The short answer is you can, but the real question is should you? Ask yourself, is your business better served by staying focused on the business of your business or learning and playing with AdWords? Are you really going to dedicate the time necessary to learn AdWords? Google has invested millions trying to make it simple enough for anyone to run. They’ve only been partially successful. Like any profession, the devil is in the details. It seems easy enough – you create a campaign, write an ad, and select a few keywords and AdWords is running and money is going to Google. Unfortunately what is not happening with this basic simple set up is the creation of value for your business.
I have made my living as a search engine marketing expert since 1994. In all that time I have never had a client that did not know their primary keywords and more about their business than I do. However they rarely understand the issues involved in effectively targeting those keywords.
Plumber keywords are a classic example of this because the typical plumber should only target searches with “Intent to Engage Services” but many searches will be either non-specific or off topic. The keyword Plumber Los Angeles is a good example. At first blush this would seem to be a great keyword but what if the real search is “Plumber Jobs in Los Angeles”? This search matches the Plumber Los Angeles keyword and most plumbers are paying big money for that search, and many others of questionable value. We often see incredibly broad terms like Plumber and that is an accident looking for a place to happen.
I own a pipe wrench but that in no way makes me a plumber. I can install a faucet and sometimes it does not even leak very much. However it takes me twice as long and it never lasts for a long time because I do this so infrequently that I never do it right. It always takes five trips to the hardware store to get all the right parts and most times I need to buy a few of the parts a couple of times. Plumbing only looks easy until you have to actually do it, AdWords is the same way.
AdWords seems simple enough until you get under the surface. There are three major networks, seven types of keywords (Positive/Negative; Broad, Modified Broad, Phase, and Exact). Matching is not just to keywords because you also have keyword themes, direct placement, and remarketing audiences in the Display Network. The keywords are a selection model for a system that has millions of searches per day and the system is an interactive auction with literally thousands of variables involved. As a person that was trained as a computer programmer I can tell you without hesitation that AdWords is the most complex system I have ever worked on because you never know what a person with a blank search box will type in.
AdWords is very much like the old game show “Family Feud” except it happens millions of times per day and you have to guess the word, write an ad for it, and figure out the right bid. Marketing is an ecosystem and AdWords has a role that interacts with other parts of the process. AdWords creates traffic to your website but to create value the website much bring the person to the action of contacting your business.
The question is not can you run AdWords, because you can. The question is should you? Or is your business better served by staying focused on the business of your business?
There are thousands of firms that list AdWords as one of many things that they do. The problem is the more they are about these other things the less they are about AdWords. Most web design firms and SEO firms will list AdWords and present themselves as experts but most of the time they are barely literate in the issues involved.
Experience Counts
Experience counts in AdWords, just like any other field. AdWords was launched in October 2000 with 350 customers and it was not until 2003 that AdWords was opened to the general market.
In 2005 Google launched their first Certification Program for Google Advertising Professionals. In 2009 the certification program was renamed “Google AdWords Certified Partners.” Look for the Google AdWords Certified Partner logo and click on it to see that the certification is current. This logo should send you to a Google site that will contain basic information about the partner. If the link is missing be very careful in checking references. Google lowered the requirements for the certification in the last few years so it does not mean as much today as it used to.
The Right Connections
When the challenges become tough the difference between success and failure often come down to whom you know. Look for a partner that has a positive relationship with Google and current certifications. Besides Google a good AdWords Expert will have connections to Web Design, SEO, Hosting, Ad Agencies, Graphic Artists, and many other areas involved in the professional management of a website.
Watch out for the common Tricks
Make sure that the services are affordable and that you own and control them. There are several tricks that happen in this industry and you need to avoid all the following:
Fixed Monthly Advertising Budget
AdWords is an auction so any form of fixed budget is probably not to your advantage. A fixed budget opens up a profit potential for the provider and they are probably better at this than you are.
Percentage of Ad Spend Fees
This is a conflict of interests because you are paying the person that sets the bids a percent of what they spend! The more of your money they spend the more they make and that is never going to end well.
Selling individuals keywords
This is usually a trick that revolves around the selling a word that has very low volume for a fixed price. The providers profit is driven by your loss and they know the volume of the words.
Programs where you do not own the website or phone number
These are the most horrible trick of them all in that you are trapped in the relationship and your organic traffic is at risk. Never run online advertising for a site you do not fully own.
Long term agreements – any more than month to month is a problem.
Advertising investments should produce results and if they do then you will never cancel them. If the provider needs you to guarantee more than month to month you really have to wonder why.
Check References
An AdWords Expert should be very easy to verify in this world of social media. Look for references on their LinkedIn.com profile and read the profiles of the people providing the references. Watch out for reciprocal references and friends rather than business relationships. AdWords is a business to business trade and the references should look like that. When in doubt connect to the reference and ask them more questions.
