Generating Leads: Selecting Keywords
- Top 5 guidelines for creating keywords
- Advanced techniques for generating keywords
- Organizing keywords into campaigns and ad groups
Top 5 guidelines for creating keywords
- Exclude keywords and keyword combinations that explicitly describe a direct online purchase (e.g. “online shop” or “buy online”).
- Try to predict what your customers will type in when searching for the service or product you offer.
- Choose a wide range of keywords that may generate enough leads to follow up on or create a sufficient database for your follow-up.
- Take into account keywords with multiple words (“large format print for storefront”).
- Periodically add new keywords and remove the non-performers to keep your account administration at a manageable level
- Use the Find Keywords panel in your account.
Advanced techniques for generating keywords
Select niche keywords:Strike a balance between popular (frequently searched) keywords and niche keywords. Niche keywords with little or no competition typically generate a small amount of traffic, but the traffic is typically targeted and may come at a very low price. (e.g. “LINUX network admin” or “storage hall building kit”)
Analyze your site:One of the best places to look for ideas is your own web site.
- Look through all the pages of your site and identify the words that are most relevant and interesting to your customers.
- Review your product names and descriptions for ideas.
- Check your web server logs to identify the keywords that are leading visitors to your site.
- Consider what you want your customers to do. Do you want them to fill out a contact form, take a quiz, or call you for a quote? Generate keywords that lead customers to complete the desired action.
Organizing keywords into ad groups and campaigns
To keep your account organized, you can pool your keywords into ad groups and your ad groups into campaigns. An ad group contains a set of keywords that apply to a single ad (title, description and URL).
Example: How to organize keywords into ad groups and campaigns.
| Keywords | Ad Group | Campaign |
|---|---|---|
| Santa Monica apartment LA real estate Hollywood property |
Los Angeles | California Real Estate |
| San Diego apartment La Jolla beach house San Diego estate |
San Diego | |
| SUV information Sedan test drive Coupe new models |
Auto | Newsletter Leads |
| Basketball update Sports news Athletics newsletter |
Sports |
Example: How to associate keywords with ads (title, description and URL)
| Keywords in your ad group | Ad |
|---|---|
| Santa Monica apartment LA real estate Hollywood property |
Greater Los Angeles Area Real Estate Request property listings in your price range throughout L.A. www.electronic-planet.com |
| San Diego apartment La Jolla beach house San Diego estate |
Greater San Diego Area Real Estate Request property listings in your price range throughout San Diego. www.electronic-planet.com |
Ad groups can improve efficiency by enabling you to manage one ad for multiple keywords. You can even start testing multiple ads within an ad group to determine which message attracts the most leads and/or converts at the highest rate. Learn more about ad testing.
Determining how many campaigns and ad groups you need depends on the size and complexity of your business. Consider the following divisions when organizing your account:
- Product variations (life insurance, health insurance, car insurance)
- Product class or family (insurance, mortgage, loan)
- Products (laser printers) vs. services (network administration)
- Products that have one attribute in common (shipping region, price, service level agreement)
- Buying cycle for a particular product
- Trials of new keywords
- Seasonal keywords(holiday, end-of-year clearance)