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I'm just not getting Adwords

by kjarrard
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I'm not getting something about keyword research/selection. Hope somebody can help me fill in the missing pieces.

Basic understanding of keyword selection is
1) Define market
2) Create list of possible keywords
3) Pair down selections to
a) keywords that get "enough traffic"
b) keywords without enormous competition - at least for a beginner

To do the above, I told to do all the primary research through adwords. Did that for awhile, but wound up coming to the conclusion that I don't understand something.

A) Let's say I do an adwords search on clear coat (no quotes)
B) I look through the list and see clear coat repair gets around 2900 searches per month
C) I also see "clear coat repair" has ~26,900 direct competitors (simple quoted Google search)
D) From what I was taught, I rinse and repeat this process until I find keywords that meet my criteria.

That's all great, but here's what I don't get
1) While clear coat repair gets 2900 global broad match searches per month, "clear coat repair" gets 1300
2) I don't know any typical user that does searches using quotes
3) How does optimizing my webpage for "clear coat repair" in any way help me in ranking for the the more typical user search of non-quoted clear quote repair, especially when the disparity can be staggering? Am I even trying to do that?


So overall, how do I get meaningful results from Adwords for keyword selection?

Thanks
#adwords #keywords
  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    Originally Posted by kjarrard View Post

    That's all great, but here's what I don't get
    1) While clear coat repair gets 2900 global broad match searches per month, "clear coat repair" gets 1300
    2) I don't know any typical user that does searches using quotes
    3) How does optimizing my webpage for "clear coat repair" in any way help me in ranking for the the more typical user search of non-quoted clear quote repair, especially when the disparity can be staggering? Am I even trying to do that?


    So overall, how do I get meaningful results from Adwords for keyword selection?

    Your first post to this forum was very good... Very thoughtful indeed...

    When I first read your thread title, I was reminded of a joke...

    There was a guy traveling by airplane, who was laid over at the Oklahoma City airport on election day...

    While sitting in the bar, he noticed all the TV's in the place were set on ESPN and other sports programming...

    He asked the bartender, "Hey, don't you folks get CNN in Oklahoma?"

    The bartender replied, "No."

    The guy said, "Do you mean to tell me that your cable company does not carry CNN?"

    The bartender responded, "Oh no... We have CNN on the TV, but we just don't get it..."

    As an Oklahoman, that is one of my favorite Oklahoma jokes...

    Your #2 was very perceptive:

    2) I don't know any typical user that does searches using quotes
    You are right, typical users don't search using quotes...

    Searches made with quotes simply identify actual pages that have the exact wording on the page...

    The use of quotes in the search query usage points to 1300 people like me who are researching the data, trying to eliminate false positives in our search query...

    So I would discount the 2900 number by the 1300 number, to realize that those searching for "clear coat repair" without the quotes is only 1600 people...
    Signature
    Bill Platt, Oklahoma USA, PlattPublishing.com
    Publish Coloring Books for Profit (WSOTD 7-30-2015)
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  • Profile picture of the author patey88
    When you say Adwords, I'm assuming you mean in the keyword tool. If that's not correct, then this may not help.

    I think of it this way: When people do google searches, they don't normally use quotes. But sometimes they type in clear coat repair -- just those three words -- without quotes.

    In the keyword tool, I'm asking the question, how many times did people type in exactly clear coat repair. To ask that question, I query in the tool using exact match.

    When I do keyword research using the keyword tool, my criteria is always based on exact matches, because I want to know how often people search for exactly the phrase I'm considering.

    Later, when I want to see my competition, I go to the regular google search page and enter the keyword without quotes, just as a user would, to see what comes up. (And then I start looking at pagerank and backlinks for the top results, to decide whether I think I can compete.)

    -- Patey

    Editing to be super-clear: When you use the keyword tool to get a count of searches that exactly matched clear coat repair, the count you get back includes searches that people did with clear coat repair NOT in quotes.
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  • Profile picture of the author kjarrard
    OK, I want to make sure I'm getting this, so here's a more clear example.

    Adwords Keyword tool search:
    overcoming panic disorder
    = 6600 global monthly searches
    = 1.8mil pages competition
    "overcoming panic disorder"
    = 590 global monthly searches
    = 5200 pages competition

    Of the Top-10 for "overcoming panic disorder", 4 of them are in the top-10 for the broad search.

    So, for arguments sake, if your cutoff for keyword targeting is say 1000 searches per month, is this a target-able word or not? 596 quoted searches vs 6600 non.

    I guess it comes down to wanting to better understand how succeeding in a top-10 "keyword" ranking translates to a non-quoted Top-10 ranking, especially when the traffic difference are substantial.

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author patey88
      For me, it would not be. And it's worse than you think, actually... I think you're still missing a piece of how it works.

      overcoming panic disorder = 6600 global
      "overcoming panic disorder" = 590 global (but this is phrase match, not exact)
      [overcoming panic disorder] = 320 global (exact match)

      In the keyword tool, phrase match includes people whose search included that phrase, but with extra words. So for example, a search for... book about overcoming panic disorder... would be included in the 590, but not in the 320. The 320 only includes people who typed in the 3 words... overcoming panic disorder.

      Which count matters to you depends on why you're doing keyword research in the first place. If it's to pick an exact match domain name -- like, if you're deciding whether to register overcomingpanicdisorder.com, then you probably want to compare 320 to your 1000 arbitrary threshold.

      If you're actually going to buy adwords on the search network, you probably want to target additional exact keywords, or phrase matches.

      -- P.
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    • Profile picture of the author patey88
      Originally Posted by kjarrard View Post

      596 quoted searches vs 6600 non.
      I think you mean "quoted" by the keyword tool, and that would be correct.

      Just want to make sure you understand that those past searches being counted, entered by real users in google, most likely did not have quotes around them.
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  • Profile picture of the author kjarrard
    Thanks, that makes sense. Right now, I'm just trying ensure traffic to my site by properly targeting keywords in my actual niche. I'll be targeting multiple keywords obviously, but am trying to understand how to stay away from the duds. This has been helpful for sure!
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    • Profile picture of the author patey88
      I'm glad I could help. -- P.
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