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.

2. Increased Relevancy

The second benefit of having a comprehensive keyword list is increased relevancy.

If you allowed a huge number of very different search terms to match to a single keyword ‘sony bravia tv’, your ad messages will have to be somewhat generic to cater for the wide range of different search terms. Your ‘sony bravia tv’ ad may appear on Google for searches such as ‘sony bravia 40 inch’, ‘sony bravia 42 inch’, and ‘black sony bravia 52 inch’, so your ad needs to be generic enough to be cater for all these very different searches.

On the other hand, if you had separate keywords and ads for ‘sony bravia 40 inch’, sony bravia 42 inch’, and ‘black sony bravia 52 inch’, you can provide more relevant and tailored ad messages to each search requirement. For example, whenever someone searches for ‘sony bravia 40 inch’, your ad message could mention ’40 inch’ and take visitors directly through to the ‘sony bravia 40 inch’ products page on your website. Similarly, if the searcher is looking for ’42 inch’ or ’52 inch’ Sony Bravia TVs, you ads and landing pages can be more tailored to these phrases.

Under a more comprehensive keyword and ad message strategy, click through rates will increase, as your ads appear more relevant to the searcher’s specific requirements. Quality Score will also increase, resulting in lower cost per click (CPC) prices. And since the user journey is more relevant, efficient and targeted, conversion rates are also likely to increase.

The crucial point is this – by researching thousands of relevant keywords, you can display thousands of tailored ads, and realize the benefits of higher CTR, lower CPCs, and higher return on investment.

3. Better Measurement

The third and arguably most important benefit of having a comprehensive set of keywords is better measurement.

Even through your keyword ‘sony bravia tv’ may be phrase matched to searches such as ‘sony bravia tv deals’ and ‘cheap sony bravia tv’, having thousands of different keywords in your Google AdWords campaigns will allow better measurement and analysis of different search terms.

Even if we ignore for a moment the benefits of increased relevancy (point 2 above), let’s see how separating out your keywords can provide an increased amount of insight into how different types of keywords perform.

SCENARIO 1:

In scenario 1 (below), suppose your keyword ‘sony bravia tv’ receives 6,000 clicks and generates 60 sales, resulting an a conversion rate of 1.0%. It’s delivering a good return on investment, so you decide to keep the keyword running without making any changes.

SCENARIO 2:

Now consider scenario 2, where your 6,000 clicks are now spread out over a greater number of keywords. Like scenario 1, your keywords continue to deliver a total of 60 sales.

However, unlike scenario 1, since you have multiple keywords, you can now see exactly where your sales are coming from. You can see that the keyword ‘sony bravia tv deals’ is performing very well, achieving a conversion rate of 1.6%, while people looking for ‘cheap sony bravia tvs’ tend to convert very poorly (conversion rate of only 0.4%).

You can then take these findings, adjust bids and budgets accordingly, and carry out further analysis as to why searches containing the word ‘deals’ perform considerably better than searches containing the word ‘cheap’. Remember – without splitting out your keywords, this would not have been possible.

The crucial point is this – by researching thousands of relevant keywords, your campaign performance data will be spread over a greater number of keywords, allowing more insightful analysis and optimisation. You can filter out poor performers, push high performers, identify opportunities for keyword expansion, and ultimately deliver a higher return on investment for your PPC marketing budget.

Conclusion

When researching keywords for your Google AdWords campaigns, don’t think:

“I only need to add generic keywords such as ‘sony bravia tv’ and ‘sony bravia televisions’ – everything else such as ‘discount sony bravia tv’ and ‘40 inch sony bravia tv free shipping’ will automatically match to my generic keywords”.

Instead, think:

“I need to add as many long-tail keywords as possible, so I can better see how each type of keyword is performing and provide more relevant and tailored ad messages”.

The best campaigns are those that contain a huge number of relevant medium and long-tail keywords, targeting searches containing differing amounts of qualification. The best campaigns are those that are structured across thousands of granular ad groups, so that thousands of tailored ad messages can be presented. The best campaigns are those that aim to maximise relevancy, engagement, and chance of conversion at each stage of the buying cycle.

When you think you have finally created the ultimate Google AdWords campaign, think again.

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

1. Use Long Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are those highly-specific, infrequently searched-for phrases such as ‘all inclusive holidays to Paris from Sydney’, which turn up in your search query report. Since they tend to have less advertiser competition, they can be considerably cheaper than more generic keywords such as ‘Paris holidays’.

What’s more, since people making long-tail searchers have arguably carried out the large majority of their pre-purchase research, and are often further along in the buying cycle, long-tail searches can have a considerably higher conversion rate.

Cheaper CPCs and higher conversion rates were exactly what I found when analysing search queries containing different numbers of words. Searches containing 4 or more words performed consistently better than searches containing fewer than 4 words.

Recommendations:

• Use Google’s Keyword Tool to research keywords which have approximately 100 searches/month. These tend to get overlooked by a large number of PPC advertisers.
• Take advantage of the ‘more like these’ feature in Google’s Keyword Tool to continue to build your list of long-tail keywords.
• Run a search query report to look at the search queries which get matched to your keywords. If they are relevant, and have a decent click volume, add them as new keywords and give them their own tailored ads. This way, instead of long-tail searches being matched to your more generic keywords, they will now be matched to longer keywords, giving you more control over ad messages and bid optimisation.

2. Research Uncompetitive Themes

Keywords which have less competition often have lower CPCs. Finding keyword with less competition often requires you to think outside the box, although with the right tools and approach you can be diversifying your keyword portfolio in no time.

Recommendations:

• Plug the URL of a competitor’s website into Google’s Keyword Tool and see what comes up. If their products and services are worded differently to yours, it can uncover some previously-overlooked terminology.
• Mine your search query report to uncover themes which you previously overlooked. Don’t worry if a search query has only a handful of clicks –you’re trying to research new themes from searches which have matched to your existing keywords, so click volumes would likely be much greater if they are added as new keywords.
• Look for numbers which frequently crop up in your search query report. If you’re selling holidays, consider how people type the dates into their search, such as ‘France holidays December 2011′, or ‘winter 2012 skiing deals Queenstown’. If you can provide tailored ads which cater for these date searches, you will likely receive high click through rates (CTR), high Quality Scores, and low CPCs.
• Use Google Insights for Search to find breakout searches. These are searches which have recently increased in popularity by at least 400%, and can be excellent opportunities for highly-profitable keyword targeting due to their relatively low competition and relatively low CPCs.
• Ask friends or family how they might search for your products and services.