Talk to Them
By all means pick up the phone and talk to the people that will be supporting your account, not just the ones selling you services. Make sure you like the way they think and how they solve problems. If you cannot get past the sales person to the actual service providers then keep asking.
I think Larry’s research is good but like any data you have to be careful with what you think it means. For example we know that Attorney keywords are much more expensive per click than Insurance, Loans, and Mortgages. All of these are highly competitive and big money to Google but the value of a client, in general, is much lower in finance than legal. This report is really total revenue per keyword category not the cost per click but that headline probably is not as strong.
There is no doubt that this is a list of highly competitive and expensive keyword categories but the data is hidden in averages and categories. As anyone who has taken “How to lie with statistic 101” can tell you the best way to lie with numbers is to average them. On the other hand we have to average lots of things in this industry because dealing with all the details is just impossible. Within some of these categories like Attorney are words like mesothelioma that are being averaged in with lower value words in the same category. We have seen several examples of specific keywords with cost per click levels above $100 and in most cases they were worth the money. The truth is that the cost per click is market driven so it is set by the competition. Since the competition varies largely by market there is really no way to accurately report this data.
This type of analysis is impossible for anyone other than Google to perform because of the variables like quality score and market location. If we are looking for raw cost per click it is probably something generic like “mesothelioma” with a 1 quality score and a first position in NYC; that click is probably ridiculously expensive.
For a most expensive keyword list there are some missing items like Bail Bonds, which is a good example of an emergency service. These words are the type that the only position to target is #1 and that drives the costs up quickly. If you think about it on an emergency service like Bail Bonds, Emergency Plumbing Repair, Locksmith, or many others the only position worth having is the first one and that drives the cost up quickly. The other possible missing item here, based on total revenue, is Travel although the cost per click is less because of limited revenue per transaction.
Classifying keywords is at best difficult so I respect the work done here but if we are doing keyword categories I think Attorney (#4) Lawyer (#6) and Claim (#10) are really in the same category. Combining them would not move the results but it would bring legal much closer to the top of the list. I believe that legal keywords are expensive because lawyers are by nature highly competitive people. Add to that the high value of the clients in certain segments and you have the elements of a perfect storm in cost per click.
The most expensive keyword we have personally managed is Bail Bonds in a major metro market and the cost per click was well north of $100 but I have seen comments from others of legal class action words above $200.
The first priority of AdWords is to create the best quality SERP (Search Engine Results Page) to serve the searcher. AdWords controls 50% of the most valuable Internet real estate on the planet and our job is to pursue SERP perfection. We are not fools so we are very aware of the fact that obtaining perfection is impossible, but it is the pursuit that is important.
You might think something like “I am paying for AdWords and I want it to serve my needs first.” This is a nice thought, but a failed concept. The value you get is from the interaction with the searcher. You can only get there if you serve their informational need first. The value of traffic is created by the engagement of the searcher with the value statement of your business. We must serve the searcher before that value can be created.
We get calls from people all the time that are trying to control the market and the reality is that the market is a thousand times more powerful than the business. Control is an unlikely outcome in a mismatch like this. The strategy needs to be in service to the market, not in an attempt to control the market. You cannot win if you try it the other way around.
There are lots of system manipulations, some of them work once in a while, but none of them work long term. You can trick a person into clicking on an ad with deceptive copy, but it is unlikely you will hold the upper hand all the way to the finish line because they hold all the power. I will be the first to admit that there are businesses that work on a one-sale model, but our clients need the recurring business and the long term relationship to build a good business. For that reason they need to get the right traffic to their site and that means serving the searcher first.
To be in service to the searcher we need to make sure that the ads on the SERP are the highest quality match to the searcher’s query. The magic of AdWords is the keyword model of both positive and negative words to connect directly to the searcher’s need. Since 1994, when I started working in web marketing, I have yet to meet a person that did not know their keywords. It is a rare person however that knows their negatives. To serve the searcher the ad needs to appear when it serves their informational need but no other time. You might think that there is no cost to the extra impression of your ad, unfortunately that is not true. That impression goes into the quality score which is multiplied by your bid to calculate your rank so it really does cost you in the long run.
We like to think about the search process as the start of a conversation. The searcher enters a few words as a clue of their interests and we match that to the keywords related to the ad copy which is our response to their query. You say hello and I say Good Morning, it really is that simple. The really tough part here is when they click on your ad you need to continue that conversation on your landing page or the only thing that will happen is a charge to your credit card.
First it was Microsoft and now Google is getting into the Privacy Policy Enforcement business. Microsoft has been rather heavy handed and inconsistent on their policy enforcement shutting down accounts for what it deems to be a problem. It seems if your page takes input from the visitor there is very exact language required in your privacy policy.
Here is Google Blog Posting from Inside AdWords on this:
If your site requests payment, financial, or personal information from visitors, please review the new requirements and make any needed changes to avoid having your ads suspended.
Clear, accessible disclosure before visitors submit personal information
Our existing policy requires you to clearly describe how any personal information you solicit will be used. Soon, we’ll require that your description must also be easily accessible before site visitors submit their details.
