Last week I talked about how Donald Trump looked a bit like Heathcliff from the novel Wuthering Heights.
This week I would like to pick up on last week and talk about keyword research.
What are keywords?
A word, or a set of words, that you add to your Google Ads campaigns.
How often you’re paid per click advert appears on Google will depend on which keywords and match types you select.
Keywords are what you use to define where your ads should appear.
Without understanding what keywords are and how to use them effectively, you’ll never be successful with PPC.
Keywords have different sets of ‘types’ or buckets to which they fall into.
There are:
- Branded keywords – Amazon, McDonald’s
- Generic keywords can also be referred to as short-tail keywords (e.g., “running shoes,” “plumbing,” “towing”). When someone is doing a search with these terms we don’t understand their intention yet.
- Transactional keywords are keywords that have both strong correlations with purchasing like ‘headphones beats’ all the way through to something less strong but never the less relevant, like a plumber.
- Locational keywords are keywords like ‘plumber Leicester’.
- Long-tail keywords cover keywords that consist of more than 3-4 words these are often strongly connected to a purchasing transaction ‘running shoes for the Leicester marathon’
- Informational keywords cover keywords where people are simply looking for information. ‘Where is my nearest booze store’.
The type of keywords someone uses can be a strong indicator as to where they are on their buyers’ journey.
You can describe the buying journey with three stages, awareness, consideration and decision stages.
An example of a decision stage search could be – Locational = Nike Air Max near me &/or Transactional = Nike Air size 8
It is now useful to know the difference between a core keyword and a keyword qualifier/modifier.
A core Keyword is something like – Hairdresser
A Keyword qualifier or modifier would be ‘near me’ ‘good’ ‘recommended’
If you only have one Core keyword in your account, there is a possibility that you will be paying a premium per click, and your reach could also be fairly narrow.
It’s better to expand things a little.
So if you in the hairdressing world perhaps have :
• blonde highlights
• buzz cut
• coloured hair
• modern barber
You should still have all of the keywords such as hairdresser, nearest hairdresser, it’s just important you don’t get stuck with the same keyword.
I’m going to pick up on Keywords again next week with the imaginatively titled blog ‘The Key to Keywords 2 – The saga continues ..unfortunately’.