3. Use Modified Broad Match

Modified Broad Match is a variation of broad match, but allows you greater control over the types of search queries which trigger your ads. By placing a plus (+) sign in front of certain words in your keyword, Google will only match your keyword to searches which contain all of the words with a preceding plus sign.

So if your keyword was ‘+cheap +deals to +Rome’, you can be sure than any searches matching to your keyword must contain the words ‘cheap’, ‘deals’, and ‘Rome’.

Modified broad match is a great way to improve the quality and profitability from your AdWords campaigns. In some recent research I carried out on modified broad match keywords, keywords with a greater amount of broad match modification tended to have considerably higher CTRs and significantly lower CPCs.

Recommendations:

• Take advantage of modified broad match. It allows you greater control over the types of searches which trigger your keywords.
• Be mindful that restricting the match types of your keywords may reduce your click volume, so compensate for this by researching additional keywords and themes.
• Broad match generation can also be a useful tool to allow your more generic non-modified broad match keywords to catch relevant search traffic which have not yet been added as modified broad match keyword.

4. Be Relevant

Despite PPC often being dubbed as saturated and highly-competitive, the truth is there are massive opportunities everywhere for PPC advertisers to achieve high profitability by providing highly-relevant and helpful ads, which engage with their target audience.

Searches on Google are now becoming increasingly diverse, complex, and unique, and users are expecting a higher degree of relevancy and helpfulness from search results. If you can be the advertiser which caters for the specific needs and requirements of searchers, visitors will reward you with their wallets. And since click through rate (CTR) is a large component of Quality Score, if you can achieve a high CTR, low CPCs will naturally follow.

Recommendations:

• Create hundreds of highly-granular ad groups, each containing only a handful of very similar keywords.
• Tailor your ad messages to your ad group’s keywords. If the ad group contains keywords related to ‘Winter 2012 Queenstown holidays’, ensure your ads also mention cater for Queenstown holidays in Winter 2012.
• Run an ad group report and find your ad groups which receive a large number of clicks. Changes are those ad groups are being matched to a large number of very different searches, so could benefit from being split out. The 10% Clicks Rule is a useful tool for quickly and efficiently identifying your ad groups which could benefit from being split out. Follow the 3 part guide for step-by-step instructions of how to do this.
• Examine your ad groups with high CPCs and low CTRs. Consider how closely your search queries match to that ad group’s ads. If a gap exists between the ad group’s searches and the ad group’s ads, consider how you can make changes to boost your relevancy.

Return on Investment is the Goal

Quality Score doesn’t sell anything. Click through rate doesn’t sell anything. CPCs don’t sell anything. Improving these metrics should not be the objective of your campaign. Improving ROI should be.

All other things equal, if you reduce your CPCs by 20%, great!

But are all other things equal? In trying to reduce your CPCs, have your sacrificed volume? Have you sacrificed quality? Are paying lower CPCs simply because visitors are now less relevant and less likely to convert? Are you now missing out on more relevant and potentially more profitable searches?

CPCs or Quality Score or CTR should not be the end goal of your PPC campaign. Return on investment should be. There’s no harm in paying 50% higher CPCs if your profit increases by 60%. So only use CPCs as a guide.

By all means use long-tail keywords, search query reports, and modified broad match as a means to lower your CPCs. But make sure your sales volume and ROI also rises as a result.

Alan Mitchell is a Google AdWords certified PPC specialist based in Melbourne, Australia, with over 4 years running successful PPC campaigns for businesses in Australia and overseas. Find out how the specialist PPC management such as the 4 PPC strategies above can help you improve your return on investment from PPC marketing, or get in touch for more information.

1. Identify irrelevant keywords which can be added as negatives
2. 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.

Not Enough Data

The main problem with a raw Google search query report is the sheer variety of searches. Each search query has minimal data, making it difficult to spot trends and insights. Suppose we had the following search queries amongst the mass of other search queries in your report:

• holiday paris for winter 2011
• holiday in winter 2011 to paris
• paris winter 2011 package holiday

It is hard spot the opportunity ‘winter 2011′ amongst the noise of the search query report. It is hard to see the wood through the trees.

Something more is needed.

Search Query Aggregation

If instead, search queries were pulled apart into their individual words, and click data was then aggregated based on these individual words, we would be able to make more sense of search query reports. For example, suppose we could now identify the following search query themes:

• holiday
• paris
• winter
• 2011
• package

We can now see that ‘winter’ and ’2011′ are popular themes within our search query report. And by aggregating click and conversion data for these search query themes, we can quickly and easily identify the types of themes which are converting well, and those which are converting poorly.

Similarly, if the word ‘free’ was hidden amongst multiple search queries, it would have been difficult to realise that the word ‘free’ was a drain on your AdWords budget. But being able to look at the aggregate click cost and conversion data for all searches containing the word ‘free’, you could quickly and easily determine whether ‘free’ should be added as a negative keyword.

If you’re willing to hand over your search query data, Query Miner has developed a tool which allows you to see the words which are converting poorly, and should be added as negative keywords.

But search query analysis shouldn’t stop at identifying negative keywords.

Oh no.

The real power of search query is in identifying new keyword opportunities – the 70% of searches outside of Google’s Keyword Tool. Although looking at one-word phrases can be useful for identifying negative keywords, doing so would ignore other words in the user’s search query which may be crucial to determine the searcher’s intent.

For example, suppose you identified the following themes within your search query report:

Aggregating your click, cost, and conversion data for each of these themes would suggest that the words ‘cheap’, ‘discount’ and ‘weather’ are prime candidates for negative keywords, due to their poor conversion rates.

Similarly, such analysis might show that keywords containing the words ‘kids’ or ‘children’ are converting extremely well, and suggest that keywords containing the words ‘kids’ or ‘children’ should be expanded or have their bids increased.

