Keyword research strategy & tactics for SEM

1. 10 MUST-USE KEYWORD
RESEARCH TACTICS FOR PPC
GUIDE

2. 0210 MUST-USE KEYWORD RESEARCH TACTICS FOR PPC
The cornerstone of any successful PPC campaign is keyword research — choosing the
best keywords to bid on that are most likely to result in clicks and conversions. Keyword
research is part science and part art. It’s about using the myriad tools at your disposal, but
also understanding your customers and predicting which terms they’re actually typing into the
search box. That’s the best way to ensure that your ads show up at the right time and in the
right place: when they’re searching for the kinds of products or services you offer.
In this guide, you’ll learn a set of tactics to help you discover new PPC keywords, all in the
service of better targeted and more effective pay-per-click campaigns.
INTRODUCTION
Google Trends is a marketer’s paradise. Not only do we love using it as a venue for
procrastination, masked as “data analysis,” but it also provides valuable insights into seasonal,
geographic and search-related trends.
TACTIC #1: GOOGLE TRENDS
Google Trends is a marketer’s paradise.
To use Google Trends for keyword research, start by plugging one of your main terms into the
search bar. Scroll to the third section of the report, labeled Related Searches. This features a
list of the top queries that are closely related to your term, as well as additional searches that
are rising in popularity. If the related terms align with your product offerings, add them to your
account. If they don’t, it’s critical that you set them as negatives, before they wreak havoc on
your performance.

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For example, if you’re building a campaign for flat irons, you may wish to add “flat iron hair”
and “chi flat iron” to your keyword lists, but “steak” is a pretty obvious (and important) negative
keyword candidate. Same goes for “building.”
Using Google Trends to Check for Geographical Keyword Variations
This tool is particularly useful if you’re researching keywords for an account focusing on a
geographic market that you’re not familiar with. Let’s say that I not only want to sell flat irons
in the United States, but also in Australia. As you can see, interest in the term “flat iron” in
Australia is very low.
So, I ran a comparison against the synonym “hair straightener.”

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Bingo! Search interest is way higher for that particular term with an Australian audience. Had
I not recognized this by using the Google Trends tool, I’d definitely be struggling with my
Australian-focused “flat iron” campaigns.
There is tremendous value in knowing exactly what people search for when they land on your
site. Advertisers use this to ensure that their ads are driving the right searchers to the right
landing pages, understand how users are interacting with their site structure, and even to
identify new product offerings.
However, far too few recognize that this is also a goldmine for new keywords!
In order to access this information, you have to do a little groundwork. For this to work, your
site must feature a search bar and, ideally, should have search query parameters set to
appear in the URL after the search. If your site does not have query parameters, you can still
do this, but it’s a little trickier, as you’d have to add an extra snippet to your Analytics code.
Once your site includes the proper criteria, head to the Admin section in Google Analytics and
select View Settings.
TACTIC #2: GOOGLE ANALYTICS SITE SEARCH

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Scroll down to Site Search Settings to turn on your tracking code and set your query
parameters. As long as your site is blanketed with Analytics code, this will pick up every
search that occurs within your site. To view the results, head to the Behavior segment in the
Reporting section of Google Analytics.
If you’re not bidding on the term that qualified users are
searching for, definitely add it to your keyword list.
This will direct you to a list of the unique search queries that occurred on your site. Use
metrics like:
Total unique searches – This will help you understand the volume/frequency
of the search.
Time after search – Did they stay on the page they found through searching?
Average search depth – The number of pages viewed after performing a search.
Did they have to keep searching?
These metrics will help you see whether searchers are finding what they’re looking for on your
site. If you’re not bidding on the term that qualified users are searching for, definitely add it to
your keyword list.

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If you’re advertising for an
e-commerce site, it’s likely that
you already have Shopping
campaigns up and running. The
feeds used to manage these
campaigns are a treasure chest
worth of e-commerce keyword
ideas. Take the top products
from their feed lists and plug
them into AdWords’ Keyword
Planner. From there, you can
get a good sense of the search
volume for these items and
identify other terms related to
them. Just be sure to set geo-
targeting for each search, to
ensure you’re getting accurate
traffic estimates.
TACTIC #3: RIFF OFF YOUR SHOPPING FEEDS

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We’re all familiar with Google’s autocomplete functionality, which provides a list of relevant
search terms when you begin typing a query on Google. Google introduced this feature years
ago, not solely to lend a hand to lazy searchers, but to help connect their searchers with even
more relevant content.
Although these terms may seem to come out of left field, they’re actually real queries
searched by real people. Google organizes these by search volume (taking into account
the user’s region and language) and, if you’re logged in to your Google account, it will even
customize the recommendations based on your past search behavior.
TACTIC #4: GOOGLE SUGGEST
While this tool certainly wasn’t created
with advertisers in mind, it’s definitely
worth using to your advantage. We all
know that long-tail keywords tend to be
cheaper and less competitive than head
terms. However, most long-tail terms
have devastatingly low search volume.
Google Suggest is the perfect way to
discover lengthier terms that actually have
significant volume.
Google Suggest is the perfect way to discover lengthier
terms that actually have significant volume.
When using this method, we recommend using an incognito window, to ensure that your
search history doesn’t impact your results. Type one of your head terms into the search and
take note of the terms that appear. If any are good fits for your business, be sure to add them
to your account in super-specific ad groups.
Keep in mind that, if you’re bidding on your original search term on a less-restrictive match
type, you’re probably already showing your ads to people doing these longer searchers. Any
suggested search terms that you do not want your ad to appear for are perfect candidates for
negative keywords.

