Over the past couple of years most small businesses in the UK have realised that for a quick and dependable method of discovering new consumers Google Adwords is challenging to beat.
As you are only paying for clicks into your website from people actively looking for a service/item that you offer you you can be confident that you are spending your advertising spending budget wisely. That is assuming you are closely managing your PPC Adwords activity to ensure that you are not obtaining irrelevant web visitors.
I have put together a few ideas on how those new or comparatively new to Google Adwords can easily increase what you are doing to get the most out of your advertising budget and stay away from the problem of unwanted PPC site visitors.
Firstly I want to highlight the significance of beginning your campaigns with extremely targeted key phrases and then expand out (not the other way about). Google Adwords has three primary keyword match kinds – Broad match, Phrase match and Precise match (definitions below). Google will constantly encourage you to use broad match key phrases to commence with so that you match to a large number of impressions and can understand precisely what type of searches folks are running around your key phrases, this will then allow you to refine your targeting far more closely. This is accurate BUT is precisely the opposite of what a commercial enterprise with a tight budget should really do – the aim from day 1 should be to minimise irrelevant web traffic. You can see from the following definitions and examples what the diverse Google Adwords PPC keyword matching kind options are.
: The search term that the user entered only needs to vaguely match 1 word of any of the terms contained within your bidded keyword to display your ad.
Targeting & Control: Keyword matching is very loose with a low level of control.
Bidding Strategy: Keep your bids extremely low on these keywords.
Examples of how broad match key phrases are matched to actual web searches:
Broad match keyword: Tennis Shoes
Ads might show for searches on:
tennis shoes
tennis tournament
mens shoes
ladies shoes
ladies trainers
buy tennis shoes
tennis shoe photos
running shoes
As you can see this means that you need to be very cautious with your use of broad match key phrases and supplement your ad groups that include broad match keywords with a lot of negative keywords (will get to these).
– Because earlier in 2010 Google released the new ‘Modified Broad Match’ which means that you can assign unique ‘anchor’ words that should match one or much more of the words in the search keyword. The anchor word/s are determined by just inserting a + sign in front of them e.g. tennis +shoes – this will mean that the search term employed must include the word ‘shoes’ within it.
Targeting & Control: Limited keyword targeting with minimum level of control.
Bidding Strategy: Initial bids really should be kept reasonably low but it gives excellent chance for new keyword discovery as you will still match for broadly matched terms.
e.g. for the keyword ‘tennis +shoes’ you will match on:
running shoes
tennis shoes
mens shoes
ladies shoes
acquire tennis shoes
tennis shoe photos
squash shoes
Nike shoes
– You can then tighten this kind of keyword matching by inserting the + sign on more words in your keyword as this will mean that they also need to be in the searched term. This is referred to below as ‘Dual Anchor Modified Broad Match’.
Matching search query requirements to match at least 2 designated “anchor” words contained in your bidded keyword. e.g. +tennis +shoes
Targeting & Control: Selective keyword targeting with a moderate level of control.
Bidding Strategy: Initial bids should be moderate.
You will then match for keywords such as:
tennis shoe photos
squash and tennis shoes
Nike tennis shoes
evaluation of tennis shoes
tennis shoes
mens tennis shoes
ladies tennis shoes
shoes for tennis
get tennis shoes
– For key phrases with more than two words you can add a + sign in front of all keywords – ‘Fully Modified Broad Match’ which will make sure that all words in your keyword must also be apparent in the users search term.
Targeting & Control: Very very good keyword targeting with greater level of control. This is a great match sort to begin with as you have the necessary control to limit irrelevant searches but you will also discover lots of new search terms that you haven’t thought of by way of running search query reports.
Bidding Strategy: Initial bids can be set at a competitive level.
This is the same as for the above example as it is just a two word keyword but if it is a three word keyword then it will appear like this: +white +tennis +shoes and will match on terms such as:
White tennis shoes
tennis shoes white
black and white tennis shoes
tennis shoes for wearing with white
Photo of Jimmy White wearing tennis shoes (pretty unlikely)
Matching search query needs to include within it the whole bidded keyword in the exact order that the words appear. Phrase match looks like this “white tennis shoes” and will match terms such as:
White tennis shoes
black and white tennis shoes
Buy white tennis shoes
Cheapest white tennis shoes
Targeting & Control: Very good keyword targeting with high level of control.
Bidding Technique: Initial bids can be set at a really competitive level.
: Matching search query wants to include the exact bidded keyword and can’t include any extra terms or plurals or variations of the included words.
Targeting & Control: Precise keyword targeting with high level of control.
Bidding Technique: Initial bids can be extremely competitive.
For that reason for the keyword: [white tennis shoes] there is only one matching term:
white tennis shoes
To save time I “borrowed” the following graphic from a US web advertising and marketing organization as I thought that it was a clear and easy representation of the different various keyword matching sort choices for Google Adwords. Despite the fact that I would ignore the percentages that they apply to the bid levels for every single match type as this will vary by business. You will want to determine your own bid levels by means of investigation, and far more importantly trial and error.
Even so – the bid levels ought to be scaled as suggested – exact match constantly highest and broad match often lowest for the exact same keyword.
Now that you are clear on the Google Adwords Keyword Matching sorts I will go onto explain how to manage your account with them. If you really feel the above is not clear enough then please drop me a fast reply with a question and I will amend the post with an additional clarification.
Initially I would suggest beginning your ad groups with fully modified broad match keywords exactly where there are 2 words or much more in the keyword and then only use precise match on single word key phrases. You can also add in exact match and phrase match to the ad group at a greater bid than the modified broad match to pick up those searches that do match more closely than the modified broad match.
When working with Google adwords it is critical to have the correct account structure for your enterprise. At a minimum you should have an ad group for every product category landing page in your web site. If you only have 1 or two goods/services then you need to focus your ad groups around the types of searches that individuals run to find your internet site.
e.g. If you sell Rice then you could focus your ad groups about:
White Rice
Brown Rice
Pudding Rice
Wholesome Brown Rice
Cheap Brown Rice
Japanese Rice
etc etc. You then need to regularly run search query reports to uncover out what other terms folks are using to locate your internet site which you can then add into your existing ad groups or into new ad groups if they do not have a natural residence in your existing account structure.
To run a search query report in Adwords you need to click on the keywords tab as shown below and then click on the ‘see search terms’ button following picking the date range that you wish to see the search terms for. This report will then show you all of the search terms that users actually utilised when clicking via to your site.
There are two issues to do once you see the search query report:
1) Add more keywords that are relevant to your company to your campaigns and ad groups that users are employing and that you hadn’t previously thought of – constantly keep in mind to keep your ad groups tightly themed and with not too several keywords (probably much less than 50 key phrases). If you discover keywords in the search query report (SQR) that do not have a natural fit in an existing ad group then simply add another ad group.
two) Add negative key phrases to your campaigns and ad groups.
A) If you locate keywords that are entirely irrelevant to your enterprise then they should be added as campaign negative keywords to all campaigns in your account.
B) If you discover key phrases in your account that are not relevant to X ad group but are relevant to Y ad group then you really should add them as negative key phrases to the X ad group.
Negative keywords have the form -keyword e.g. ‘-squash’ in the case that you are selling tennis shoes.
When viewing a search query report you will see that it states a keyword match type subsequent to the search terms that people have utilised.
These are not to be confused with the above explained keywords.
In search query reports the match kinds mean the following:
Exact: You have the keyword in your account already in either broad (or modified), phrase or exact match
Phrase: You do not at present have the keyword in your account but the go to was gained via