But while this insight may be interesting, it is of little use in helping you expand your list of keywords. Just because searches which contained ‘kids’ or ‘children’ performed well for your existing keywords, does not mean they would perform well if you added new keyword variations of ‘kids’ and ‘children’.

Something more is needed.

Multiple Word Search Query Aggregation

Suppose that instead of analysing performance for each 1-word theme, you analysed performance for search queries containing 2-word phrases:

Looking at longer phrases, you are now able can now better understand the searcher intent. You can now see that the performance of search queries containing ‘kids’ and ‘children’ is not universal among different searches, but instead depends on other words they are next to. When someone searches for ‘with kids’ or ‘with children’, conversion rate is extremely poor, but when someone searches for ‘without kids’ or ‘without children’, conversion rate is very high.

Similarly, with 1-word analysis, you may have jumped to the conclusion that the word ‘cheap’ is a poor-performer, and should therefore be added as a negative keyword. But by observing 2-word phrases which contain ‘cheap’, you can immediately see that not all ‘cheap’ search queries are poor-performers. Searches which contain the phrases ‘cheap vacation’ or ‘cheap holiday’ have in fact performed extremely well; it is only the search queries which contain the phrase ‘cheap flights’ which have converted poorly.

That’s all very interesting…

But while 2-word theme analysis might help you make more reliable observations about your search query themes, especially for negative keywords, it still is rather impractical for identifying tangible new keyword opportunities which can be added to your campaigns. Knowing that searches which contained the phrase ‘cheap vacation’ performed well, does not mean that adding the keyword ‘cheap vacation’ would deliver equally promising results. If you specialised in Paris holidays, you would get all sort of non-Paris visitors. You are once again ignoring the other crucial words in the search query which are essential for identifying the searcher’s intent.

Even carrying out a 3-word or 4-word search query theme analysis, you would no doubt uncover useless phrases such as ‘cheap holiday deals to’, ‘cost package for october’, and ‘in paris april 2012′, which would not be sensible to add as new keywords:

We need a way of highlighting new keyword opportunities which can quickly and efficiently be added to the account.

Something more is needed.

Filters

We need filters. Once we have identified our promising 2-word, 3-word, and 4-word phrases from our search query report, we need to filter them to ensure they contain essential qualifying words.

Exactly what words you will use as qualifiers will obviously depend on the specifics of your individual campaigns, but here I have filtered to only show phrases which contains the words ‘paris’ and ‘holiday’:

I now have a list of sensible 4-word themes which I can add to my campaign as new phrase match keywords. And since each of these new keyword suggestions contain the words ‘paris’ and ‘holiday’, I can be confident that these keywords would deliver highly-targeted traffic.

Conclusion

There is a huge amount of data available to PPC advertisers via the search query report. Although we are seeing tools which help advertisers mine their search query reports for negative keywords, the real gold is in identifying new opportunities for keyword expansion. Being able to do so efficiently and reliably is surely the Holy Grail of search query analysis, and can be the difference between a mediocre and successful PPC campaign.

What techniques do you use to mine search query reports for new keyword opportunities? How do you ensure new keywords are qualified and relevant? Share your comments and experiences below.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords manager helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. To find out how search query keyword expansion can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

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.

Definitions of long tail keyword length vary greatly, from the vague mention of several words and nothing more than a series of words strung together, to the less vague description of 2 or more words, 3 or more words, and usually more than 2 words in length, to the very specific combination of 3-6 words and at least three, and some times as many as five words.

One definition rejects the long tail’s use in describing keywords of 3-4 words, instead referring to them as keyword gems, while others define long tail keywords not by definition but by using examples such as ‘myspace’ vs. ‘is myspace free to use in china’.

I’m hardly any better at providing a clear definition. In a previous post I wrote on the benefits of long tail keywords, my confusion over what exactly constitutes a long tail keyword made me shirk away from providing a clear definition, and I opting for a cop-out by providing an example of a long-tail keyword (e.g. ‘cheap remortgage for bad credit history’) along with a more generic keyword (e.g. ‘remortgages’).

So in search for a more definitive definition of long tail keywords, let’s break the long tail keyword down into its alleged factors to uncover its fundamental, defining properties and determine a clear definition of the long tail. Based on the above definitions of the long-tail, the following 5 characteristics all seem to play an important role:

• Number of words in keyword

• Search volume of keyword

• Competitiveness of keyword

• Price of keyword

• Purchase intention of keyword

Let’s look at each of these 5 areas to see how useful they are in describing long tail keywords:

1. Number of words in keyword

It makes sense that a long-tail keyword contains a greater number of words than a short-tail or head keywords. But exactly how many words should a long tail keyword contain?

Although some definitions of long tail keywords specify a lower and upper limit for the number of words it must contain (e.g. 3-6 words), it makes little sense placing an upper limit on the maximum number of words a long-tail keyword can contain.

The more important question here is exactly how many words should a keyword contain until it is classed as long tail? In the definitions we looked at earlier, we’ve had mentions of anything over 2 words, anything over 3 words, and anything over 5 words.

Then there is the question of whether the number of words in a keyword really matters at all. For example, a short keyword such as ‘antique bingo clothing’ (3 words and very niche) might be considered long-tail, whereas a longer keyword such as ‘car insurance for women’ (4 words and very popular) might be seen as highly competitive and therefore not a long tail keyword.

So perhaps the number of words isn’t useful in defining long tail keywords. Perhaps search volume or competitiveness might be better.

2. Search volume of keyword

Again, it makes sense that keywords with low search volume should be classified as long tail keywords.

But exactly how low a search volume must a keyword have before it is labelled as a long tail keyword? 10 searches a day, 10 searches a month, or 10 searches a lifetime?

While long-tail keywords surely must have less search volume than highly generic keywords, clearly the definition of a long tail keyword should again not depend on a finite number. In searching for a definition, all we can say is that long tail keywords are generally searched for in less volume than more generic keywords.

3. Competitiveness of keyword

What about the competitiveness of a keyword? Are keywords with little competition long-tails?

If so, exactly how much advertiser competition is needed before a long-tail keyword becomes long tail no more? While Google’s keyword tool provides a scale of advertiser competition ranging from 0 to 1 to represent the competitiveness of a keyword, it does not have much practical use in reliably distinguishing between generic keywords and long tail keywords.

