All you need to do is know ONE keyword/key phrase related to your business. From that keyword, you can find out numerous others. This is how I would go about keyword research.
1) Enter the main keyword in the Google Keyword Suggestion Box (https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox) and hit the SHOW MATCHING QUERIES tab.
2) Note down all the keywords that are displayed under "Your ads will show for these searches" in a XL sheet.
3) Enter the same keyword in the Overture keyword suggestion tool [inventory.overture.com] and note down all the keywords in your XL sheet.
4) Google keyword suggestion tool displays a number of related keywords under "Here are similar keywords you may want to add". Note down these keywords in notepad.
5) Insert each of the "related keywords" back into Google and Overture keyword suggestion tool (that is, repeat steps 1 to 4).
Within half an hour, you will have a large number of keywords.
Coming back to topic, you may want to take a look at WordTracker.com after you run out of keywords related to your business.
As for marketing - whatever I've been doing this year has been working so that is why they have given the website to me. I just pulled off a PMI conference win, so they are hoping I keep the touch going.
Nothing like flying blind. But seriously, anything I can offer help with - point my way.
Alta Vista also lists many additional related keyword suggestions at the top of the page when you search under your main keyword.
Good luck and happy hunting! :)
Vibgyor as always has given you the best tips around, once you get into the flow of things it will be very easy.
Apart from Adwords, you should also look at Overture, as they have some serious traffic partners such as MSN etc etc.
Shak
An additional clever use of Altavista's Prisma is to use their country specific search engine to get additional keywords that are country specific.
For example, if you search for "bed and breakfast" in
[altavista.com...]
you get suggested words like "motels"
but if you search for the same phrase in
[nz.altavista.com...]
you don't get "motels" (a more american term), but "homestay" and "farmstays" which seem to be more of a kiwi term.
And if you search in
[uk.altavista.com...]
you get "guest homes".
Also, don't forget to bid for both the singular and plural keywords.
The overture and google keyword suggestion tools didn't help me as much.
I'm also concerned about how to go about the bidding process - how do I determine what amount I want to spend? Use the budget I've been given as a monthly amount for this project and see what I can afford?
I am so glad I found this forum - everybody here is so helpful. I hope as I get more immersed in this that I will be able to help someone in the future.
I am so glad I found this forum - everybody here is so helpful. I hope as I get more immersed in this that I will be able to help someone in the future.
No doubt you will :)
We have a number of Google adwords experts here, 2 of them being Vibgyor and Webdiversity, unfortunately Webdiversity is on vacation at present.
Shak
Before you start any CPC campaign you should research your keywords carefully (I use Wordtracker.com extensively) and determine how much a visitor is worth to you. You can figure this out by taking your profit per sale and figuring out your web site visitor conversion rate (i.e. 1 sale for every 100 visitors = 1%).
To simplify the equation: if you pay 0.10 per click and you have a 1% conversion rate, then it costs you $10 to make a sale. If your profit is $50, then you have 500% ROI, but if you only make $5 profit on your sale then you are losing money.
You should also consider the lifetime value of a customer in your bsuiness model.
The URL below links to overtures advertiser tools where you can Calculate ROI and usea free keyword suggestion tool, as well as see overture bid prices.
[content.overture.com...]
~WebmarkCorp
I went home for the weekend and came back to an email from Google adwords telling me they are concerned about my performance - good grief it was only the weekend. Don't you get a couple of days to see what shakes out?
That was this morning. One of my keywords was flagged. 3 other ones were under scrutiny. Then this afternoon I'm down to one keyword so at that point I paused my campaign and figured I'd rework it once again.
I'm in a very specialized arena - I don't have a lot of keyword combos to play with. So I guess it is back to the drawing board. But I didn't realize I had to make a splash my first time out. No place else are virgins expected to perform seasoned veterans - are they?
I just ran a trial campaign and never got flagged. I think I was near 70 impressions before I received a click. It took me about 5 days to get there. My terms receive over 20,000 searches/month at overture.
I read one post on a related forum that said I should give up my "marketing" ad and write an ad that geared towards what the customer is looking for. Problem is - I don't have a website that sells anything but our services. I just need to get people to our website.
I've been reviewing ads that pop up on Google when I search on my keywords and they are not all that great but they are in the top slots. So I need to swallow my ego and write for my audience.
As suggested it is indeed better to use a variety of keyword suggestion tools to discover and compile keyword and keyword combinations that is relavent to your site.
Looking at competitor HTML code may and may not help, since Meta-Keyword tag is not used in almost all situation now, so use those keywords from competirors Meta-Keyword tag with skepticism. Meta-Keyword tag is NOT the reason why they are listed in top position. Use this method to see what other keywords you might be missing
Last but certainly not least, do a good "SE Optimization" work on your site. Get some good quality links, and you will be on top of your competitors in due time. This will definitely give you the best ROI (even if you have to pay someone to do it) in the long run. SEO is an on-going process, you really need to be on top of it for as long as you have the site. If you combine that with some advertising campaign, you can do quite well.
Jimmy
ps. Don't worry about KEI so much. Make sure you do well on keywords that are used often. Laws of large number applies.
