In the previous post, we talked about campaign, ad group structure and settings, now let’s take a look at ways of finding the right Keywords. What is a Keyword? It is a word or phrase that triggers your ad on the Bing search results page when it matches or is relevant to a user’s search query. Choosing the right keywords in your ad groups is very important as they are the driving force that will decide the success of your pay-per-click campaign.
The best way to start creating a keyword list is to imagine yourself to be the customer and to ask yourself, “What are they likely to search for?” For example, if I sell books online, will my target customer be searching on queries such as ‘books’, or will they be searching on ‘buy books’ or ‘used books’. These possible queries should ideally be your keywords. Keywords need not necessarily describe your business, it should be more aligned to what your business is selling. For instance, if my bookstore is a start-up, I need not have ‘start-up’ as a keyword as my customers will not be searching on those queries to buy books.
Also, if I am selling only children’s storybooks, will I bid on such generic keywords such as ‘books’, which might also target someone who is researching on books/searching for free books or do I prefer to be more specific by bidding on keywords such as: ‘children’s book, ‘children’s storybook’? It is always advised to start by bidding on more specific and relevant keywords. For example, if you are selling tickets for Sydney Opera House, would you bid on keywords such as ‘buy opera tickets’, or would you rather stress on ‘buy Sydney Opera House tickets’?
Single-word keywords that are generic such as ‘books’ or ‘flights’ might bring in high traffic but can also be more expensive as many other advertisers are bidding on them. There are other keywords that are longer, more descriptive about your product/service and can be much cheaper such as ‘buy children’s book’, ‘book flights to Melbourne’.
Choosing the right mix of keywords also depends on your marketing strategy as well. For instance, are you looking for more visits to your website by bidding on generic keywords, or are you looking for more sales by bidding on specific, targeted keywords?
Ways to research for keywords for Bing Ads:
· Your website is the best place to start looking for keywords, as it would have descriptive phrases and unique features of your product and service.
· Within the Bing Ads User Interface, there are two features that help you find new keywords. They are ‘Add Keywords’ & ‘Research Keywords tool’. You can reach the first by clicking ‘Campaigns’ on the top of the page then clicking the ‘Keywords’ tab, then ‘Add Keywords’. The latter is available in the Tools section of the Bing Ads UI. Search for new keywords by entering an initial keyword or related terms and Bing Ads will recommend related keywords for you to add.
· Bing Ads Intelligence, is a powerful tool that lets you search on keyword variations, associated terms, competitor keywords and keywords in search queries. The tool also provides the estimated bids and traffic for the keywords. It can be freely downloaded from the tools section in the User Interface. http://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-au/bing-ads-intelligence
If your campaigns have already run for some time, then you can also make use of the Search Query Reportswhich will provide you the list of queries that customers searched to find your ad or made a sale on your site. You can then add all those queries, which are relevant, to your existing keyword list. This report is available in the ‘Reports’ tab.
Keyword lists are not something to be made and then to be forgotten about. They have to be constantly reviewed and you should consider seasonality, trends and customer preferences. Adding new keywords is essential but so is deleting those keywords that have not been driving visits or conversions to your site.
Finding the right keywords is as much a science as it is an art, so keep building that list using all the resources to make sure your ad stays on top of the page!