So once again, while competitiveness is definitely a defining factor in long-tail keywords, we can only say that long tail keywords tend to have less competition than those which are not long tail. We can’t say specify the exact amount of competition needed to distinguish between generic keywords and long tail keywords.

4. Price of keyword

What about the price of a keyword? Surely long tail keywords are those super cheap phrases you can bid on for $0.10?

Well, since the price of a keyword is linked to its competitiveness, it makes sense that long tail keywords would be cheaper than shorter keywords. And it also makes sense that the cost per click prices should be included in a definition of long tail keywords. But once again, it’s impossible to define exactly where the long tail cost per click cut-off lies. And since keyword prices are also closely linked to the purchase intention and the amount of potential profit which might arise from a sale, keyword prices naturally vary between industries and markets. Again, all that we that long tail keywords are generally cheaper than shorter keywords.

5. Purchase intention of keyword

Purchase intention is interesting. The theory behind purchase intention is that people who make longer, more specific search queries (e.g. ‘casio exilim ex-fh100 digital camera’) are more likely to have already carried out the majority of their pre-purchase research compared to people making shorter, generic searches (e.g. ‘digital cameras’). They are likely to be more informed about their buying needs, and therefore more likely to convert.

Longer keywords have long been known for their higher conversion rates, and many a PPC advertiser’s campaigns are built around a huge number of long tail keywords due to their strong conversion rates.

But does buying intention really form part of the definition of a long tail keyword? While it is true that some longer keywords (e.g. ‘casio exilim ex-fh100 digital camera’) exhibit high buying intention, other longer keywords (e.g. ‘how do clouds form in rainforests’) display little or no buying intention. Similarly, some shorter phrases (e.g. ‘buy apple ipad’) show significant purchase intent, while other shorter variations (e.g. ‘capital of peru’) display little or no intention to buy.

Purchase intention is therefore rather tenuous in its use in describing a long tail keyword.

RELATIVE

While it seems that word count, search volume, competitiveness, and price all play some kind of role in defining a long tail keyword, there are too many exceptions for word count, search volume, competitiveness, and price to becoming defining features of the long-tail:

A keyword which receives 10 clicks a day might be labelled as long-tail to a large advertiser, and labelled as generic to a small, niche advertiser. The keyword hasn’t changed, but the description of it has depending on the circumstance.

Similarly, the keyword ‘casio exilim digital cameras’ might be seen as an uncompetitive long tail keyword to an advertiser spending $500,000/month on clicks, while instead being seen as a highly-competitive generic keyword to a smaller advertiser spending only $50/month on clicks.

Perhaps long tail keywords should not be defined in terms of absolute measures, such as number of words or number of clicks, but instead only used as a relative measure when comparing keywords? Rather than saying:

“This keyword here, ladies and gentlemen, is a long-tail keyword”

Perhaps it is better to say:

“This keyword here, ladies and gentlemen, is more long-tail than this other one”

 
How would you describe a ‘long tail keyword’? In terms of searches, clicks, CPCs, and competition? Or more in terms of a relative measure to compare one keyword (or set of keywords) to another? Your comments welcome below.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a long-tail approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

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.

End of the Long Tail?

The main concern, as pointed out by John Ellis in his Search Engine Land article, Will Google Instant Kill the Long Tail?, is that by giving users the ability to preview search results as they type, people will be more likely to accept search results for shorter words, and will be less likely to continue searching for highly-specific, long-tail phrases. This will ultimately lead to higher cost per click prices on shorter, generic keywords (as they grow in popularity), and large reductions in the value of long-tail keywords (as they fall in popularity).

Bad news for search marketers.

Why?

Because long-tails are incredibly profitable.

Long-tail keywords are those highly-specific phrases such as ‘luxury apartments in Paris for sale’, as opposed to short-tail keywords which are phrases such as ‘apartments for sale’ or ‘Paris apartments’. Due to the highly-specific nature of long-tails, people searching for long-tail phrases are generally more informed about their requirements, have done the majority of their research, are further along in the buying cycle, and are more likely to buy. Search marketers can therefore use long-tail keywords to very accurately provide highly-targeted ads, and expect to deliver a good return as a result.

The stats back up the theory – research I did last year on long-tail keywords found long-tails can be up to 50% cheaper and convert up to 200% better than short-tail keywords. Long-tails are a search marketer’s friend.

So it is no surprise then to see search marketers up in arms when Google announce a change which threatens to reduce the number of people searching for long-tail keywords.

But will it really have such an impact? Although Google’s Autocomplete feature in March 2009 did somewhat change search behaviour away from the long-tail, it largely had an insignificant effect on long-tail paid search strategy, with the long-tail still very much as powerful as before.

Now, as users are presented with instant search results, will people really change the way they search?

I think it depends on two crucial psychological elements: laziness and laziness

1. Will people get lazy with their keyboard?

Suppose you were interested in buying a luxury apartment in Paris. You start typing your query into Google…

Search results start to appear for Paris weather, Paris transport and Paris tourism. Not very relevant, so you keep typing…

That’s better. As you get more specific with your query, organic and paid search results start to appear with mentions of ‘Paris Apartments’.

Do you stop now and click though a link? Or do you keep searching and hope to get something even better?

Let’s keep typing…

Even better! As you add the words ‘for sale’ into you search query, organic and paid search results now only show listings for Paris apartments for sale. None of those irrelevant rental or holiday apartment listings. Just ones which are for sale.

So do you stop now and click through a link. They all look pretty good! Or do you keep on typing…

As you add the word ‘luxury’ into your search query, the results get even better! Organic and paid search listings for cheap, low cost, budget, discount apartments are no-where to be seen – all that’s visible are listings for luxury apartments. The best yet!

So when did you stop searching? When did something look relevant, catch your eye and bring your typing to an end? Was it after typing ‘paris apartments’? Or after ‘paris apartments for sale’? Or was it after ‘paris apartments for sale luxury’?

Where you (and others) decide to stop typing will be critical for paid search advertising. If it was early (e.g. ‘paris apartments’), it could mean a reduction in the traffic to long tail-searches, which would increase the price of short-tails, making it difficult for small, niche advertisers to compete with the big brands.

