See this recent thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Also, search for a good completely free tool called Good Keywords. It also works off Overture results.
patient2all
Just wanted to add, even those they use Overture, it gives you a relative idea of the value of the keyword.
When creating a campaign, which tool(s) do you find most useful for finding out which keywords to bid on? Or is the google tool enough?
Buzbe, having worked with tons of advertisers over the years, I've noticed that one absolutely essential 'tool' is often overlooked. What is it? It's the advertiser's own knowledge of their business, their products or services, their site, and their customers.
Before ever even spending time with a keyword tool (which can know nothing about your business or your customers) I recommend the following:
* Thoroughly 'mine' your website for keywords. By definition, it is absolutely full of keywords that describe what you wish to advertise.
* Then do a Google search on those keywords and 'mine' the search results for instances of your keywords that do not pertain to what you wish to advertise. These should then become negative keywords.
* Then, for the moment, forget your own expertise - and think like your customer. What might they look for? Remember, your customers will probably be at all levels of sophistication. So try to think like a newbie, and pick some words that they might use. Then think like an expert, and pick some appropriate words for that experience level too.
* Next, take your keywords and expand them - by thinking of different ways of saying the same thing (i.e. birdcage and bird cage), by using plurals, perhaps by using common misspellings and so forth.
Having done all that, then it may be time to hit the keyword tools and see if they will come up with things that you didn't think of. ;)
But first, it's a great idea to rely on your own expertise and knowledge about what you sell, and of your potential customer to whom you wish to sell it.
Just my $0.02. ;)
AWA
Complimentary: talk to your collegues. Your sales managers may know a lot of words your customers use. Your technicians may use other words. If you have a help desk: that's a goldmine for keywords.
Dave.
one thing that's not here.. is if you have an older website.. definitely go through your website's logs... and see how people find your website... I think that has been said and done before.. but a good reminder for everyone...
* Then, for the moment, forget your own expertise - and think like your customer. What might they look for? Remember, your customers will probably be at all levels of sophistication. So try to think like a newbie, and pick some words that they might use. Then think like an expert, and pick some appropriate words for that experience level too.
Nice post, AWA.
To expand a bit upon this, don't forget to look at the keywords your product solves.
Benefit/feature/problem solving based searches are often underutilized KWs as they require more thought than product based KWs.
i.e. Advertising on the keyword 'back pain' for a chiropractor can lead to a positive ROI.