Option to discontinue direct communications
In the same description of how personal information will be used, you’ll also berequired to describe how people can opt out of future emails, phone calls, or other direct communications.
SSL when collecting payment and certain financial and personal information
Many websites use what are known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections to encrypt sensitive information that travels between the user’s browser and the website’s servers. To help ensure user safety, AdWords policy will require all advertisers to use SSL when collecting payments and certain financial and personal information (like bank account and social security numbers).
Microsoft’s policy appears to be very similar especially on item 2. We had a situation with them where they shut down two accounts over the exact words in the privacy policy. It seems that the magic words are “You may opt out of any future communications including but not limited to emails, phone, or mail. By sending a notice to via email to <email address> or by mail to <business name and address>.
Both Google and Microsoft are requiring that the advertiser states in their privacy policy that they will obey the law. The CAN-SPAM law specifically requires that you honor an opt-out request within 10 days. It seems that Microsoft and Google are now assuming the role of the Government in this area. The timing is such that I wonder if the Government is pulling the strings on this one.
For the SEO only people in our audience you have to wonder. What they will do to your organic score, if you do not have a privacy policy? My gut tells me that it will not be very pretty.
The bottom line here is if you have no privacy policy and have any input on your site you need to fix this before something bad happens to your site. If you have no policy http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/ can generate a policy for your site and it’s free.
Quality Score is real money to an Adwords Advertiser. So it is no surprise that improving this is a common topic of conversation with our clients. We have studied this extensively over the years and we have watched it evolve. In this article, we are going to look at the history and where we think the future of Quality Score is going.
If you are new to quality score and have not seen the Quality Score Video by Hal Varian Google’s Chief Economist watch it before reading this article. Hal does a great job of explaining the conceptual basics of quality score.
Quality score actually started life as a keyword status of “Inactive for Search” where Google would simply stop the word if the CTR (Click Through Rate) got too low. The exact percentage was never disclosed but it was somewhere around .5% in the Google search network. The partner and content network were never part of this process. In those days you either gave up on the word, or you moved the keyword to another adgroup and tried to improve the CTR.
The next stage in Quality Score evolution was the static score where the system would periodically pass through your account and update your quality score. In those days, your account would have a default value that it gave to new words and then the routine maintenance would update it for changes. During this time, the Quality Score was fixed and you could see the almost direct impact on your ad positions. In the static version the system looked at the keyword CTR, ad copy, and landing page but no session values. We estimated that in the early stages before historical CTR was available to the system that ad copy relevancy was 80% of the score and the landing page was 20%. As CTR history came available, the score would become more and more based on CTR and by the time the keyword had a couple of months of history it was all about the CTR.
The current Quality Score is calculated on the fly allowing lots of new attributes to come into the formula and this is where it really gets to be fun. Unlike the static version, this one posts back to Adwords the resulting quality score. When Google says that your bid is money times quality score discounted to .01 greater than the bid behind you this is NOT the quality score you see in Adwords. When this change was made the relationship between quality score and organic score got a lot closer because they shared many of the same attributes. If you think like a programmer for a minute this makes perfect sense because Google simply repurposed the organic ranking objects and used them on the keyword, ad copy, and landing page. There are still differences between quality and organic score but your quality score is what Google thinks of the relationship between the search and your keyword.
“How do you improve your Quality Score?”
Glad you asked and actually there is a lot you can do. Quality Score is driven first and foremost by the CTR and best estimates puts this factor at about 65%. Your CTR is driven by the keywords you select and the relationship between them and the ad copy. There is no hard and fast rule but if your CTR is under .75% then you have some work to do. First decide if you care about the word and if you do not then get rid of it. Otherwise look for ways to improve the relevancy between the intent of the keyword and the headline of the ad. You can play with the body all you want but the headline is what drives this world. If people read the body at all they do so only if the headline got their attention so spend lots of time thinking about your headlines. In most cases we find that repeating the keyword concept is critical and connecting a benefit is the second big thing. With only 25 spaces this is not an easy task! I will tell you that we have seen hundreds of tests where a single word in a headline can more than double the CTR.
CTR is not the higher the better so you have to be careful with this. Like many things in Google the calculation appears to be weighted towards a sweet spot. We cannot prove this is exactly what’s going on, but what we see time after time is that a 3-4% CTR is the optimal CTR. Going above this range is probably caused by some trick on the user and Google knows that. If you have an exceptionally high CTR, you should not be surprised if your quality score dips. We are certain that this sweet spot varies by keyword and that it is relative to the CTR of the others in these searches, but in most cases 3-4% is where you want to be. There is one effect that we see commonly and that is a low CTR with a good quality score or a good CTR with a bad quality score. This happens because quality score is relative to the competition not an absolute measurement so you just have to be better than the other guy.
