Studies indicate that 46% of clicks on the SERPs go to pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Therefore, while organic traffic is good, you should also invest in a PPC campaign. Ads can generate leads fast and bring in sales. The first step to a high-converting PPC campaign is keyword research.
This involves figuring out which keywords to use in your PPC campaign and how to find them. In this article, we will guide you on how to do keyword research for an effective PPC campaign. But before we do that, let’s find out how a PPC campaign works.
How a PPC Campaign Works
As the name suggests, PPC is a form of advertisement where an advertiser pays an ad network when a visitor clicks on their ad. Like organic traffic, PPC campaigns also use keywords to target certain search terms. However, there are differences between SEO and PPC keyword research. On Google ads, the advertiser who bids the highest amount gets the highest position.
Keyword research is the process of identifying the most relevant keywords to use in your campaign. Your choice of keywords to target in your PPC campaign will determine the kind of traffic you get. Therefore, you should ensure you pick the right keyword for your PPC campaign.
How To Do a PPC Campaign Research
If you want your PPC ads to bring in traffic, you should start with keyword research. However, there are differences between SEO and PPC keyword research. Here are the steps you need to follow when researching PPC keywords:
Determine Your Goal
What is my marketing goal? What do I want to accomplish with my PPC campaign? These are the first questions you should ask yourself before investing in a PPC campaign. Once you have an answer to the question, aligning your goal with your customer’s objective will be easier. You will attract the right traffic and have converting traffic.
A PPC marketing goal may be to:
- Increase your click-through rate
- Increase conversion
You can make the goal clearer by having absolute numbers. For instance, you can aim to increase conversion by 50%. Once you have determined your goal, choosing keywords that align better with the goal will be easier.
Get Seed Keywords
An effective PPC campaign should also consider the niche your product is in. You will have a broader idea of the keywords to target. The word in this category should describe what you are selling broadly.
Since some of the visitors to your site will be from Google, consider the terms they may be using to search for your product. You can use Quora, Answer the Public, and Reddit platforms to research what people are searching for.
Find Longtail Keywords
Now that you have a seed keyword, you should use it to find the exact phrase that customers use to find your products or services. Choose keywords with a couple of words, also known as longtail keywords. By leveraging on Longtail keywords, you can rank for a long time.
One advantage of such keywords is that they will deliver more targeted traffic to your site. They also have less competition and fewer bids than the short phrases. Since they are more specific, fewer companies focus on them.
Choose Branded Keywords
A keyword with a brand name or its variation can enable you to claim the traffic bidding for the keyword easily. A person using such a keyword isn’t searching for a random product but is looking for a defined brand. Therefore, you need to research if people are looking for your brand.
Balance Between Search Volume And Competition
When searching keywords for your PPC campaign, you need the ones with a high search volume and low competition. But in most cases, you will find that the keywords with high search volume have the highest competition as more sites target them.
Therefore, you will need to strike a balance between the two. As we have seen earlier, longtail keywords are less competitive, so the cost per click will be lower. With more research, you can also find a keyword with a high search volume.
Use Keyword Research Tools to Refine Keywords
With keyword ideas in mind, you can now refine the keywords for your product. You can use keyword variations and synonyms to do that. Using a keyword research tool will help you find metrics such as:
- Cost-per-click
- Search volume of the keyword
- Competition of the keyword
- Search intent
- Related Search
Some of the top tools you can use to refine keywords include Ahref and Semrush.
Do Competitor Analysis
There are chances that the keywords you want to rank for are the same ones your competitors want to target. You, therefore, need to find the keywords your competitors are ranking for and use them in your campaign. You can visit their ads and landing page to find the keywords they are targeting. This can also give different angles of a keyword that you never had.
Optimize For Voice Search
People who use mobile devices are constantly searching using voice search. Therefore, you need to target them in your keywords. There are several measures you can use to optimize for voice search. These include:
- Target keywords consisting of question marks
- Make local seo your priority
- Optimize your site for mobile devices
- Use schema markups
Group Keywords
After identifying your initial keywords, you should group them into smaller targeted categories. You can group them according to their relevance, how closely related they are to one another, and the cost-per-click. Doing this will keep them well-organized within the structure of your campaign.
Estimate the CPC
To avoid going beyond your budget, you should keep your costs under control while still getting enough impressions in your budget range. This will help you to concentrate on keywords that are within your budget.
Keep Improving Your Campaign
Your PPC shouldn’t be cast on stones. You should always maintain room to tweak, account, and include new keywords. Check your analytics for keywords that perform well and those that don’t.
If you notice keywords that are doing well, you can create campaigns for them. For those doing badly, you may want to find out why they are not performing well. If you feel there is nothing you can do about them, you may want to pause them to avoid going beyond your budget.
Final Thoughts
When you invest in a PPC campaign, you want to get real value for money. You need your ads to bring targeted traffic that can convert into sales. This is only possible when you do the right keyword research for your PPC campaign.
Following the steps outlined in this article, you can get the right keywords to drive traffic to your landing pages. In a short while, you will start to see conversion.