If it was late (e.g. ‘paris apartments for sale luxury’), then there could still be hope for the long-tail, with click through rates and conversion rates possibly rising with the improved quality of searches.

Exactly how people change their behaviour when searching will be crucial in determining the effect on paid search advertising.

2. Will be people get lazy with their mouse?

Another critical behavioural factor is how people change the way they use their mouse. Prior to Google Instant, once I typed a query into Google and hit ‘search’, I tended to grab my mouse and browse through the results until I found something of relevance. If nothing satisfied my requirements, I would refine my search until I found what I was looking for.

Now, with Google Instant, there is no need to scroll through results with my mouse. I would simply keep typing, or change what I have typed, until I see relevant results on the search page. As soon as I see something which grabs my attention, I would let go of your keyboard, grab my mouse, and click through that listing. I don’t let go of my keyboard until I have already decided where I am going to click. With Google Instant, my mouse is no longer used for browsing through the results – it’s only used for clicking on what I have already decided to click on.

If my behaviour – of only using the mouse to click, rather than to browse – becomes the norm with Google Instant, this could have massive implications for paid search advertising.

If scrolling with the mouse through search results becomes a redundant activity, only above-the-fold ads in the top positions will have any chance of being clicked. Advertisers with ads in the lower positions (such as 7, 8, 9 and 10), will see their click through rate (CTR) fall considerably, and to retain a decent click volume, will likely increase their cost per click (CPC) keyword bids in an effort to appear above the fold.

Over time, this will raise the cost per click (CPC) prices of ads in the top positions. It is therefore likely to be smaller advertisers – who cannot afford to compete with the big brands – who are likely to suffer. Big brands will simply welcome the extra traffic.

Worst Case Scenario

Although it is difficult to predict exactly how people will adapt to Google Instant, the worst case scenario for pay per click advertising is scary. People accept shorter phrases, and only click on ads in the top few positions. Long-tail keywords fall in volume, and the price of short-tail, generic keywords rise considerably. Smaller advertisers struggle to compete.

Best Case Scenario

The best case scenario is somewhat more comforting. The comprehensive search suggestions of Autocomplete and the ability to preview search results mean people enter more specific, detailed search queries. Long-tail search volume remains unchanged, or even rises as a result. And since users now see search results as they search, impressions are of a higher quality, so click through rates (CTR) and conversion rates rise.

Likely Scenario

While it’s too early to determine exactly what affect Google Instant is likely to have on pay per click advertising, it will no doubt change the way we search. But as long as Google’s Autocomplete continues to provide a wide selection of long-tail search suggestions (e.g. ‘paris apartments for sale luxury’), I don’t think the long-tail is in any immediate danger.

I think what is more likely, however, is a reduction in searches for phrases which are not in the Autocomplete list of search suggestions. I think people will learn to accept the search suggestions presented to them, and reduce the number of creative ad hoc ‘outside the box’ searches. As soon as you’ve reached the end of the road in the list of search suggestions, you would accept the suggestion as your search. I think only a small minority of people will go on to refine their search further, typing something even more specific as ‘paris apartments for sale luxury 2 bedrooms’.

Whether the long-tail is dead, and whether competition is focused on the top few ad positions, in my opinion is down to the extent to which Google continue to expand their range of long-tail Autocomplete suggestions. As as long as people continue to demand ever more specialised search results, and do so with ever more specific search queries, I think the long-tail is still very much alive.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a strategic approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

 


 
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.

Although most of these “low search volume” keywords were in fact that, low search volume, some had a relatively high number of searches: 108, 117, 126, 135, 156 and even 573 (see graph below). I’d hardly call 573 searches “low search volume”.

 

What’s more, although “low search volume” keywords accounted for only 3.60% of total impressions, they generated a disproportionately high 5.33% of total clicks. Their CTR was 1.72%, compared to only 1.17% for normal search volume keywords, despite a similar average position of 2.63 and 2.70 respectively. That’s a higher CTR for “low search volume keywords” by almost 50%.

5% doesn’t sound like much. So is there any point having “low search volume” keywords in your AdWords account? Or long-tails at all for that matter?

Definitely. My advice is to ignore Google’s “low search volume” advice and continue with your long-tail keyword strategy. Focusing on the long-tail will of course generate a large amount of keywords that will rarely be searched, if at all. But as I point out in 5 Benefits of Long-Tail Keywords, infrequently searched-for keywords generally have less competition, lower CPCs, higher CTRs and higher conversion rates than their short-tailed rivals. En masse, long-tail keywords can be extremely profitable.

Call me a cynic, but I think the whole point of the “low search volume” feature is a means to scare advertisers away from those cheaper, long-tail keywords, and towards more expensive, short-tails in a effort to maximise Google’s revenue (a view shared by Eloi Casali in the comments section of PPCProz’s low search volume post in June). I can’t really see any practical use for the advertiser.

 

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a long-tail approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

It makes sense, and I completely agree that a highly relevant approach such as that outlined by Derek is essential to achieve great results in paid search.

However, although Derek emphasises that his one keyword per ad group strategy should only be applied to one keyword which is core to your business, there will rarely be a case where a business will only want to advertise on a single keyword. There will likely be hundreds of possible phrases that will be highly relevant to a business, and having a portfolio of hundreds, even thousands, of long-tail keywords (instead of just bidding on one or two highly generic short-tail keywords) will often achieve better results.

So is Derek’s strategy of one keyword per ad group practical if applied on a larger scale?

Let’s have a look at the pros and cons.

Advantages

1. Highly Relevant

Having one keyword per ad group makes it possible to write ads which very closely match the keyword. If the ad group contained only the keyword “brown leather shoes”, the ad could include the words “brown”, “leather” and “shoes”, possibly with prices of brown leather shoes, and take users through to the brown leather shoes landing page. However, if the ad group contained the keywords “brown leather shoes”, “blue suede shoes” and “red wellington boots”, at best, a generic “shoes” ad could be shown. Having very different keywords in the same ad group makes it impossible to create a highly relevant PPC campaign.

2. High Quality Score

As previously pointed out, having one keyword per ad group would likely achieve high Quality Scores, high CTR and strong ad rankings. Conversion rates are also likely to benefit, as highly relevant ad text will make users more pre-qualified before clicking.

