PPC Success Begins With Research

Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 26 of July , 2008 at 8:53 am

The success of any endeavor begins at the beginning. The beginning of pay per click is, of course, research. But there are two types of research: Keyword research and competitor research. I bet you thought I was going to say “market research”, didn’t you? Well, I did. I call it keyword research.

Of these two types of research, which is the more important? Well, I think they are both equally important. You should do some research in both areas before you even start your PPC campaign. And here’s how to do it.

Keyword Research
Keyword research is very important. You can buy fancy and expensive software, but you don’t need to. Just use Google’s external keyword tool.

At first, don’t do an extensive keyword research. Stick to the basics. Pick 10 general keywords related to your niche and search for synonyms for those keywords. Also, don’t drill down for website content just yet. Keep your setting on descriptive words and phrases.

Next, take your top 20 keywords from this list as defined by income opportunities. You are looking for keywords that have low or relatively low competition and a high number of searches. Make sure these keywords are related to your niche and that they would be keywords that you’d actually bid on for advertising.

Competitive Research
Now conduct a search for each of those keywords using both broad match and exact phrase match. Write down the top 20 or 30 websites you find with those keywords that actually compete directly against you. These are companies that actually provide the same product or service that you do. I’m talking organic searches here.

Next, make a separate list of the top 20 or 30 competitors who have paid search ads for those keyphrases. Make these lists for each keyword or phrase you are researching.

Now you want to anlayze your two lists to see if there is any crossover. Who is ranked high in the organic search listings and still paying for premium placement with their paid search ads? Those are your most competitive competitors. Other important competitors are any competitor who is advertising using pay per click. You will be competing against them for bids. Take note on the placement of their ads within the lineup. You might want to also capture a screenshot of all the paid search ads for each keyword so that you can analyze the ad copy. Visit the landing pages of these companies as well so you can see the ad copy there and know what you are competing against (NOTE: Don’t click the ad to do this; write the URL down and type it directly into your browser’s address bar - would you want your competition costing you money when there is no chance of capturing that sale?).

Basic Research
This is very basic research. You can (and should) go deeper. But this will get you started. You want to know what your competition is doing with regard to your most important keywords. After you’ve done this original research, you can drill down a little deeper and do more comprehensive research.

                      Category: PPC Keyword Research                      

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