Popular keywords and high-volume key phrases seem pretty straightforward, from a search perspective.
You target the terms in organic search optimization and through your pay-per-click campaigns, and acquire as much of that Web traffic as possible. Then move on to the much more complex task of managing the long tail of search, right?
Well, maximizing the potential of high-traffic keywords is actually more complex than it looks. Learn more about popular keywords.
1. Top Keywords for Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) & Pay-Per Click (PPC)
Popular keywords and high-volume key phrases seem pretty straightforward, from a search
perspective.
You target the terms in organic search optimization and through your pay-per-click campaigns,
and acquire as much of that Web traffic as possible. Then move on to the much more complex
task of managing the long tail of search, right?
Well, maximizing the potential of high-traffic keywords is actually more complex than it looks.
There are a number of best practices and a handful of potential issues which arise when
incorporating high-traffic terms into your search campaigns:
High Cost and High Competition - If you know that a term gets searched on a lot,
chances are a lot of other people do too. The market is flooded with free to cheap
keyword research services which offer anyone with Internet access the same list of
competitive keywords you're targeting.
Broad Phrases Have Questionable Intent - For a phrase to get a lot of search volume, it
typically has to be a short key phrase. In fact, it's often the case that the most searched
keywords have multiple meanings. It's difficult to target a term (particularly as you pay
for each click) when a fair number of searchers are after something slightly to wholly
different than what you're offering. All of a sudden your "high-volume keyword" offers
slightly less relevant traffic for your business.
A Short List of Keywords is a Stagnant List of Keywords - While the long tail is
extremely fluid and often subject to the unpredictable whims of the billions of individuals
currently searching for content on the Web, the most popular keywords are far less
mutable. These keywords' search volumes rarely change, and focusing a search campaign
around acquiring this traffic can quickly lead to traffic plateaus.
But, for all the buzz surrounding long-tail keywords, there's still a lot of traffic in the high-traffic,
most searched words (go figure).
So the question becomes how to attack high-volume keywords within your search marketing
campaign. That's precisely what we'll deal with in the coming paragraphs.
Paying Less for Popular Keyword Searches
Popular keywords are often priced high. This is because, as we mentioned, the traffic-driving
keywords aren't a secret. Your competitors know about them, and are likely bidding them up.
2. For this reason, you'll need to improve Quality Score on this keyword and its Ad Group in order
to lower the amount you're bidding on it within your pay-per-click campaign.
Quality Score algorithms are comprised of a few core elements, and all of these revolve around
relevance. WordStream offers multiple Quality Score solutions to improve the relevance (and
lower the cost) of your keywords:
Keyword Grouping Tools - A key component of the Quality Score algorithm is the
relevance of a keyword to its Ad Group. We'll show you how WordStream's grouping
tools enable you to create Quality Score friendly groupings centered around traffic-
driving SEM keywords.
Ad Text and Landing Page Optimization Tools - Two of the most important factors in
achieving high Quality Score are the relevance of your keywords and search queries, and
your historical click-through rate (CTR). Being able to generate ads and landing pages
that speak to your search queries are crucial to pleasing search engines and searchers (if
an ad is relevant to a query, a searcher is more likely to click, and if a landing page offers
similar messaging to the ad they just clicked on, a searcher is more likely to convert).
Grouping Your Most Popular Search Keywords
Let's imagine we're running a website that sells electronic gadgets. We sell items items such as
cell phones, laptops, and LCD monitors. We take a look at our log files, and note that organic
search is driving the most traffic for the terms:
Cell phones
Laptops (one word)
LCD monitors
Some free keyword research confirms that these are high-traffic keywords. So, what do we do
with them?
The problem is, these words aren't closely related. If we attempt to cram these three words into a
single Ad Group, we'll get slammed on Quality Score and will have to pay a lot every time
someone clicks on our ad. A better idea is to give each term its own group.
Better yet: while we're creating a keyword group for each of these terms, why not surround it
with keywords that search engines will view as closely related? We'll also want to make sure that
these keywords are all linguistically similar: that way, we can easily write ad text variations that
speak to the entire Ad Group.
3. Note the process here:
Query your personal keyword database - Type in the high-volume keyword in
question, and have every highly relevant variation of that term (in this case, "cell
phones") returned for you.
Create a group - Simply click "Create Keyword Group" and WordStream has created a
brand new, Quality Score friendly keyword grouping you can easily turn into an Ad
Group. And imagine how easy it will be to write ad text that speaks to all these keywords
(they all contain some variation of "cell phone"!).
Additionally, you can focus on only the "most popular" variations of this keyword, moving the
long-tail variations into their own group, if you find that that works better for your campaign's
tracking and performance:
You can sort by number of terms (in this case "cell phones" consists of two terms, or words) or a
minimum amount of visits:
And, as always, a new segmentation is only a click away.
4. Making Your Most Popular Keyword Searches Your Most Relevant Keyword
Searches
Additionally, WordStream offers tools that help you to craft compelling and Quality Score
friendly ad text and landing pages:
In the above image, WordStream is suggesting text to be included in the ad for this ad group.
You'll have to edit the text to include a clear call to action, and to make it more compelling and
attractive to searchers (proper punctuation, logical phrasing, etc.) but WordStream offers the
linguistic foundations for a successful text ad.
Similarly, the application can suggest effective landing page content for a given Ad Group. The
above text editor suggests potential landing page "headers." Additionally, if you're attempting to
craft a single landing page for multiple groups, WordStream offers sophisticated visualization
tools which allow you to see not only a single group, but other, related child groups:
Here we see a series of variations of "cell phones." Using these phrases prominently on the
landing page in question will increase the relevancy score for "cell phones" while also improving
5. the user experience and increasing conversions (as searchers are more likely to engage with your
landing page when they see the term they were searching for).
Expanding and refining the reach of popular searches
While it seems counterintuitive, it's necessary to simultaneously expand and constrict the reach
of these broad keywords:
Grow Your Audience - It's important to overcome the stagnancy of the traffic metrics
associated with a handful of the most popular keywords in your vertical.
Don't Waste Money on Unqualified Traffic - It's equally important to ensure that in
attempting to leverage broadl searched key phrases to grow traffic, you don't start
advertising on irrelevant, costly keywords.
WordStream offers a robust tool set which enables you to go beyond targeting single keywords.
Learn more about how you can grow your audience without over-expanding into irrelevant,
unreceptive realms by reading more about our:
Long Tail Search Marketing Solutions
Keyword Suggestion Tool
Negative Keyword Tool
Get the most out of the most popular, most searched
keywords
To access WordStream's suite of search marketing tools and get an idea as to how it can deliver
lower costs, better Quality Score and improved targeting for the Web's most popular keywords,
you can:
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