How to Select the Perfect Keywords for a PPC Campaign

Whether you have an existing pay per click (PPC) campaign in place or you’re looking to implement one to drive immediate traffic to your Website, the foundation of a successful campaign starts by selecting the right keywords.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Selecting a Long List of Keywords Versus a Short List
One of the common questions that businesses ask us as a digital marketing agency when starting a PPC campaign is if you should start with a short list or a long list of keywords? The volume of keywords that you use really depends on your budget and how much traffic you want to drive to your site. For example, if you start with a short list of highly relevant, well-targeted keywords, you will minimize the amount of money that is wasted on trying to determine if a keyword is relevant and converts. Using the keyword “Internet marketing” as an example, if we used the keyword phrase “Internet marketing company,” we would gain Website visitors that convert well into leads and sales because the keyword is so highly relevant.

The disadvantage of using a short list of keywords is that you typically won’t be able to drive a high enough volume of traffic. It also takes considerably longer to learn about additional keywords that could deliver traffic to your site and convert. What’s important to keep in mind is that no one person knows all of the keywords that will drive Website visitors to their Website. As a matter of fact, to gain buy in from a marketing department, we have asked the marketing team members to separately list the keywords that they think the company should target from most important to least important. Every team member’s list was completely different.

The advantage of using a longer list of keywords is that you can generate more Website visitors and learn what keywords are converting for you. The disadvantage, however, is that it costs more in the short term and you waste some money while you learn which keywords are not converting for you.

The Importance of Head, Mid, and Long Tail Keywords
It’s natural for many people to develop a list of keywords that come to mind for a PPC campaign. And these keywords primarily consist of head (one word) and mid tail keywords (two to three words). What’s vital to consider when developing your list is that although long tail keywords are searched a small number of times, they actually add up to a greater number of searches than head and mid tail keywords. So, if you are looking to drive a lot of traffic to your Website, try to target a lot of words, not just the popular ones.

Using the Right Keyword Length to Attract the Perfect Customer
Depending on your offer and the type of traffic you want to generate, you want to use different types of keywords. For example, if you’re looking for people that are performing initial research, you want to use one to two keywords, as they will be performing a general search.

If you are looking for people who are considering making a purchase, use keywords that are between two to three keywords because their searches will be more specific. For example, if someone was looking for an Internet marketing company, they would search for a keyword like “Internet marketing company Toronto.”

Using Negative Keywords to Cut Out the Wrong Keywords
You also want to develop a list of negative keywords if you are using broad match or phrase match keywords so you will not bid on keywords that are not relevant to what you do.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment. We’re here to help.