3. Easy to Optimise Ads for Quality Score

If you notice Quality Score for one of your keywords is low, having one keyword per ad group makes it is relatively easy to identify which keyword / ad combination is performing poorly and make appropriate changes to improve its Quality Score.

Disadvantages

1. Unnecessary

Having every one of your keywords in its own ad group is unnecessary. If you have two keywords, “blue suede shoes” and “suede shoes blue”, what benefit is there of having each of those keywords in a separate ad group? The keywords are so similar, so you could not possibly write a more relevant ad for one if it were in its own ad group.

2. Unmanageable

Imagine a Google AdWords ad group with 2,000 keywords. If each had its own ad group, that would mean 2,000 ad groups. Imagine how difficult it would be to manage 2,000 ad groups, most of which would fail to see a single click. Since many of the keywords would be so similar, the same ads would likely be used across multiple ad groups. There would be a lot of duplication of ads and it would take forever to download reports or update changes. Quite simply, your AdWords account would become incredibly time-consuming and frustrating to manage.

3. Diluted Ad Text Performance Data

If each keyword had its own ad group, impression and click data for ads would be diluted over a greater number of ad groups, making analysis and optimisation of ads difficult and less meaningful. If , however, 10 of your very similar keywords were grouped together in one ad group, impression and click data for those 10 keywords would be aggregated for the ad group’s ads, making it easier to spot which ads are performing well and which need changing.

Balance

Although having one keyword per ad group would be nice in a perfect world, considering that there are potentially thousands of keywords that could be relevant to your business, having one keyword per ad group is taking paid search to an unmanageable level. While having one keyword per ad group is one extreme of paid search management, putting all of your keywords in one ad group is the other. The best results in paid search are achieved from a balanced approach, somewhere in between the two extremes.

So don’t just separate out keywords into their own ad groups for the sake of it. Your account will soon become unmanageable and you’ll dilute your ad text data. Instead, group very similar keywords together, even if they are broad matched. As long as your keywords are very similar, 5-20 keywords per ad group is fine. I regularly achieve Quality Scores of 9 and 10 using this approach. The key is to make sure the keywords in each of your ad groups are very similar, and that your ads are highly relevant to the ad group’s keywords.

Start with maybe 10 closely related keywords in each ad group. Once you have some data collected, use the 10% Clicks Rule to decide which of your ad groups and keywords could benefit from being split out and given their own tailored ads. It will keep your time and effort focused only on the parts of your campaign which deserve your time and effort.

As with most things in life, it’s about finding a balance. As you continually strive to improve the relevancy of your keywords and ads, make sure the strategy you are adopting is achievable and sustainable. If you put all your keywords in the one ad group, you’ll receive a poor Quality Score as users fail to engage with your ads. If you over complicate your keyword / ad group structure, you’ll end up creating a bloated paid search account and start to lose focus of your long-term goals. Find a balance that works for you.

Rule of Thumb

So unfortunatley there isn’t really a rule for the number of keywords an ad group should contain. There isn’t a ‘best’ number of keywords you should aim to have in each ad group. It’s about finding what works best for your business, for your products or services, for your set of keywords. But if you ever find yourself unsure whether a keyword should be split out into its own ad group, ask yourself this:

A keyword should only be give its own ad group if you think you could write a more relevant ad (or show a more relevant landing page) for that keyword if it were in its own ad group.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a highly-organised and strategic ad group structure can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

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?

In short: yes.

Over the course of this article you’ll see exactly how search volume, CTR, CPCs, average position, conversion rate and CPA differs for searches containing different numbers of words, and how long-tail keywords can benefit your business immensely. Using three months of real Google AdWords campaign data, you’ll see that long-tail searches outperform generic short-tail searches on almost every measure, and provide a great opportunity to connect with customers which is generally not being taken by the majority of advertisers.

1. Search Volume (Impressions)

Let’s start with search volume. Do people make long-tail searches in any meaningful volume?

Look at the example below. Although 1 and 2-word searches may be under-represented in the example (the account has a natural bias towards keywords of at least 3 words), it is clear that as the number of words in a search query increases beyond 3, the number of searches made using that that number of words falls.

This isn’t surprising. You would of course expect search volume to drop as searches start becoming obscure and lengthy. It is little surprise that more people are making shorter searches such as as ‘cheap televisions Brisbane’ (3 words) instead of longer searches such as ‘low cost Sony Bravia television shops in Brisbane’ (8 words).

What is worth noting, however, is the power of these long-tail keywords en masse. Added together, searches of 5 words or more accounted for 21% of all impressions. While long-tail keywords may be individually insignificant, a PPC campaign with thousands of long-tails can be a serious source of additional traffic.

Fact: Long-tail searches have significant search volume

2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Another common belief among search marketers is that click-through rate (CTR) is higher for long-tail keywords. Their reasoning being:

1. Long-tail keywords have less competition, so there is a higher chance someone will click your ad
2. Long-tail keywords are more specific in their requirements, so you can write a more targeted and relevant ad to encourage the searcher to click

While the first point is perhaps rather tenuous (Google’s broad-matching mechanism often sends long-tail searches to advertisers’ short-tail keywords), the second point is definitely true. If someone searches for ‘cheap Sony Bravia 46 inch televisions’, and your ad mentions the words ‘Sony Bravia’, ’46 inch’ and ‘televisions’, perhaps with latest prices for that model, it makes sense that your ad will be more appealing than a generic ‘Sony televisions’ ad.

Let’s have a look at CTR for searches of different word counts. While searches of 1, 2 and 3 words have a relatively low CTR, CTR appears to increase significantly for searches of at least 4 words. CTR, it seems, is considerably stronger for long-tail keywords.

Fact: Long-tail keywords can achieve a higher CTR, as long as ads are tailored to the search query

3. Cost Per Click (CPC) & Average Position

Many search marketers also believe long-tail keywords are cheaper. They have less competition, fewer people bidding on them to drive up their prices, so CPCs will be kept relatively low.

So are long-tail keywords cheaper than generic keywords?

To answer this question, it is important to bring average position into consideration. Since CPCs and ad rankings are closely connected (a higher CPC typically means higher ad ranking), both average position and CPCs need to be considered together.

