How to Research Keywords for AdWords Campaigns

Finding the right place to settle can mean the difference between success and failure. This is true for online advertising. Making a sale and increasing your profits is just a kiss away. Here are some tips on how to search for keywords in your AdWords campaign.

Keep it just successful
This guide provides a basic strategy for creating a successful online advertising campaign. Preparation and focus are essential to increase profits. The Keep It Simple (KISS) method is my way of staying focused.

This is how online marketing works: I buy a keyword so that my ad will show up when a person types my keyword in a search bar. This keyword is my shop window location. I put an ad in the window to attract these people to my store.

Understanding your goal
Displaying my shop window, my ad, is the way to achieve my goal. I want to win money. To make money I need to find people and present my product to them.

Google AdWords Pay Per Click
I am using PPC because it is profitable. Google has the largest audience. There are other advertising platforms using the PPC model. I prefer Google to Bing, MSN and Bidvertiser.

How to research keywords

who is my audience
If you’re just starting out with online advertising, you can make this simple mistake. Marketing to everyone who writes your initial word. One word terms are not very good at showing intent.

Example, I have a candy store and I want to advertise online. I decide that ‘candy’ is the term I’ll aim for.

start big
Use a keyword research tool to help you see how your search term will perform. Keyword Planner is a free tool and WordTracker has a free trail.

In the keyword planner, type in your keyword and you’ll get a list of results that will trigger your ad to show. I am using basic Google search to build my list in this example.

My goal is to find more interest-based words related to my seed word.

I find that people are also searching for candy-related terms and adding them to my keyword list.

deep excavation
Below I delve into each of the results. I’m going to limit my example to the ‘chocolate candies’ audience.

At this stage, your keywords show intent. These are very specific terms. Let’s move on from here to capture more leads.

go wide
Going wide is like brainstorming. What other word could be used instead of candy? What specific candies do you sell? Let’s use truffles for our example.

chocolate truffles
price of truffles
truffle recipe
truffles in North Carolina

Keyword Research Summary
The purpose of advertising is to achieve a goal. Increase your earnings from online sales. Make sure to focus on words relevant to your product.

Keyword research is the way to find your audience. Start big, go deep and wide to cover your bases. Stay within your window to stay relevant and related to the keyword searches being done for your product.

Resist the urge to show your store to related groups, stay relevant to your products.

This article is a very basic overview of how to do keyword research for AdWords to increase your profits from online sales.

One key missing ingredient is the list of negative keywords. Another is how to track your return on investment.

The AdWords platform is very powerful. Create a simple campaign that you can monitor and improve over time. People search differently across time and seasons. What works today may not work as well tomorrow.

Keyword research is an ongoing process. Think big, dig deep and look wide so your success is as close as a kiss away. Keep it just successful.