A service that finds appropriate words for your site

Is there one out there?

[Compworld]

Is there a service that can scour a web site a pick relevant advertising words for a web site to use in Adwords or PPC in general?

Thanks,

CompWorld

[Shak]

not that I heard of.

apart from humans aka ppc bid managers :)

Shak

[communitynews]

It seems like marketing services firms should offer this service but it probably would not be automated. I would expect that only a few firms really know what they are doing in this area because the AdWords program is new when compared to how long marketing service firms have been around. In fact, the firm I use can do a decent job on our printed material and even our website but they don't know much about AdWords.

In my case, we're really publishers, so we primarly only use AdSense. I've tried to use AdWords to promote print and online subscriptions without much luck, perhaps because our readers tend to be in small local markets. I for one would be willing to pay for someone to write an ad that works.

[killroy]

AdSense did that for a few days when they displayed the related searches bit ;)

SN

[Essex_boy]

I use Overture for related words or even Kanoodle in their search spy.

[skibum]

Find a compnay that has experience promoting competitors or similar sites and they'll have a good idea of what to target or maybe more important what not to target. Every site is, of course, different so even that is not likely to be a magic bullet.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I'd like to add my 2 cents worth here, if I may.

While keyword suggestions from various sources are undeniably valuable, no service will know as much about your business, your site, and your customers as you do.

With this in mind, I'd suggest that you also:

1. 'Mine' your site for keywords. Almost by definition, your site is packed with keywords that describe your products or services.

2. Take yourself out of your expert role while you are selecting keywords - at least for a while. Try to imagine that you are your customer instead. Now, without your knowledge of your business/industry, what might you search for?

3. Pick keywords that customers of various levels of sophistication might use. Not everyone knows the 'buzz words' to describe your product or service.

4. Try to think of several ways to say the same thing. For example if you are selling U2 concert tickets, expand your keyword list with variations such as:

* U2 concert ticket
* U2 concert tickets
* U2 concert tix
* U2 concert tics
* U2 concert tic
* U2 ticket
* U2 tickets
* U2 tix
* U2 tics
* U2 tic
* U2 show ticket
* U2 show tickets
* U2 show tix
* U2 show tics
* U2 show tic
* buy U2 concert ticket
* buy U2 concert tickets
* buy U2 concert tix
* buy U2 concert tics
* buy U2 concert tic
* find U2 concert ticket
* find U2 concert tickets
* find U2 concert tix
* find U2 concert tics
* find U2 concert tic

And so on, and so on, and so on. The list above is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to illustrate the concept.

Then be sure to monitor during the early stages and get rid of 'loser' keywords as soon as you spot them. Likewise, if you see some that are doing really well, analyse why, then use more keywords like those.

5. If you are able to actually talk to your customers, ask them what they might search on to find what you have.

IMO, these tactics will help you generate an excellent keyword list that is tuned to your actual business - as opposed to keywords that a database picks for you. Remember, the database does not know you, your business, your site, or your customers. On the other hand, you do.

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

PS to previous post.

I've implied it above, but didn't specifically say that it's wise to consider using 'action' keywords words, such as:

* buy widgets
* purchase widgets
* get widgets
* find widgets

And so on.

Surprisingly few people do this. Often these keywords work well, and they may even be more affordable than other, more obvious keywords.

AWA

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Oops, just noticed stuntdbl beat me to this same idea in a post in another thread:

[webmasterworld.com ]

;) AWA

[shorebreak]

Over the last few weeks I've been hearing a lot about Quigo's ability to automatically figure out what keywords make sense for a site and generate a keyword list from scratch. I'd check them out.

[eWhisper]

While keyword suggestions from various sources are undeniably valuable, no service will know as much about your business, your site, and your customers as you do.

Don't forget to also check out your competitions site. Look at your site and your competitors to find your base keywords.

I've done research for many companies for their keyword lists, and before I start, I want a broad list of terms from them. After I do some research on the KWs, I then show the company the new list, and see if it sparks another chain of keywords that I'd never realize was related to their business, but they do.

A keyword researcher can find a lot of terms, but will never know the ins and out of a company as well as the company does.

[colinirwin]

I think (though I'm not sure) that the GoToast 'Intellidex' feature can be used to scour a site for word clusters and then feed back into a holding area where you write relevant ad copy before shipping the completed ads + keywords to your selected PPC engines.

I say 'I think' cos I use the GoToast International option where Intellidex isn't so well integrated so I haven't investigated it in great detail.

Col

[Compworld]

Thank you all for your points and suggestions. We have already tripled our "keywords" and have included the most common misspelling and such. It seems that there could be thousands of variations for our original keyword list.

Back to the drawing board I guess...

CompWorld

[dkoller]

If someone is bidding on 'widgets' won't they show up for:

buy widgets
purchase widgets
get widgets
find widgets

anyway? I don't understand how it could really be any cheaper to bid that way. I see the advantage to making separate ads with titles matching those phrases, or using the {KeyWord} feature for them, but by just adding them to the keyword list for an ad that already contains 'widgets', does it really help?

Also with the U2 example, unless all the kw are in quotes, wouldn't just

U2 ticket
U2 tickets
U2 tix
U2 tics
U2 tic

cover it?

[donpps]

one word: wordtracker!

[shorebreak]

Learned a little bit more about Quigo today - their product not only auto-generates the keyword list, but also builds Google and Overture-ready bulk spreadsheets with search ad copy and title based on a template.