First, let’s look at CPCs. For searches of 13 words or more, CPCs do tend to be cheaper. For searches under 13 words, however, CPCs tend to be very similar. A 9-word search query costs pretty much the same price as a 4-word search query. CPCs do fall very slightly as word length increases from 3 to 12 words, but I would hardly call that significant.

Now let’s look at average position (a higher bar represents a higher ad ranking). For 1, 2 and 3-word searches, ad ranking is relatively low, and ads are appearing near the bottom of the first page. As word length increases, however, ads are shown significantly higher. They are appearing in the top positions.

So although CPCs were relatively similar for searches of all word counts, long-tails were often shown in a higher position.

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. When you set a maximum CPC bid for each keyword, Google will show you as high as possible without going over your maximum bid. If long tail keywords are cheaper, Google won’t necessarily charge you less. It is in their interest to charge you as much as possible, so they will instead keep your CPCs close to your maximum bid but show you in a higher position.

Fact: Long-tail keywords are cheaper for the same ad ranking, or the same price for a higher ad ranking

4. Conversion Rate

So we’ve seen that long-tail keywords have a significant search volume. They exhibit a strong CTR and are often cheaper than their short-tailed rivals. But clicks are no good if people don’t engage with your site or part with their cash. It’s often conversion that really matters.

So are long-tail searches more likely to convert?

Many search marketers seem to think so – their reasoning being that people who make longer, more specific searches have already done their research and know exactly what they want. They are further along in the buying cycle so are more likely to open their wallet.

Let’s have a look at conversion rate for searches of different word counts.

It’s a pretty convincing trend. As the number of words increases, so does conversion rate.

Fact: Long-tail keywords have a higher conversion rate

5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Finally, what does this mean for CPA, profitability, return on investment (ROI)? Is it cheaper to acquire a customer through the long-tail?

Let’s have a look at the CPA column.

Again, there appears to be a clear trend between word count and CPA. Conversions from long-tail searches seem to be cheaper than conversions from generic, short-tail searches.

And it’s not just one or two conversions which are coming through long-tail searches, either. Remember how long-tails of 5 words or more accounted for 21% of all searches? Well, those 21% of long-tails generated a massive 40.5% of all conversions.

Fact: Long-tail keywords have a lower cost per acquisition and can be extremely profitable

Long-Tails Are Your Friend

As we have seen, the benefits of long-tail keywords are many:

1. Significant search volume
2. Higher CTR
3. Cheaper CPCs (or higher ad ranking)
4. Higher conversion rate
5. Lower CPA

Quite simply, they outperform generic, short-tail keywords on every measure.

Don’t get me wrong, long-tails shouldn’t replace your short-tail keywords. Short-tails, if used wisely, are great for building interest and awareness at the early stages of the buying cycle. Your long-tail keyword strategy should complement your short-tail strategy.

So by all means continue showing on your high-volume keywords – after all, they may be your bread and butter that keep your business afloat. But the next time you work on you AdWords account, spend some time researching relevant long-tail keywords. Try to think what people are actually searching for and use keyword tools to help. Structure your keywords into closely-themed ad groups and tailor your ads and landing pages to cater for these specialised long-tail searches.

Your Moment to Shine

Of course, researching thousands of keywords and structuring them into hundreds of closely-themed ad groups, each with tailored ads and landing pages, is by no means easy. It will take considerable time, effort and dedication, not to mention the many hours of keyword and search query analysis, ad group expansion and ad copy testing once your keywords are live.

But think about your target audience for a minute. They are calling out for someone to meet their needs in a personalised and relevant way. It’s the age of social interaction, and people are sick of seeing generic ad after generic ad. And despite many advertisers claiming they are “doing this already”, consumers are not currently getting a personalised and relevant service (see Relevancy: The Holy Grail of PPC).

If you can be the advertiser who understands your audience using search query analysis, if you can cater for their individual needs with relevant ads and landing pages, if you can be the one who makes a mark in your industry, customers will reward you with their wallet. It’s your opportunity to stand out from the competition. So take it.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a strategic long-tail approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.

Why? Because paid search relevancy can pay massive dividends. Not only is a highly relevant pay per click (PPC) campaign more likely to receive a higher click-through rate (CTR), higher Quality Score, higher ad rankings, lower costs per click (CPC) and benefit from less wasted spend, but users will more qualified so bounce rates are likely to fall (the number of people who immediately ‘bounce’ back), conversion rates increase and return on investment (ROI) will ultimately improve. So a highly relevant paid search campaign is definitely a good thing.

To achieve PPC relevancy, keywords, ads and landing pages need to work together in tandem. Messages in ads need to match users’ search queries, landing pages need to match messages in ads and landing pages need to relate to users’ original searches. (For a more detailed explanation of how each component interlinks, you might like to consult Acquisio’s great article on AdWords relevancy and Quality Score).

Closely matching ads and landing pages to keywords to encourage only targeted and qualified users to visit your site is a simple theory, and one that’s been around since the dawn of Google AdWords.

So nothing new then – does that mean relevancy is no longer relevant?

Well, not exactly, for two reasons…

Impossible to achieve

Firstly, relevancy can never be achieved in its perfect form. There will always be ways a PPC advertiser can improve his keyword selection, negative keyword list, match type strategy, ad copy matching and landing page selection to give the user a more engaging and personalised experience. Just like there will never be a 10.0 film on IMDB, there will never be a perfectly relevant PPC campaign. One can only strive towards perfection – towards the Holy Grail of relevancy.

Higher expectations

Secondly, the bar of relevancy is constantly being raised. As search engine continually improve their algorithms to provide users with more relevant organic search results, so paid search ads will have to improve to keep up with the growing expectations of searchers. Ads which might have been considered ‘quite relevant’ last year may be considered ‘not so relevant’ now. Ads which sufficiently answer the questions of searchers today may not do so next year when people start to demand a more personalized and tailored service.

So not only is the Holy Grail of relevancy (a perfectly relevant campaign) impossible to achieve, but it is getting more and more impossible to achieve as we speak.

But all is not lost. No-one expects perfection, after all. Just being better than the competition can reap massive benefits for advertisers. And as I’m about to point out, getting better than the competition doesn’t need to be difficult. There are opportunities everywhere.