After CTR the next big thing is relevancy and this is estimated at 30% of the quality score. This factor is closely related to the organic score and it has at least 147 attributes that we know of and probably another 300 that we will never figure out. We know most of these attributes because they are on patent filings from Google. The interesting thing about this list of attributes is that over two thirds of them are not directly controlled by the page source. Just like in real life, your relevancy is more about what others say about you than what you say about yourself.
The last major part of quality score is landing page quality and the rule here is “Do no harm.” Landing page quality is about what Google does NOT like. You do not earn points in this area but you can sure lose them. You can have a 10 score coming into this section and violate one of the prime directives and end with a 1. Things like pop-ups, hidden text, and other tricks are a quick way to destroy all your hard work.
Quality scores can tell you certain things:
Score 1: You have done something very wrong. You must confess your sins and request forgiveness.
Score 2-5: Below average look to your CTR and Relevancy.
Score 6-7: Good Solid Scores you are doing most things right.
Score 8-10: Incredible score but probably a very short list of words. Most of the time these are things like your name or major brands that you own. For some reason the 8 score is very rare except in international campaigns.
The key to managing your quality score is to look for patterns in your score ranges. You will often find that 2-5 scores just need to be split out to a new adgroup with ad copy more connected to the search. Consider getting rid of keywords in the 2-5 range that are not really that important to your business. This will improve your adgroup, campaign, and account average quality score and will improve your overall reputation within the system.
We get calls all the time from people looking to get all their keywords to a 10 score and it is simply impossible. A 10 score is the top 0.5% of keywords and Google is not going to give that score out to several words in any one account and it certainly is not going to give that without other words at the lower levels. Simply put the bottom 99% is what makes the top 1% possible!
The other frequent question is how to trick the system to improve their scores beyond what they deserve. Tricks do exist from time to time but taking advantage of these has some very real risks. Google has a department headed up by Matt Cutts that is dedicated to finding and closing holes in the algorithm. When they find these they correct the logic and you can suddenly find yourself going from 10 to 1 instantly.
Quality Score Rule Number 1: Never try to trick Google unless your Engineering Staff is smarter than theirs!
The Future
Google is not done with quality score and just like the search results page it is constantly being tweaked. We think that ad placement will continue to become more and more like SEO and that the major factors are going to be off-page items. More and more it will be what people say about you not what you say about yourself that will drive your quality score. Money is not a factor in SEO and never will be but it will always be the ante to the table in Adwords. Google will continue to value the quality of the search engine results page above your money and they want every link paid or organic to be a meaningful contribution to the search experience. Quality content is King, and it’s going to stay that way if Google has anything to say about it.
In summary:
• It’s about CTR – target 3-4%
• Using a baseball metaphor: .75% is the warning track and .50% is the wall.
• Look for patterns in your scores – deal with keywords in groups
• Get most keywords to 6-7 before worrying about 10 scores. Hit consistent singles before swinging for the fence.
If you really want to get into the painful details of this send me your email address and I will send you a list of 147+ things that go into the Quality Score calculation. bob@smsrd.com
More is not better, better is better. This is true in Adwords as it is in most things. If you want awesome performance from your Adwords account, and your idea of awesome performance is a better conversion cost, then you need to embrace this concept. We often hear from businesses after they have violated this rule by throwing more and more keywords at Adwords and their performance is in the toilet. The cure is always a return to quality.
When people first start with Adwords, they often throw every keyword they can think of into the system, they wonder why the system crumbles at their feet. The problem is that more is not better. The first words they thought of are probably their best words, so it only goes downhill from there. Keywords are not as simple as Boolean good or bad. Words exist in a range of quality so they slowly degrade and you have to decide when to stop. It is never clear cut. Keywords typically have a structure to them that includes a base keyword, keyword qualifier, and Keyword Intent.
Base Keyword: Drywall
Keyword Qualifier: Contractor
Keyword Intent: Quote
The example for this would be if your business did drywall installation. A great keyword would be “Drywall Contractor Quote”. When you have a base, qualifier, and intent it is often a home run keyword. The challenge is that it is probably a low volume keyword because every word you add to the keyword reduces the number of searches it will match to.
When going after awesome performance, one thing you have to examine is the click through rate (CTR) and its cousin quality score. Look at your average CTR and then create a filter to look at your keywords that drag this down. Normally I start with half of the average so if the account has a CTR of 1% then I look at keywords that have some level impressions that are less than or equal to 0.5% CTR. Then, I start asking myself questions about why the CTR is low:
Is there a relationship between the keyword and the ad?
Is the position where it needs to be?
What do the competitive ads look like?
What is the quality score?
Do you really want this word?
Does the keyword have a good base, qualifier, and intent?
If you cannot get at least average performance out of the keyword, then you need to consider deleting it from the account because it will pull down the overall quality of the account. Many people think that just because you pay by the click that you should not be concerned with the impressions or the CTR but the system does care. A low CTR will lower your quality score. Since your bid is really bid times quality score, a low CTR will ultimately result in a higher bid to hold the same position. Quality Score and Money are the same thing to Google and you need to respect that fact.
