The aim is to drive people to our site to buy stuff, but with such an extensive list of keywords targetting consumers is hard. I'm new to SEO, bidding, PPC and all related topics, and it's something I'm currently bluffing my way through like mad! Huuuuge thanks to this site, it's been my core source of information on the subject and is a gold mine of facts, so to my boss I actually am starting to sound a little like I know what I'm talking about :D
But I'm unsure the best way to handle what seems to me to be a large list of words and phrases when it comes to pay per click. I'm looking at doing PPC through Google AdWords, ESpotting, Overture (UK) and possibly page submissions to Inktomi via Top-pile.
The site is UK based and UK focussed, and basically I want to drive UK traffic there to buy stuff! :)
I was wondering if anyone had any advice on the best way to handle a list like this when it comes to PPC?
Thanks in advance! :)
I'm glad you find this site is helping.
My first thought is to hone your kw - don't try to cover them all in one go. Choose a top five or ten and make that work, then move onto another batch.
Secondly, look at where the PPC SERPs are delivered and assess their audience type. The Search Engine's ad reps should be able to help there.
Thirdly, review the SERPs coming back from those outlets and assess your competition.
Once you've done that, you should have the facts to be able to choose the PPC costs and the best option to go with.
I hope it helps.
If you have a lot of keywords to submit both Overture and Espotting have an excel file you can download. You email Espotting with the completed file and Overture has an upload facility in their traffic management site.
Can I ask where you sourced your keywords?
According to that Overture page the keywords have been searched for (in June 02) anything from 100 times to 500,000+ depending on how vague the term is.
Do eSpotting and Overture, like Google AdWords, allow you to specify what search terms you DON'T want to be shown with?
So the search words are taken from the obvious places being the words that the things we are selling are called, to the less obvious stuff where I sat down and asked myself "If I was looking for my site, what search terms would I use".
I wonder whether it's legal/ethical to have our ad popup when someone does a search for one of our competitors (e.g. keyword 'toys r us') :)
The biggest thing you need to remember with a PPC campaign is not to bid more for your new traffic than you expect it to earn for you. To determine this, you need a solid understanding of your stats: specifically how many visitors it usually takes before someone places an order, and what's the profit margin on the average order. From these you can calculate what your average visitor is "worth" (assuming reasonable targeting).
Suppose you determined that on average it takes a hundred visitors to close an order, and your profit on your average order is $20. That would mean the average new visitor was worth 20¢. As long as you kept your bids somewhere below that amount, the PPC campaign would put new money in your pocket.
About a year ago I wrote a fairly extensive article about promoting with PPC search engines. It's in the "Webmaster Resources" section of the site in my profile, if anyone's interested.
With all due respect, 70 keywords/phrases is NOT a large list for a company with multiple products -- it's barely a beginning for a well-developed PPC campaign!
The biggest thing you need to remember with a PPC campaign is not to bid more for your new traffic than you expect it to earn for you. To determine this, you need a solid understanding of your stats: specifically how many visitors it usually takes before someone places an order, and what's the profit margin on the average order. From these you can calculate what your average visitor is "worth" (assuming reasonable targeting).
Not having run a PPC campaign before I can only guess at the conversion to purchase (and therefore the ROI) so we're starting with a limited budget which, if worst comes to the worst, we can afford to lose.
If you have those stats for your site up to now you should be able to assume that your PPC traffic will perform as well. If you start by bidding conservatively you can always raise your bids if the results warrant it. Do you have any way to track your PPC results separately? It would be great if you did, but even without that you can get an idea of how things are working by watching your overall averages.
As for number of keywords, the wider you can cast your net, the better. The nature of the keywords you focus on will depend on who your target is ... the better you can get inside the mind of your targets, the better. You didn't say if the site will be selling directly to consumers, is a reference for dealers, etc.... but different crowds will be thinking in different ways when they're looking for what you've got.
A grandmother looking for a birthday gift might well type in "teddy bears" but a storekeeper looking for a new source of supply might be more likely to search for "stuffed toy manucturer".
In Overture your listings only appear for the exact word/phrase you bid on, and basic variants such as singular/plural, predictable misspellings, etc. You don't need to worry about excluding any terms.
In Google AdWords, if you don't specify otherwise the terms you bid on will function as "wild cards" and your ad will appear for any search that contains the word(s). This will not always be well-targeted. Example: bidding on "dress" and having your ad show when someone searched for "how to field dress a deer". You can block any word you want by putting it in your list with a - in front of it, but there will always be something weird that you won't think of. You could decide to live with that, or you could take a different approach and specify nothing but exact matches by using square brackets around terms [like this]. Making those decisions is part science, part instinct!
It does appear that in your industry the word "gift" in the KW phrase is of more value in PPC assuming that the bidders know what they are doing.
And THAT is a big assumption ;)
Espotting allows you to bid on plurals and doesn't lump in kw that has the same meaning. So I suggest that you start your kw research again with Espotting.
Overture won't allow you to bid on kw that hasn’t been search for in the last 3 months so if it doesn't appear in the inventory there is no point in submitting it.
I would stay away from AdWords until you have some experience because you can very easily burn your budget with no results.
Good luck
I thought the Adwords system of totally separate boxes for the different classes of k/word (1 word match, phrase match, exact match, negative match) was very good, and the explanatory notes were quite clear. Adwords does permit you to specify both language and geographical filters, and to block your ads from showing on partner sites (if you really want to).
Not to distract you, but is it worth also thinking a bit more laterally?
When, for instance, would people search for your products:
At specific 'events': eg. birthdays, anniversaries, birth of child?
At specific times of the year: summer, christmas etc.
What value are they deriving from buying your products, are they toys connected to leisure, child-play, adult 'big boys toys'.
In which case, there may be scope for targeting keyphrases which have relevance to searchers when they are looking for a need your products fulfil.
Like: baby toys, 'toy safety', or even 'baby names' (for those who may be looking for toys BEFORE they need them).
If your company is large, it may also be worth targeting particular groupings or segments of customers rather than going for 'toys' as a big undifferentiated group of customers.
Probably a bit wide of the mark, but worth thinking about?
Bid managing software was something I was wondering about too. roscoepico, mail on it's way... ;)
