Posts Tagged long-tails
3 Million Keywords
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on November 29th, 2011
Google last month increased the maximum number of keywords allowed in a standard Google AdWords account from approximately 50,000 to 3 million. Yes, that’s right, you can now have up to 3 million keywords in your Google AdWords account.
And while most pay per click (PPC) advertisers are probably already doing a fair job at targeting a large number of relevant searchers through their existing keyword lists, there are massive opportunities for PPC advertisers who take the time to research thousands more keywords than their competitors.
Let’s find out why.
1. More Impressions
To illustrate the first reason, let’s consider Google’s phrase match for a moment. By bidding on the keyword ‘sony bravia tv’, and setting it to phrase match, you are essentially saying to Google:
“Show my ad whenever someone mentions the word ‘sony bravia tv’ in their search query”.
The job of phrase match is to show your ads for searches that mention your keyword phrase. You might therefore think this will enable your ads to appear whenever someone mentions the phrase ‘sony bravia tv’ in their search query.
Wrong.
Just because you have chosen to bid on the keyword ‘sony bravia tv’, does not mean your ad is guaranteed to show for any search containing the phrase ‘sony bravia tv’. You are competing with thousands of other advertisers for Google’s search results page real estate, and Google can only show a finite number of ads at any one time (10-12).
When deciding which ads to show, Google will display the ads that are most likely to generate a high click through rate (CTR), and those that have a relatively high Quality Score.
So when someone searches for ‘sony bravia 50 inch tv black’, PPC advertisers who have chosen to bid on a keyword close to ‘sony bravia 50 inch tv black’, and are able to display an ad which is relevant to Sony Bravia 50 inch TVs, is more likely to be awarded the chance to appear on Google’s search results page, than your generic keyword ‘sony bravia tv’, which triggers a more generic ad message.
The percentage of impressions your keywords receive for all ‘available’ searches is counted in Google’s Impression Share metric. The higher your Impression Share, the higher the percentage of available searches in which your ads appear.
The crucial point is this – by researching thousands of relevant keywords, all other things equal, you are more likely to show for a greater number of relevant searches. By researching thousands of keywords, your impressions and click volume will increase considerably.
4 Practical Ways to Lower Your AdWords CPCs
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on July 27th, 2011
WordStream last week carried out some fascinating research on Google AdWords CPC prices of different sectors. One key finding was that the finance industry carried high CPCs of up to $54.91, while other service-related sectors such as education, law and health also exhibited expensive CPC prices of over $30.00.
It’s All Relative
Since CPC prices are often closely linked to the potential profitability of a sale from that keyword, the CPC price is often a mute point. A ‘bad credit history remortgage’ could be worth $15,000 profit to a remortgage broker, so having CPCs in excess of $50.00 can deliver a strong return on investment.
On the other hand, the keyword ‘New York weather’ has little commercial intention, so keywords such as this tend to benefit from low CPCs.
While this relativity of CPC prices makes CPC comparisons across sectors rather meaningless, most PPC advertisers would jump at the chance to pay lower CPCs. So below are 4 strategies I’ve found useful for achieving lower CPCs, while still maintaining a strong conversion rate.
Source: Wordstream
How to Strike Gold in Google’s Search Query Report
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on March 31st, 2011
Google’s search query reports provide PPC advertisers with two fantastic opportunities to improve the performance of their AdWords campaigns:
- Identify irrelevant keywords which can be added as negatives
- Identify new keyword opportunities for keyword expansion
The difficulty, however, is efficiently and reliably pulling out trends and insights from a raw search query report. According to Google, 25% of searches made each day are completely unique, and 70% of searches lie outside of Google’s Keyword Tool. While this suggests that the large majority of your search queries will have received only a handful of clicks (making trend-spotting extremely difficult), it also presents a great opportunity for identifying new keywords outside of the Keyword Tool.
This article will explore the techniques which can be used not only to identify negative keywords from a search query report, but also identify new opportunities for practical keyword expansion.
What Exactly is a Long Tail Keyword?
Posted by Alan Mitchell in discussion on January 18th, 2011
The phrase ‘long tail’ has become common terminology among the search marketing community ever since it was coined in 1994. Many a search marketer now abides by the long tail’s convincing theory in an effort to appear higher in natural search results or achieve a better return on investment from PPC marketing.
But while the long tail has boasted widespread adoption throughout the search marketing community, there does not appear to be a universal agreement among PPC specialists about exactly how many words constitute a long tail keyword. Nor does there appear to be agreement about which other metrics – price, search volume, competitiveness or purchase intention – should be used in defining a long-tail keyword.
The Laziness of Google Instant
Posted by Alan Mitchell in discussion on September 10th, 2010
This week Google unveiled one of their biggest changes to the Google search results page in recent years – an evolution of their Autocomplete feature called Google Instant. In a nutshell, Google Instant predicts what you are searching for, and displays search results for its prediction as you type. Not the results for what you have typed, but the results for what it predicts you are going to type.
All very clever. And a massive time-saver too – reducing search time around the world by a massive 11 hours every second (not per person, in total).
But while this is arguably a change for the better, giving users a greater level of interactivity as they search, the announcement has had some negative reactions from search marketers.
How Low is “Low Search Volume”?
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on August 30th, 2009
Browsing through your Google AdWords account, you notice some of your keywords are not showing due to “low search volume”. Hovering your mouse over the speech bubble, the ad diagnostic tool pops up:
According to Google AdWords Help, your keyword is not showing because not enough people are searching for your keyword.
“Low search volume” keywords are keywords associated with very little search traffic on Google properties. In which case, we suspend your keyword. This state is only temporary, and these keywords will be reactivated if we find that they could start delivering traffic.
So just how much search traffic is “very little search traffic”?
To find out, I decided to count every “low search volume” keyword in an AdWords account over a 3 month period. Of the 2,823 keywords that received at least one impression, 804 keywords (28.5%) were “low search volume”. That’s over a quarter of keywords.
The 5 Benefits of Long-Tail Keywords
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on August 6th, 2009
There’s been a lot of talk about long-tail keywords in pay per click (PPC). You could say it started in the entertainment industry with Chris Anderson’s influential Long Tail article in 2004, but it wasn’t long before the concept became mainstream among search marketers.
Long-tail keywords are those low-volume, obscure, infrequently searched-for keywords that turn up in your search query reports. ‘Cheap remortgage for bad credit history’ is one example of a long-tail keyword. ‘Remortgages’ is not.
The theory goes like this:
- Long-tail keywords, en masse, can provide significant search volume (high impressions)
- Long-tail keywords have less competition than generic keywords (lower cost per click (CPC), higher click-through rate (CTR))
- Long-tail keywords are more specific than generic keywords, so ads can be better tailored to match the searcher’s needs (higher CTR, higher Quality Score, less wastage from irrelevant searches)
- People making long-tail searches are often further along in the buying cycle and more willing to buy than people making generic searches (higher conversion rate)
- These lower CPCs, higher CTRs and higher conversion rates mean long-tail keywords can be extremely profitable (lower cost per acquisition (CPA))
So are long-tail keywords all they are cracked up to be? Are they worth all the time, effort and commitment they require?
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