Welcome to part 2 of my Google Adwords pay-per-click training article.
As you know by now, pay per click advertising is the only way to bring instant traffic to your website.
Google is very good at taking you through, step by step, the set up procedure that you need before launching your PPC campaign, but there are certain steps you need to take to insure a successful campaign.
Research
This is one of, if not the most important part of your PPC campaign. You need to know,
A. How many marketers are promoting the same product(s) as you.
B. Which keywords generate the most traffic.
C. Which keywords do not work and why.
D.What are the top bid prices for the best keywords.
The first job is to create a keyword list, this next part will explain how to build a free, basic keyword list. Go to Overture's Keyword Selector Tool. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/ then click on, keyword selector tool', which is half way down the page on the right side.
In our example today we are going to use mountain bike' as our main keyword search phrase.
Type mountain bike' in the, Get suggestions for:' box.
My results show up as ~ COUNT(the amount of searches last month) followed by the KEYWORD SEARCH TERM, 1. 51280 ~ mountain bike 2. 3906 ~ trek mountain bike 3. 3354 ~ specialized mountain bike 4. 2928 ~ mountain bike review 5. 2853 ~ mountain bike part 6. 2393 ~ rocky mountain bike 7. 2254 ~ mastering mountain bike skill.
This is only a small portion of the actual list, which totals 100 search results.
For this exercise we will chose the top 7 searches, but remember, you need to create a huge keyword list of between 200 and 300. I will show you how to do this in the next lesson.
Under the "count column", you'll see that there are lots of searches for the base term but also that there are focused searches for smaller topics as well. Demand is not too strong, but we know that this is a high value product so we wait till we see bids and competition.
It says there are 51,280 searches for the term "mountain bike" last month. You can multiply that number by 3 to come up with roughly how many times that word was searched for at Google.com.
Next... We'll copy the top 7 keywords in a text file; we will need them for the next step.
Here's the list I've come up with so far:
mountain bike
trek mountain bike
specialized mountain bike
mountain bike review
mountain bike part
rocky mountain bike
mastering mountain bike skill
Now we want to find out what the top bid prices are for these keywords.
That is, how much money is your competition (i.e. other Google Adwords advertisers) are willing to spend on this niche to buy traffic. A high number is a good indicator that your niche is profitable, but on the other hand, if you know for sure that a niche is profitable (like home theater systems, which sell for quite a lot of money), low bid prices can mean that this is a market that is ripe for domination.
One way to check bid prices is to use another Yahoo tool - the view bids tool. Go back to http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/ and click on the "View Bids Tool" half way down the page on the right hand side.
1.Mountain Bikes, Parts and Much More Shop Performance Bike for mountain bikes, parts and accessories at low prices. Huge selection of bikes from Giant and Jamis and full line of components from Shimano, Crank Brothers and more. www.performancebike.com (Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.34)
2.Find about Mountain Bikes at Smarter.com Compare prices, brands, and more at Smarter.com. www.smarter.com (Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.33)
3.Mountain Bike Closeout Sale 1 day only, save up to 60% off premium MTB. Save over $2000. www.rscycle.com (Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.32)
Above is a search for "mountain bike" - notice that the top bid on Yahoo is under $1.00 - that's pretty cheap considering that a good mountain bike can cost several hundred dollars. Allowing for the cost of the physical product, you can see that this is a very nice, lucrative, under-priced bidding market.
Repeat this process for all your keywords and check the top bid prices for them. You are doing this to estimate how much you will have to pay, per click, to match / top your competition. In this case, you'll see that most of the keywords have a bid price of under $1.00. That's good news, but keep in mind that in AdWords you'll have a bit more competition, so you can expect the top bid price in AdWords to be at least twice that much of Yahoo, and maybe more.
After we do our research, we should have a nice list of targeted, profitable keywords to start our AdWords campaign with. Couple of interesting things you'll notice here: Despite being a reasonably expensive market (top of the range mountain bikes can cost thousands of dollars), there's a low level of competition (bid prices are fairly low). This will allow you to corner the market quite easily, IF you know how to sell to it.
People are as concerned with specific aspects of mountain bikes (off road, stunt bikes) as they are with the "how to" aspect (ride better, faster, perform tricks). This can work to our advantage, as you'll see when we get to writing the ad.
Now that we have our keyword list ready, we're ready to set up our Adwords account. In the next article we'll do exactly that, bye for now. |