The general rule of thumb is that the higher the quality, the lower the quantity and this is what makes people crazy. They always want more but they have to realize that they are sacrificing quality for quantity. If you want quantity simply do away with the qualifier and the intent and you will get the maximum volume, but your quality score will fall and your bids will have to be increased to keep your ad showing. If your quality score or CTR gets too low no amount of money will make your ads show.
The next area in your keyword strategy is the conflicting uses of the keywords. The most common of these is the conflict between service, product, DIY, and research. If you are selling a product, then you have to be careful about how much service, DIY, and research traffic you attract with your keywords. This gets much more complex because words are not good or bad, they are better or worse. If we are selling Gold Widgets then we probably want to avoid traffic seeking to have their widget serviced or seeking information on how to build their own widget. Again these words are not clearly in one area or another but rather in a spectrum between the different concepts.
My favorite example of this challenge is Drywall because it plays into all these different areas. Consider the following searches: (Click on graph for better detail)
This data is from Google Insights and it gives us some idea of how these keywords play with each other in search. The top line is Drywall How To, which indicates to us that 75% of the total search of all these keywords is in the DIY category. If we are selling a drywall service or product, we really need to get rid of the how-to traffic. The Chinese Drywall shows how an event can impact your keywords. Prior to late 2008, the term Chinese Drywall was not even on the chart but then a media event broke on this term and the traffic went through the roof. If you were in the Drywall business and did not go in and remove Chinese from your traffic then the quality of your traffic would have fallen like a rock.
The other observation of this data is that the more qualified terms like price, cost, and contractor are only a small percentage of the overall traffic. Let’s look at just how insignificant some of these terms really are. (Click on graph for better detail)
In the chart above, the broad keyword of Drywall is the top line and you can see that terms like price and cost only get 1-2% of the searches. If you qualify your words to this level you are only seeing 1-2% of the searches however if you stay with the overly broad term then only 1-2% of your impressions actually mean anything to you.
Drywall is an interesting example because it can be a service, product, DIY, or research term. When qualified by cost, it is probably a product but quote is just as likely to be a quote for service as a quote for product even though both of these terms are price class qualifiers.
Keywords also change based on the point in the purchase cycle and the life experiences of the audience. The purchase cycle typically includes research, qualification, purchase, experience, and referral. The keywords change as the audience moves through each of these stages.
Life experiences change the way that the audience interacts with your keywords and it does make a difference if Vietnam was a life experience or a history class lesson. If you are to get awesome performance from your Adwords, you must become one with the audience and see the keywords and the ad copy through their eyes.
If you want maximum volume, you go after Drywall but you should not be surprised when you get Google Slapped on your quality score for being lazy.
This is obviously an ad for premium denim. Photo Source: www.diesel.com
Have you ever watched a commercial on TV or seen an ad in a magazine only to wonder what it was actually for? Well in some advertising mediums that’s, sort of, okay. For example, if you’re Gucci, a glossy magazine ad featuring a boat full of Italian dudes in speedos is obviously an ad for very expensive shoes. A commercial involving a supermodel brushing her teeth riding a camel walking on the moon, probably denim related. Why not right? In Adwords this approach isn’t going to get you so far. When advertising in Search, if you can’t get to the point in a hurry you’re toast!
You have to remember that Search Marketing is a completely different beast from traditional marketing channels. There’s no need to be endearing or interesting with your search ads because the person viewing it is actually looking for what you do! I know it’s a weird feeling as a marketer to only be talking to people that are specifically looking for your products or services, but embrace that advantage and give the people what they want! With your 25 character Adwords headline you can attempt to be cute or clever, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If any part of your ad is actually read, scanned or glossed over by a searcher it’s going to be your headline so don’t mess it up! Get to the point and do it fast!
A lot of traditional marketers hate to hear this, but generally speaking in Adwords the more boring and straightforward your ad is the better it’s going to do. If you sell swim fins and someone searches for “swim fins,” your ad better be about swim fins! If you decide to be creative and talk about the beach or duck feet or something else not quite on point be advised your CTR will suffer! There’s a big difference between noticing your ad and clicking on it, don’t leave yourself on the wrong side of this equation.
Another major headline offender is leading off with your company name… in most situations this is NOT the right answer. While you may be a big deal to other people in your industry, there’s a good chance a prospect has never heard of you. Serving them an ad that’s focused on your company and not what they searched for is a lose lose situation. The searcher doesn’t get what they searched for, and you don’t get a visitor to your web site. As an added bonus, the searcher still doesn’t even know what you do because you decided to lead with your name as opposed to your value to them.
The “secret” of getting your ads to work in Adwords is to get to the point. Use the keyword as a clue to their interests and address that interest. When the keywords are tightly clustered and the headline is on-target the results can be amazing, even if the headline is boring. A surprisingly simple concept but most great ideas in marketing are simple after they have been discovered.