Opportunities

Say you’re interested in visiting Sydney and want somewhere to stay. Load up Google, search for ‘Sydney hotels’ and look at the paid search results.

Of the 10 PPC ads, 9 mention the words ‘Sydney’ and ‘hotels’. Most of the ads are calling out to the user, “I have hotels in Sydney! Come to Me!” Most of the ads are relevant to your search.

But let’s say you know a little bit more about your Sydney hotel requirements. After all, you can’t be bothered clicking through each of the hundreds of paid search results (or the 22,900,000 organic results for that matter). Come to think of it, you are interested in going to Sydney next weekend, you your refine your search query.

Search for ‘weekend breaks in Sydney’ and look at the paid search results. Although most ads mention ‘Sydney’, not a single advertiser includes the words ‘weekend’ or ‘break’ in their ads. No-one is shouting out to the user, “Yes! I have weekend breaks in Sydney! Come to me!” Every ad appear to be a generic ‘Sydney Hotel’ ad that may or may not be relevant to your weekend requirements.

Suppose, instead, when searching for ‘weekend breaks in Sydney’, you saw one of the following ads:

Suppose they took you through to a special ‘weekend break’ page, specifically designed for people looking to stay at the hotel over the weekend. Along with suggestions of local Sydney sights, activities and restaurants that could easily be fitted in over a weekend were reviews from people staying at the hotel on Friday and Saturday nights.

Would you be more likely to consider this hotel in your plans? I know I might.

More opportunities

Okay, only 36 people searched for ‘weekend breaks in Sydney’ in June. But these were 36 people who knew what they were looking for and were delivered poor, generic, one-message-fits-all ads.

‘Weekend breaks in Sydney’ is just one example. Imagine all the hundreds of similar qualified searches people could make to find your products or services. 880 people searched for ‘Sydney CBD hotels’ in June, but most advertisers fail to mention ‘CBD’ or even their location in their ads. ‘Sydney hotels the rocks’ had 390 searches, but only one advertiser mentions the phrase ‘The Rocks’ in their ads. 73 people searched for ‘3 star hotels in Sydney’ but only a handful of advertisers mention ’3 star’ or ‘3*’ in their ads. These are people who know what they want are willing to part with their cash if they can find it.

It doesn’t take long to find hundreds of other examples of keywords that have significant search volume and are being poorly served. There are opportunities everywhere.

What’s more, as demand for better search results grows, people will start making more of these 3, 4, 5 and 6-word searches and expect better, relevant, more personalised results. The winners will be the advertisers who cater for them. The losers will be the ones who don’t.

So how do I go about improving the relevancy of my AdWords campaign?

Patience

I’m not going to pretend there is a quick overnight fix (because there isn’t). A highly relevant AdWords campaign takes patience, commitment and dedication.

Nor are there techniques that work for everyone. The whole purpose of this blog is to share with you the PPC techniques I have found to work in my experience, although I recognise they will be far from the be-all-and-end-all of paid search management so I welcome your ideas and comments. Paid search is an ongoing battle to become better and better, and it isn’t going to stop any time soon.

But to keep things nice and simple, here’s a quick 5 minute run-down of the essentials of creating a highly relevant PPC campaign:

Keyword Research

Research keywords that people are searching for. There are free tools out there, such as Google’s keyword tool, so use them. Build up a comprehensive keyword list. Not just with generic, high-volume keywords, such as ‘cheap Sydney hotels’, but also with long-tail keywords such as ‘cheap hotels in Sydney CBD’ and ‘cheap hotels Sydney Darling Harbour’. Long-tails can collectively be of significant volume and provide a great opportunity for tailored ads.

Then research negative keywords, lots of them. Why waste money on clicks you know are completely irrelevant? Use the keyword tool to identify keywords that might broad match to ‘cheap Sydney hotels’. Go through each result, making a note of anything you think is irrelevant. Is your Sydney hotel miles away from Sydney Airport? If so, add ‘airport’ as a negative keyword. Keep brainstorming negatives until you have at least a hundred.

Ad Group Structure

Once you have done your initial research, group your keywords into small, closely themed ad groups of generally no more than 20-30 keywords each. Write ad descriptions that are relevant to the ad group’s keywords and include the ad group’s keywords in your ads where possible. If you think you could write a more relevant ad for a keyword if the keyword was in its own ad group, split out that keyword into its own ad group and write a more relevant and tailored ad for it.

Think of the keyword as the question and the ad as the answer. Keep asking yourself, “If I searched for this keyword and saw this ad, is it answering my question?” If not, change it so it does.

Include offers and prices that are relevant to the keyword. In your ‘Sydney Hotels Christmas 2009′ ad group, how about mentioning Christmas 2009 prices or early booking discounts?

You’re trying to make your ads as relevant as possible to the user’s searches so think about how you could angle your products or services to appeal to users searching each of your keywords.

Next, deep-link your keywords to the most relevant page on your site. Don’t have a relevant landing page for a set of keywords? Write one.

Rinse and repeat until you have hundreds of ad groups, each with tailored ads and landing pages that match the keywords they contain.

Optimization

Then get optimising. Test new keywords. New ads. New landing pages. Two keywords in the same ad group getting a lot of volume? Split the two keywords out into separate ad groups and write new ads that better match those keywords.

Run search query reports to highlight searches your keywords have broad-matched and phrase-matched to. Are they relevant? If so, ad them as new keywords in new ad groups and write tailored ads for them. If not, add them as negative keywords to prevent your ads showing for them again.

It may seem like a lot of work but it’s worth it. With patience, your CTR will start to increase. So will your Quality Score. People will start to spend longer on your site and view more pages. Returning visitors will rise as people decide to come back. Conversion rates will grow and sales volume will increase.

The Holy Grail of relevancy is not something you can achieve overnight, or achieve at all for that matter. It is only something you can strive towards. PPC success favours the dedicated. So keep testing and optimising.

Alan Mitchell is an experienced Google AdWords consultant helping businesses in Australia increase their return on investment from PPC marketing. For more information on how a highly-relevant and tailored approach to PPC can benefit your business, get in touch today for a free consultation.