Shane Barker
Keyword analysis is one of the most valuable activities you can do for your PPC marketing strategy. Do your research not just at the beginning, but throughout your campaign’s lifespan. Earning your spot among the top ranks for the right targeted keywords will put your business far ahead of your competitors. But to earn that spot, you need strong keyword analysis skills. Skills that bring in traffic and let you anticipate the newest changes in market conditions.
Doing keyword research also lets you predict what users are searching for. By drilling down deep, you’ll find the target keywords for your campaign, as well as learn about your business’s goals. As we know, the industry changes all the time, but keyword analysis has stayed constant. While the need to perform keyword research has remained the same, how you actually do it has changed a bit and will continue to do so.
Since these changes have made keyword research a bit complex, even for the most experienced digital marketers, I’m committed to lending a hand to help you overcome these difficulties. Below is a list of some of the best keyword analysis pro tips, so that you can implement a better keyword strategy for your company’s advertising campaigns.
1. Think Like the Consumer
When you first start your keyword research, you’ll need to think like a customer or searcher. Think about what a consumer would search for to find your business or its products/services. If you always stay in that mindset, you’ll be able to figure out what it will take to give the searcher what they want.
Knowing a searcher’s intent makes a big difference in your keyword research process. You can see your own business through a consumer’s eyes. It can also help you find weak spots in your campaign that you should fix ASAP. Once this is done, you can consider nearly half of your work done.
2. Check Your Competitors’ Keywords
To discover good keywords for your PPC campaign, you should take a look at some of the keywords for your closest competitors. Find out which keywords they’re bidding on. This is one of the most important steps in analyzing, because you need to know both their strengths and weaknesses.
You might be wondering how you can find all this out. The tools below will help:
- Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool: You probably already know about Google’s keyword planner. But do you know how to use it for competitor research? Instead of how you would normally use it, you can put your competitor’s URL in the landing page field, choose the product category, select a target location, and hit the “get idea button.”
- SEMrush: Another great tool is SEMrush because you can enter a URL and see the top keywords for that website. It’ll also show you the position of these keywords, the traffic ratio, and various other valuable tidbits of info.
- Open Site Explorer: Last but certainly not least, Open Site Explorer lets you see into your competitor’s website optimization strategy. All you’ll need to do is enter your closest competitor’s URL and go to the “Anchor Text” tab. Then, you can effectively analyze the terms they’re using most. If they’re using them in SEO, they’re probably bidding on them in PPC campaigns, too.
3. Research Related Terms
Next, you need to research related search terms for your keyword study. For this step, you’ll have to look through the Google AdWords Keyword Planner or the keyword research tool of your choice. Keyword by keyword, consider these three things:
- Relevancy: Targeting irrelevant keywords is the most serious mistake people make with keyword research. Always keep in mind that you’re looking for niche keywords and key phrases that relate to your company. For example, if you are targeting the keyword “online marketing,” then relevant keywords like “online marketing tools” and “online marketing consultants” would probably be related to your niche.
- Search volume: In the keyword planner, search volume refers to the average number of searches that people made in the past 12 months for that exact keyword. This data is compiled based on the location and the product category. I suggest that you focus on keywords that have at least 1,000 searches.
- Competition: AdWords analyzes the competition based on the quantity of advertisers that are bidding on each keyword. Competition in the Keyword Planner tool can be categorized as “High,” “Medium,” or “Low.” In general, it’s best to target the keywords that have medium competition, especially if your website is new. If your website is already ranking well with medium competition keywords, then you can go for high.
4. Include Long-Tail Keywords
As its name suggests, long-tail keywords are keywords that have a long tail of two to three related modifiers, making a phrase. For example:
- Short-tail keyword: Marketing
- Medium-tail keyword: Online Marketing
- Long-tail keyword: Online Marketing Methods
Long-tail keywords are normally cheaper to bid on, but have high conversion rates, making them an important factor in ROI. Whenever possible, try to focus your keyword strategy on relevant, targeted long-tail keywords.
5. Take Advantage of Google’s Instant Search
Whenever you type something into Google’s search bar, it automatically anticipates your next term and provides keyword suggestions. is the suggestions are based upon the “most popular searches,” though it can vary from location to location.
Google’s Instant Search will deliver a fairly accurate prediction of what users are searching for in your area. That can be really helpful when you’re running local or regional campaigns.
Here’s how to use this feature to find possible keywords for your campaign:
- Open Google.com (if you’re logged into a Google account, you’ll need to log out).
- Type a main keyword or base word. For example, you can type in online marketing. Don’t press enter after typing in the keyword.
- Write down the recommended keywords that pop up in Google’s Instant Search.
- Start to type all letters of the alphabet after the main keyword, one by one. You would type in “online marketing a,” “online marketing b,” “online marketing c,” and so on.
I highly recommend using Google Instant Search because you can easily find great long-tail ideas. You can also find a whole package of popular keywords related to your business. Google Instant Search always shows the most recent popular keyword first, so you also know those keywords are popular now.
Apart from Google Instant Search, you could also use these tools for finding relevant keyword ideas:
Conclusion
Overall, keyword analysis is one of the primary steps you’ll need for constructing a strong PPC plan for your website. The keyword research process helps you make certain you’re driving the best traffic possible from paid search. Thus, it’s essential that you do this task very carefully. The tools from this article are a big help in thinking of fresh keywords from new dimensions.
Thinking of a customer’s intent, analyzing your competitors’ keywords, finding relevant search terms, and targeting long-tail keywords are the pillars of doing good keyword research.
Add these pro tips into your SEO strategy to completely transform how you decide the targeted keywords for your website. Keep these five keyword ideas in mind when you perform your keyword analysis to truly boost your ROI. If you have any further questions on your keyword research, don’t be shy to drop a comment below.
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