One way to incrementally improve your web design is by listening to your data, and nothing in that voice is louder than bounced traffic. My comments assume that your web site is not designed to bounce. Some sites use a page where the entire web experience is designed to be one page long and that by design is 100% bounce. While I am not a fan of these squeeze pages, they do exist and they wreck the data that we are discussing. The majority of sites are designed so that the visitor will interact with the page if they become engaged by the message; hence a bounce is a bad thing.
A bounce is when a visitor lands on your page and then leaves without interacting with the page. When a visitor advances within your design, we refer to that as an engagement because they were exposed to the landing page and they were interested enough to interact with your site. This is the first step in a long journey called a conversion.
So why do visitors bounce? There are many answers to this one but the most common is that their immediate response to the landing page is that they are not interested. Much of this comes from a mismatch within the chain of conversation. If you think about the journey of the visitor, they started with a search on a specific word followed by a response to a listing. They then land on a page that is connected to that link, and if the page is of interest then engagement is possible. The sad truth is that most web pages fail to engage the visitor because they fail to consider the start of this conversation. If your page jumps directly to talking about what is of interest to you without considering what is of interest to your visitor that is just rude. The typical visitor reaction to rudeness is that they leave with a negative impression of your business.
One error we find all the time is a client breaking a conversation chain. A conversion chain is simply a series of items that make up the conversation you are having with this visitor. The example I use of a bad conversation is a person who searches for “Men’s Italian Shoes”, clicks on an ad for “Men’s Italian Shoes” and lands on a beautiful home page with a hot special on Women’s sweaters 9 clicks from the “Men’s Italian Shoes”. This traffic will often bounce because you are not paying attention to the conversation and you changed the subject. The solution to this is really simple since the product does exist you simply change the landing page of the ad to the “Men’s Italian Shoes” page.
To find where you might have this problem, go to your Google Analytics and look at your average bounce rate. You need this as a reference point because as crazy as it makes all of us, some degree of bounce is simply unavoidable. Now that you know your average:
Drill into Account:
Click on Traffic Sources
Click on Search Engines
Set your dates for at least 90 days
Set first data dimension to “Keyword”
Set second data dimension to “Landing Page”
Look for the ones that are higher than average
The bottom of your screen should look like this:
Next, look for any shared words within the keyword data and filter your results using the containing or excluding tool at the bottom of the screen to get as large of a data sample as you can. Many times you will have many versions of the same logical search and bringing them together like this will show you patterns that you cannot see when the data sample is too small. The simple way to do this is just take a keyword that is performing poorly and filter on each word in the keyword and watch the totals. You will be amazed how this simple process will show you things you need to know.
Filters can use a pipe | as shown here to include or exclude more than one word and the pipe | represents an “Or” condition while a space is an “And” condition.
Filter Example:
Google|Content = Keyword contains either Google or Content
Google Content = Keyword contains the phrase “Google Content”
The example above reads exclude keywords with the word “Google” or “Content” with the word. This is important since when you are working with keywords you typically want to exclude content network traffic. There are many ways to do this but this is simple quick and handy. If you really want to have some fun with your data play with the advanced filter option and you will find all sorts of things to think about.
Next, expand your dimension to include the landing page to see what page that keyword connected to. Then shift the second dimension to Ad Content so you can see the headline they reacted to. At this point you have a good idea of the conversation chain and you have to ask yourself – How did you do? Since you are dealing with a high bounce rate the answer is poorly and the question is rhetorical.
Now comes some tough questions:
Is the traffic volume high enough to justify making changes?
How can you improve the experience based on this new data?
Will the cure be worse than the illness?
This last question is where organic and paid traffic has to separate because in Adwords, you control where the traffic goes but in organic it goes where Google says it goes. If you are going to try and fix organic traffic, please make sure that you look at all the keywords going to that landing page before you start throwing changes onto that page. Life is full of compromises and nowhere is that more true than in organic traffic.
The purpose of this article was not to make you an expert in this process but to get you started thinking about how this impacts your business. As you explore your data, you will open a whole world of opportunities but there are also risks to consider.
Remember there are a thousand ways to drive traffic to your site – all of them are hard. If this was easy, everyone would do it and there would be no competitive advantage.
In any discussion about Internet Marketing the term “Keyword” is sure to emerge early and often. There is a good reason for this because keywords are the heart and soul of the expression of the business strategy, and while they look simple they are not.The meaning and value of a keyword is driven by the context and the user’s perspective. When you put these variables together with over a million words in the typical English dictionary you can see that this gets real complex real quick.
The term Keyword is technically incorrect most of the time. What we are talking about are Keyword Phrases because the vast majority of keywords will have 2 or more words in the phrase. It is actually rare to find a single word keyword that performs well, the common exception being single word brand names.
