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The Keyword List

As I said in my overview of PPC Ground Rules, your keyword list is the backbone of your PPC campaign. This page outlines the best practices and how-to's of creating your keyword list. Read it. Learn it. Love it. Here are some other things to consider when developing your keyword list.

  • If you're creating your list for the first time, follow the outline of your site when creating groups of keywords (e.g., Campaigns). For example, if you're a clothing retail site, your site may be broken down like this:

    >Women
    >Men
    >Children
    >Accessories
    >Shoes

    This offers the added benefit of providing custom landing pages for each category. Each of the above sections could potentially be the name of your campaign, then within the campaign you would create ad groups that represent various sub categories. For example:

    >Women
    - blouses
    - skirts
    - lingerie

    >Men
    - jeans
    - sport shirts
    - boxers/briefs

  • I personally believe that dumping thousands or tens of thousands of keywords into a new campaign is a colossal waste of time. That doesn't mean I don't believe that long tail keywords can be valuable contributors to your campaign. That said, in my experience most companies benefit from their top 50 to 100 keywords, no matter how many they've stuffed into their account. Get to know these terms and pay them lots of attention, but continue to add and test terms on a regular basis
  • Keyword strategies are specific to goals and conversion types. This is important to keep in mind if you're really unhappy with my approach to NOT stuffing your campaign with a bazillion keywords. I do think that long-tail keywords tend to pan out better for companies that are selling something with a high price tag - conference registrations, for example. If your product or service retails for $100 or less, then your focus is going to be on the top 10% of keywords that drive the top 80% of revenue. If your product or service exceeds $1000, then even one sale from a relatively long-tail keyword can be very worthwhile.