A necessary element of PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns is keyword research. This can be time-consuming, but it’s also imperative to the success of any Internet marketing initiative. Why is this so? PPC campaigns are formed around keywords, but it’s not like you can just write a list of keywords and be done with it, the list has to be created using keyword research online, and must be updated and refined on a regular basis. Then, continue driving traffic to your website with a variety of long-tail and low-cost keywords relevant to the products or services your company offers.
With pay-per-click (PPC) Internet marketing, advertisers pay a fee every time someone clicks one of their ads. This practice, which basically consists of “buying” site visits, is customarily used in conjunction with SEO, an acronym for search engine optimization defined as the process of ensuring a website appears in an ideal spot on the “organic” or unpaid search results returned by search engines such as Google and Bing. Both PPC and SEO fall under the umbrella term SEM, short for search engine marketing.
What are some best practices for an effective PPC keyword list? There are several factors that will contribute to the success of the list, some more common sense than others.
All keywords should be relevant and applicable to the products or services you offer. It’s definitely not smart to pay for web traffic that you can’t benefit from. For example, when users happen to enter a word in Google that’s on your PPC list, but it has no direct relation to your business, it’s not helping either one of you. If a keyword doesn’t relate to your geographic location or products/services, you’re wasting your time and money, in addition to making the search harder for those entering search engine queries.
Some things to keep in mind when researching and planning a new PPC campaign:
Research should be extensive: Not only is it important that you research popular terms within your specialty, but also identify long-tail keywords. These are keywords highly specific to each niche, making them less expensive due to decreased competition since they are not as commonly searched terms.
Keep growing: You’re not done yet! The keyword list should be constantly evolving because PPC is recursive. Don’t limit yourself, but keep all keywords relevant- in other words, your keywords should be going through a constant filter.
Hiring an SEM expert to handle your company’s internet marketing initiatives can lift the burden off of you, so you have more time to concentrate on your countless other responsibilities as a business owner.
