Does it make sense for general terms?

I.E. shopping, Online Shopping, etc?

[Compworld]

I am just considering adding a few general words, but I am afraid that I would just get garbage traffic. I'm I right in taking this stance, or is it logical to advertise with general terms like the ones stated above?

CompWorld

[Yidaki]

>I am afraid that I would just get garbage traffic

I'm too.

[hobbnet]

I do really well with some general terms, and not so well with others. To make it work you need to make it clear to the user what they are getting into by clicking on the ad but still general enough to keep your CTR at an acceptable level.

I'd say try some general words that don't have anyone else bidding on them as a test and bid low ($0.05).

To add to this though, I would only do this if your product was a general consumer good that almost anyone would buy.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

As those who know me will recognize, I personally lean heavily towards very targeted keywords as opposed to general keywords.

I'll spare everyone my usual speech now, though. ;)

If you do use general keywords, however, and use them as broad or "phrase" matches, I would strongly suggest using negative keywords to help improve your relevancy.

AWA

[Compworld]

I usually just use the keyword as keyword. If I were to use broad, negative, or phrase matching, how do I type those words to the keyword box?

Thanks,

CompWorld

[skibum]

broad: keyword
phrase: "keyword"
exact: [keyword]
negative -free

Is that the question, how to denote the different matching instances?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

There is a lot of information on this subject in the AdWords FAQ, too - not to mention a tutorial on the subject.

I hope it is OK for me to provide links here. If not, Mods please remove.

The FAQ revolving around 'keyword matching options' is here:

[adwords.google.com...]

And the page on which the Keyword Matching Tutorial is available is here:

[adwords.google.com...]

AWA

[eWhisper]

The more expensive your product, the more general words you can bid on and still maintain a positive ROI.

With an extensive use of negative keywords, good ad copy, and account management, it is possible to bring a few very general keywords into a managable and positive environment.

[cline]

What eWhisper said.

Plus, if you're doing regional targeting it's possible to have good results with some very general terms. To make up an example, "skiing" is a pretty general term, but if you're a skiing area in region X, then advertising on "skiing" in just region X may work nicely for you.

[eWhisper]

To make up an example, "skiing" is a pretty general term, but if you're a skiing area in region X, then advertising on "skiing" in just region X may work nicely for you.

This works if your not also advertising nationally for the same general keyword. If you are, you'll just end up driving up your national and geotarget prices in those geographic areas as your ads will compete with each other for which one gets shown.

[David_M]

I initially ran general keywords with good success. As more competitors came on, the prices shot up, CTR went down and I was forced to use more targetted terms.

However, my logs from that period were a great source of keywords from which to build more content!

So, I would recommend a brief period with a low budget to test ROI,CTR and also to use as a keyword mining tool.