No discussion about keywords would be complete without discussing the 9 types of keywords and how they interrelate. The types are broad, phrase, and exact and there is a positive and negative form of each of these.Then there are extended, session matched, and implied. Within Adwords you have limited direct control over second set but you need to know what they are and how they work.
Extended Matched Keywords get a much more liberal match than your typical broad keyword. This happens when the keyword has what Google thinks is a good performance record, but nobody outside of Google knows exactly when this happens. This status is actually a broad range not a simple status and as the word matures the broad keyword jumps to more variations of the root words. This is how broad keywords jump from singular to plural to other forms or tenses of the word. This is often the reason that the quality of the traffic from a set of keywords will change over time. We have seen documented cases of extended match jumping languages and believe it or not it tends to do a good job of this. Extended keywords can jump to entirely new words not in your account and this is probably the source of the broad match’s bad reputation.
Session Matched Keywords have been around for a long time but it is only recently that Google started to report this on the Search Query Report (SQR). In the past we suspected that session matched keywords were part of the dreaded “Other Unique Queries” that made all of us uncomfortable. Session match is when Google connects searches in a session together to create the match.The user performs a search for a city name followed by a search for real estate and they get results for real estate in that city. That is a simple example of a session match.
Implied keywords are most visible in geographically targeted campaigns but they live in other places as well. If the searcher is in New York but they do a search for Hotel LA this will match to a keyword of Hotel in a campaign that is geo-targeted to Los Angeles. Google knows that LA is a geographic region and it adds this to the base keyword of Hotel and treats it like Hotel LA. Now not every city acronym is going to make this jump but major metros like NYC and LA certainly happen. Google will make the jump the other way as well matching a search for Hotel for a searcher in LA and match that to keyword of “Hotel LA.”
Broad keywords are matched to the search using a more liberal match than phrase or exact. In this type of keyword the system will match words in different orders and as time goes along the broad keyword may morph into an Extended Keyword. In the earlier stages it will jump from singular to plurals or the other way around and it will become less sensitive to additional works involved in the match. Using my “Hotel LA” keyword example, in a broad match it will match a query for “Hotel in LA” simply by ignoring the “in” in the search query.
Phrase Keywords are a more restricted type of match and they require that the words be an exact match within the search query. This type of keyword can be very useful when you are trying to really focus in on a specific element of the search query.
Exact Keywords are exactly what they sound like. To get a match from an exact keyword the keyword must exactly match the entire search query with no leading or trailing words.
Negative Keywords are not exactly the opposite of positive keywords although there are broad, phrase, and exact keywords in negatives. What is different is that since negative keywords reduce Google’s revenue the rules are more strictly applied. For example a broad negative keyword will not make the jump from singular to plural or other forms of the words. Negative broad keywords will handle the order of the words and extra words but all of those words have to be in the search.
This really gets to be fun when you start to think through all the various combinations that you can use to tune your keywords.To understand this you need to realize that Google matches to the most specific keyword first so if you have a keyword in broad, phase, and exact. The exact will get the traffic first assuming it matches, then the phrase, and finally the broad. Now if you think about this for a second you will realize that the broad traffic does not match the keyword because the phrase or exact would match first. So by doing this what you end up with in the broad are words out of order, spelling errors, extended forms of the words, and other such items. You will find that you can and will get different results from these different forms of the same keyword.
Now for a disclaimer -Google does not aways follow all of the rules and we have seen situations that seem to indicate that extended, session, and implied rules can and do creep into the phrase and exact match. The occurrence of this is small but it happens and we have seen this in several controlled tests over the years.
This is where the really fun stuff starts because to do a keyword model you need to bring all of these keyword rules together to target your audience. Now you have to start looking at the really complex part of this challenge by examining keyword overlap, keyword intent value, and the competitive landscape.
Keyword overlap is one of the most basic considerations in building a keyword model. Simply stated this is where audiences not related to your business use what you think are your keywords. A simple example of this would be an Automotive Service Center who advertises for “Car Battery.” Automotive Service Center keywords are going to have overlap with DIY (Do It Yourself), Auto Parts, and others.The traffic for “Car Battery” is going to be huge but as a service center this client would not be interested in DIY or Auto Parts traffic. If you go after just the broad word your account will suffer in many ways and most importantly it will probably melt the numbers off your credit card. To solve this problem you need to remove as much of the DIY and Auto Parts traffic as possible without losing any of the traffic looking to have their car battery replaced or serviced.
Keyword Intent Value is the next thing to look for in your keywords. Intent value is what it sounds like you are trying to qualify the traffic that has an expressed intent to do what you want. Staying with my auto example, a search query for “Car Battery Installation Cost” has a much higher intent value then “Car Battery Installation” because installation by itself might be DIY traffic looking for a how-to article, while the “Cost” qualifier implies that the person is looking for someone to do this for them. On the Auto Parts side of this “Car Battery Cost” is more likely a person looking to buy the part but “Installation Cost” is probably the most focused of the keywords.
