Google AdWords has updated its existing Keyword Tool to Keyword Planner, which is now available in all AdWords accounts. The search engine says that the new Keyword Planner combines data from its old Keyword Tool and Traffic estimator.
With the launch of the new Keyword Planner, Google will be deprecating the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator very soon. In addition, the external version of Google Keyword Tool will soon disappear. Those who wish to use the new Keyword Planner must sign up for an AdWords account and must be logged in to use it.
Google says that the new tool was designed to make it easier for advertisers to create new paid search campaigns and ad groups straight from the Keyword Planner.
The new Keyword Planner has the same functionality of the old tool but is more user-friendly. In addition, because advertisers must be logged into their AdWords account to use the Planner, advertisers can choose to hide keywords in the Planner that are already in the account; thus eliminating duplicate keywords.
When designing and building a website they’re many items you should take into consideration, aside from the basic structure and usability. One fundamental that strongly needs to be considered is the use of keyword rich keywords throughout the website both in the actual copy of the website and in the Meta data. The more relevant the keywords are to your website, the better your natural (free) search results will be from the search engines like Google and Yahoo and the higher your conversion rate will be.
Keyword research is finding the keywords that people are using to find websites and then incorporating that information into your website (via the actual content on the site and the meta data), so the “spiders” pick you up. Free tools, like the Google Keyword Tool are a great way to start to see what keywords people are putting in to get results and find what they are looking for.
But there is a catch (Isn’t there always). The more generic a term, the more competition you are going to have. For example let’s say your website is selling hats. The keyword “hats” came up with 68.2 million search results indexed when you typed it into Google. So if you target the keyword “hats” you will most likely have a tremendously hard time getting found.
Here is a solution. Target keywords which are more long tailed and not as highly competitive. Let’s assume that your website is selling “Yankees World Series Champion Hats”. Maybe you even have a specific page on your website dedicated to just that. When you type that into Google there are only 496,000 pages found and indexed. Still a big number, but not 68.2 million like the results you get when you search for just “hats”. Now this is a good keyword to optimize for, since it has a higher relevance, and more likely have a higher conversion rate.
This is called a “long tail keyword”, where instead of using 1-2 word phrases when optimizing your website, you use longer, 3+ word keywords. This will put you in a niche market and will most likely increase your conversion rate as you are now drilling down on a more specific product you have to offer and will in turn get a more specific target audience. Everyone may sell hats, but not as many of them sell Yankees World Series Champion Hats. This is where you become valuable to the search engines as they now consider you an asset to the user’s overall experience.
Keyword research and using long tail keywords for optimizing your website will not generate traffic overnight, but can be extremely effective in building up your traffic and ranking over time, which can in turn lower your bounce rate and increase your conversion rate.
When creating a search engine marketing campaign, many advertisers spend a majority of time selecting keywords relevant to their products and services, but very little time, if any at all, on creating a branding campaign. A branding campaign utilizes the company name, website and/or trademarked terms as keywords. A branding campaign can help create a ‘buzz’ about your company. For example, when creating a branding campaign for ABC Company Washers and Dryers, you would want to select keywords that highlight your company’s core products and services; some potential keywords could be ‘ABC Company,’ ‘ABC Co.,’ ‘ABCcompany.com’ ‘ABC Company Washers’ or ‘ABC Company Dryers.’ Not only are branding types of keywords and phrases helpful when creating an online presence, they are often significantly less expensive and lead to higher conversion rates.
Another useful tactic when creating a branding campaign is to utilize your competitors’ keywords with your ad group. By using the Google Keyword Tool and entering your company name you can indentify related keywords and other businesses within your industry. According to PPC Hero, if you decide to create a competitor campaign, do not use dynamic keyword insertion within your ad copy. Using dynamic keyword insertion will cause the words entered in the search query to appear in your ad headline. The process of bidding on your competitor keywords is completely legitimate and search engines will not punish you for doing so. However, you must not use competitor branded keywords within your ads.
Using both branding and competitor campaigns not only creates brand recognition, but also, legitimizes your company by occupying more real estate within the search engines. It is recommended to conduct the occasional search to see if there are competitors bidding on your company’s keywords. Remember if you aren’t bidding on your keywords, someone else will.