In pay per click advertising, an important element to an advertiser’s campaign is the keywords s/he selects. The whole point of keywords is to make the advertiser’s adverts only appear on relevant searches/web pages to the keywords s/he chose. The problem is that choosing the right keywords for your PPC campaign can be harder than you think. Some keywords adopt a high CPC (cost per click) for the high level competition they have while others that are based on a niche topic can still produce high conversion rates with a relatively low CPC. The way advertisers choose their keywords is crucial to the campaign’s success.

When it comes to choosing your campaign’s keywords, there are a few ways you can go about finding the right keywords. However, you will need to bare in mind a few points every time you choose a keyword:

• How much will the keyword cost you? – The tendency is that general and vague keywords have the highest CPC because, well, they are vague. The best way to find out the level of competition for your keyword is to use Google Adword’s Keyword Tool which gives an in depth look into the demand for certain keywords and phrases. For example, ‘Apple iPad’ will be much more expensive than ‘Apple iPad 16gb 1st’ Generation because it is more general and vague.
• What type of traffic will the keyword bring you? – The price of the keyword is important but not as much as to what type of traffic it brings you. A vague keyword is more likely to bring less targeted traffic (for example, ‘Apple iPad’ could bring a web user to your landing page that wants a case for his iPad and not to purchase a 1st Generation 16gb iPad).

As always, the best way to make sure you have the best keywords for your campaign is to analyse your campaign’s performance through programs such as Google Analytics. By running multiple campaigns with different keywords will help you find the best keywords for your campaign. Remember that pay per click advertising is all about experimenting.

Keyword Classification

It is important to understand that keywords can be classified into different groups depending on the intention of the web user. For best results in PPC, you will want to gain traffic from a web user with the highest intention as they will have the highest interest in your landing page if it is on the same topic.

• Low Intent – Low intent web users usually search with vague keywords such as (on the topic of Apple iPad) ‘ Apple accessories’. A keyword phrase like this is of low intent because the web user has not specified anything specific yet. Instead, they will be looking for a website which has a range of accessories for one of the Apple products to choose from. Be wary that low intent keyword phrases will have the most competition and will cost the most.
• Medium Intent – This type of keyword phrase will be along the lines of something such as ‘Apple iPad accessories’. There is more intent with this keyword phrase because it includes the product with what the web user wants to see accessories for. Medium intent is a good option when it comes to choosing keywords because, with this, the product is usually identified making the landing page contextual to the search term. The only unknown is what the web user wants exactly with that product.
• High Intent – High intent keyword phrases will look something like ‘Apple iPad charging docking station’. We now know the product and the accessory associated with the product. With high intent keyword phrases, conversions should be high if the landing page is solely based on the product mentioned. The problem with high intent keyword phrases is that it is difficult to make a landing page for every specific high intent keyword phrase. For this reason, you will usually find campaigns based on medium intent keyword phrases.