Keyword types can be confusing because there are two types of types.There is broad, phase, exact as matching types and “Root” and “Qualifier” as structure types. In the example “Car Battery Installation Service” the root keyword is “Car Battery” and the qualifier is “Installation Service”. When building keywords the qualifiers are repeated for each root keyword and it is the combination of the root and qualifier that builds the keyword used in the system. There are exceptions to this keyword structure approach but in most cases this will create 90% or more of your keywords. This approach will make your keyword list much shorter and easier to work with. This also will generate some dumb keywords from time to time so you do need to pass this though a common-sense filter before putting this into the system.That filter is, of course, a smart person.
Order of Words is important in broad and critical in phrase and exact. While battery car and car battery seem like the same search they do produce different results. In an account with a good reputation in Adwords the word order on a broad keyword would match both of these but this is not always the case. If the account is less trusted with lower quality scores the broad keyword might not make the jump to a different word-order.
Research versus Procurement is the second part of intent value and you have to understand how the reading zones of people change as the searches morph between these uses. In the research phase the searcher is looking for information and they are more likely to be looking at the organic results. This is not to say that Adwords is not important, but clearly in the research phase the person is most often clicking on organic not paid results. However when the person shifts into buying mode they know that the ads are related to their search and that these are directed to sites that provide the products they have been researching. Let’s face it when you are researching the car you want to buy you probably visit sites like Consumer Reports and the manufacturer, but when you want to get a quote for that really cool new ride your eyes go to the ads. People are not dumb, they know exactly how the two sides work and most know how to use each of these based on what stage they are in. Search terms also change as they go through this transformation.
Quality and Quantity is the next major issue in keywords. As a general rule the higher the quality the lower the quantity, and the balance of these two is what drives the most complex decision making processes in keywords. Car Battery is going to have a great deal of traffic and it is going to be expensive because of the volume, but the quality is going to be poor because it is polluted with lots of DIY and Parts traffic. One useful tool in getting to understand the purity of your keywords is Google Insights for Search
This shows us that the more qualified term of “Car Battery Installation” is so small you almost cannot measure it.There is some traffic, but to put this in perspective it is less than 1% of the volume of the broader “Car Battery” keyword. So if you go after “Car Battery” right out of the gate 99% of the searches are not related to your business and it gets worse. If you go to “Car Battery Installation Cost” the volume is less than 1% of that 1%. If you do this same inquiry matching “Car Battery Installation” to “Car Battery Service” you find that the volumes are about the same. Now does it surprise anyone that the typical click through rate on a keyword is around 1%?
Competitive Landscape is the next issue in this conversation and it is also very complex. So far we are down to .01% of the total traffic and now we have to fight with our competitors to get our unfair share of this pie. One thing I try to get my clients to understand is that they do not need to beat their competitor in Adwords, but they do have to not lose to them. What I mean by that is that your prospects are going to shop your offering, and the key to success is being high enough on the list to make it to the short list. If your typical shopper visits 10 sites to select the 3 they are actually going to consider then your need to be on the first short list of 10. Getting to the second short list of 3 is the job of your web site and it is largely based on the web experience you engineer for that visitor. At that stage in the process your Adwords are simply no longer important.
Networks count too and they add one more dimension to this discussion. Networks are where your ads are going to serve. In a broad sense the networks are either “Search” or “Content” in structure. The search is what most people think of and this is where the person proactively put a search query into Google looking for relative results. Content on the other hand works by matching to the content of the page and the person there is reading content so the theory is that they have a passive interest in your keyword. Just to stay with our car battery example in search we want very specific keywords with a high intent to act value. However in content we want to have a placement that is somehow related to the profile of our audience.In other words we are trying to model keywords that are likely to exist where our audience profile hangs around. Not to be sexist, but for our Automotive Service Center we might want to test fashion and home decorating keywords since these have a very high percentage of women and women are less likely to be in the DIY Auto audience. Conversely if we are working with an Auto Parts client we might want to target automotive how-to keywords since reading a how-to manual is a strong indicator of interest in purchasing parts and tools. .
As you can see from these very simple examples the challenge is not in finding your keywords, but figuring out how to not infringe on others. The secret is, as always, in the details and it not the positive keyword but the negatives and other restrictions that get you the traffic you really want. While “Car Battery” applies to the Auto Service Center, DIY, and Auto Parts industries the negatives and extended qualifiers are quite different.
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The short answer is you can, but the real question is should you? Ask yourself, is your business better served by staying focused on the business of your business or learning and playing with AdWords? Are you really going to dedicate the time necessary to learn AdWords? Google has invested millions trying to make it simple enough for anyone to run. They’ve only been partially successful. Like any profession, the devil is in the details. It seems easy enough – you create a campaign, write an ad, and select a few keywords and AdWords is running and money is going to Google. Unfortunately what is not happening with this basic simple set up is the creation of value for your business.
![Where Does Google Make Its Money? [ infographic ]](http://www.wordstream.com/images/where-does-google-make-its-money.png)
