaigns get better results when the keywords match those of your site).this can be quite time consuming also and be prepared to revise your keyword list or start from scratch.

Time for another coffee and a bunch more tylenol

When you have finally sorted out which keywords you will use it's time to start drawing up your marketing plan, now the key to a good marketing plan is to keep it simple try to avoid over complicating what should be a simple process.

You know which keywords are going to be used so lets order them according to importance, next we want to look at how we are going to use them and where, some will be suitable for anchors in textual advertising  while others will remain simply as extra tags or be used as content anchors on your site.

We need to identify where and when we are going to place our advertising ie Google adwords and determine exactly how much of the budget to allocate to that campaign  (each keyword/phrase is classed as a seperate campaign), Our Target Audience and the start and end date of the campaign.

the next phase is to design your adverts ensuring that the chosen keyword for each appears at least once in the ad content.

Be sure to  write all this up and place it where it can be a visual reminder, I personally like to use a whiteboard next to my desk for this purpose as it allows me to check on what i have done or what needs doing at a glance.

Launching your Campaigns:

a mistake a lot of first time advertisers and marketers make is to panic because it's been a week with no indication of a result, campaigns need time to work and patience is the key here, my campaigns normally run for a minimum of 6 months with control checks evey month and a revision check every 2 months this allows sufficient time for the campaign to propogate throughout the web and allows for proper modelling of the results, campaigns that are under performing may need tweaking at the 2 monthly revision and this can be a simple as changing the wording of the ad slightly or simply changing the colors used.

Constant changing of the ad is detrimental to it's effect remember it needs time to be seen by the Internet community and your Target audience so make changes subtle and leave some time between them.

When performing the monthly checks what you are looking for is the number of clicks each ad has received and what your ROI (Return On Investment) has been for the period, you are also looking to see that your ads are in fact being displayed and that there are no errors in the ads (sometimes a webmaster can change the formatiing of his/her site and this can adversly affect the formating of your ad, it may now contain extra symbols or spelling errors or the colors may have varied from the original, in which case some urgent repairs may be required.

In closing my tip is "Don't rush things , think the campaign out thoroughly and keep a big box of tylenol next to the coffee pot "

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Anyone who has ever used PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising knows that to get a listing under the top used keywords means spending copius amounts of money on each of the main keywords even then there is no guarantee that your bid will be beaten 5 minutes after placement.

I hope through this article to show the reader alternative tactics that will produce the same sort of results received when you successfully win the bidding war but without spending all that money.

The first step in any successful advertising campaign should always be keyword research closely followed by the development of a sound marketing plan which encompasses exactly where the ads will appear.and what their content should be.(i'll cover this in more detail in future posts)

Now for small companies struggling to make an impression on the Internet there are alternatives to competing with the large corporations in PPC advertising, rather than looking to bid on high usage keywords they are better off spreading their available budget across a broad range of lesser keywords the results will only be slightly less than if they had gone for the major keyword, in fact in some cases they will gain results that surpass those using the major Keyword both is traffic and positioning as they gain more exposure.

The other option small business owners can look to is CPM (Cost Per Month) advertising, this form of advertising rotates users through the number of slots available for each keyword guaranteeing exposure in the top 10 places, this form allows for accurate budgeting and has simular results to PPC without the bidding war on top keywords, a shining example of this is the ISEDN form of CPM advertising.

The bottom line is small business should not even consider competing in bidding wars as this will ultimately lead to failure

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