Letting you in on a keyword secret

[wbakhos]

Hey guys...

A keyword isnt a keyword. Understanding this is the difference between making millions in PPC and making a loss.

I find this is a problem that newbies going into PPC have. They start an adgroup... 100-200 keywords and when that adgroup makes money they up the spend only to realize they are suddenly losing money.

For the new guys.. think 80/20. 20% of your keywords are making 80% of the revenue. Your job as a PPC marketer (or any type of marketer) is to find that 20% and drive it through the roof.

For example lets use these keywords "Fix credit" and "repair credit". You may think they are the same but the person typing in "fix credit" is a completely different type of person typing in "repair credit".

These are two completely different mentalities at work here. Don't think they are the same.

And just from my personal experience: (try it yourself just to check)

The word "repair" = buy -> convert.
The word "fix" = quick fix for free -> no convert (or negative ROI)

In my recent campaign "fix" never converted with positive RIO. Ever. "Repair" converted at 250% ROI. But this may be different in your niche so don't just assume its 100% right.. the only way to know is to test.. then buy me a beer if it works

Thats just 1 single word in a phrase that makes your campaign profitable or a flop. So before you give up, just think there is probably a tiny change you can make and things will turn around. And the only way you can know is to test, test and test.

This is just food for thought I'm throwing out here. Hope it helps provoke some thought and a few ideas for the new guys out there.

Cheers
Will

[garyv]

Nice post, and definitely something to keep in mind if you're using ppc.

[RentItNow]

You have to address your target customer. Get in their head. I learned this the hard way recently but remedied it by typing up a whole page describing my customer. Then I get in their head. What are they searching for to solve their problems.

Voila! The copy writes itself.

[LilBlackDress]

And do you think the commercial intent tools help with this?

[ExRat]

Hi LBD,

And do you think the commercial intent tools help with this?

I prefer the brain, and you can take it everywhere with you

[gianne2705]

Keywords are important in IM.It will serve as the way for the customers to go on your page.Any site or product needs a competitive keyword to encourage the customers to buy your product.

[LilBlackDress]

I dont know Exrat...I plugged some very similar keywords into commercial intent tool and was very surprised by the results.

Some key work phrases with a one work substitution were negative 50 and more. Make the change and the commercial intent was positive 60.
I just swapped one word for another in the phrase and those two words are very similar. But according to the tool they are not.

[geolt7]

That's for the tip. Testing n tracking are so vitally important in PPC if u really want it to be profitable. However, I must stress that to master PPC, one needs to set aside a sizable sum of money as tuition fees to google. Newbies wanting to do PPC please take note.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

This is why you test, and why you pit ads against one another and allow the competition to decide the winner. See this thread:

Why are your Adwords clicks costing you too much money?

[wbakhos]

You know what... some arnt bad. The way the commercial tools work to determine good keywords for PPC is that they track the advertisers.

They assume that if an advertiser has been in the top spot for a keyword for a long period of time then that keyword must work. The rationale is that if the keyword isnt profitable then why would they want to be paying the most for such a long period of time.. therefor it must be a high converting keyword.

They are good for starting but by no means are they the quick fix money makers the product creaters make them out to be. They are guides and tools to help you, not so much giving you the exact answers.

Originally Posted by LilBlackDress

And do you think the commercial intent tools help with this?

[ExRat]

Hi LBD,

I dont know Exrat...I plugged some very similar keywords into commercial intent tool and was very surprised by the results.

Some key work phrases with a one work substitution were negative 50 and more. Make the change and the commercial intent was positive 60.
I just swapped one word for another in the phrase and those two words are very similar. But according to the tool they are not.

In between the lines I was suggesting that the ONLY way to know if XYZ free online tool is accurate is to test it and decide for yourself - and you do this with your brain. So I was just emphasizing priorities - brain first, hearsay second.

Asking people in a forum can throw up interesting and helpful data and opinions, but you've still got to use your brain to analyze the data, establish it's legitimacy and then make a decision.