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Call me ruthless, but I think you’d be
crazy not to engage in a little good-
natured sleuthing to identify terms that
your competitors are bidding on. I’m
not recommending any black-hat, dirty,
under-handed tactics—just a little good
natured spying!
While you can’t directly access your
competitors’ accounts, there are a few
crafty ways to identify terms they’re
likely to be bidding on. The best part is,
you don’t need to be a hacker to find
these.
One sneaky tactic is to hit up the
Keyword Planner, which has a feature
that lets you drop in a URL to see which
TACTIC #5: SPY ON YOUR COMPETITORS
For example, let’s say your company sells Living Proof hair care products. When you do this
search, you’ll note that one of the suggested terms is for “living proof ministries,” which is
completely unrelated to your products. “Ministries” should definitely be added as a negative
keyword!
terms people are using to land on the site. AdWords’ expectation is that you’ll use it for your
own site, but you can actually input any URL. So, plug your competitors’ landing pages into
the “Your landing page” section and go to town. The tool will provide you with sets of keyword
ideas and ad group ideas, all featuring terms that your competitor is probably bidding on.

9. 0910 MUST-USE KEYWORD RESEARCH TACTICS FOR PPC
In addition, there’s a whole slew of third party software that help you scout out
competitors’ terms. Our favorite is SEMRush.
This tool has super extensive functionality, but for keyword research, we recommend sticking
with the Advertising Research > Positions section. Plug in your competitors’ URLs to generate
a report of the keywords they are bidding on, along with other insightful data. Most notably, the
report offers estimated CPCs that they’re paying for these terms, the share of traffic the words
generated and the percentage of overall costs associated with each.
We recommend running these reports for all of your top competitors and downloading them to
Excel. That way, you can store all of this research in one place and use the pivot table function
to identify common terms across all competitors.
We recommend running these reports for all of your
top competitors and downloading them to Excel.

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new keywords. Clay recommends initiating a Promoted Pins campaign and selecting the pin
that best represents the one of your head terms. From there, plug in a term related to the pin.
Pinterest will then spit back a list of related themes that can spark excellent ad group/keyword
ideas.
TACTIC #6: HIT UP PINTEREST’S PROMOTED PINS
This tactic is actually the brain
child of SEO pro Clay Cazier,
which we learned a few
months ago and have
become huge fans of (check
out his original article here).
You can use Pinterest to get a
solid understanding of the
semantic phrases people are
using to discuss your product.
If you have a Pinterest for
Business account, try using
Promoted Pins to discover
This tactic is useful because
it does not solely provide
semantically-related variations
of your seed keyword. It also
includes terms that users
associate with this word,
giving you great insights
into what your audience
is interested in. Do a little
brainstorming on these terms
and you’re guaranteed to
come up with some unique
new keywords!
Do a little brainstorming on these terms and you’re
guaranteed to come up with some unique new keywords!

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12. 1210 MUST-USE KEYWORD RESEARCH TACTICS FOR PPC
FAQ Fox specializes in question keywords. It scrapes Q&A sites like Reddit and Quora to find
questions related to your topic of choice.
If you click the “marketing” category, the tool will automatically search relevant marketing
subreddits as well as a few popular marketing forums like Wicked Fire and Warrior Forum.
TACTIC #7: FAQ FOX
You can also enter your
own sites. We searched
for “adwords” on Reddit
and Quora.com and got
a great list of questions:

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The questions are linked to the actual threads so you can go check out the full question as
well as any answers it already has.
Of course, they tend to be much more specific and complex than the kinds of terms that
people enter into Google, so if you decide to use one in your content marketing, you’ll
probably have to use another keyword tool to find a phrase with search volume that you can
map to the question. For example, if I wanted to create content to answer the question “Why
are branded keywords costing me more in AdWords?” I could go into Keyword Planner to see
that my best bet for this topic is the keyword “branded keywords”:
Another awesome way to surface problems that your prospects are trying to solve.
TACTIC #8: DIG THROUGH YOUR DYNAMIC SEARCH AD QUERIES
Sometimes it’s tough to think outside of the box, so
why not commission Google to do the work for you?
Sometimes it’s tough to think outside of the box, so why not commission Google to do the
work for you? Rather than operating like traditional, keyword-based campaigns, Dynamic
Search Ads (DSAs) leverage the power of Google’s organic web crawling technology to
determine when to serve your ads.

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Creating a DSA campaign is a cinch. Technically, you can add DSAs to a search campaign
that is set to all features, but we recommend creating standalone DSA campaigns. All you
need to do is set up dynamic ad targets, which are based on your site content. AdWords will
use this data to identify a list of product categories. If a site is well-indexed, there are typically
plenty of categories to choose from. If you want to focus your campaign on a specific product
category or brand, you can get more granular and set ad targets for specific webpages. This
allows you to create your own category based on a URL, page title, or page content.
You can then create ad groups to target specific categories or sections of your site. Next,
create description lines for your ads (AdWords will add in a dynamically-generated headline
and landing page), sit back, and let AdWords run the show.
Keep in mind, if you’re running additional search campaigns, you may wish to set your existing
keywords as negatives for DSA campaigns. This ensures that you’re not cannibalizing your
current keywords and are only leveraging DSAs to find brand new terms.
So…where are my keywords?!
You may be wondering, how the heck can these keyword-free DSA campaigns be leveraged
to find new keywords? AdWords actually provides a list of all of the search queries that your
dynamic ads are matched to. Head to the Auto Target tab > See Search Terms section to

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check it out. This list is a goldmine for e-commerce advertisers. Not only will it help you identify
obvious terms that you’ve forgotten to include in your account, you’re also likely to find new
terms that you never would have thought to bid on.
TACTIC #9: ANSWER THE PUBLIC
We saw someone mention Answer the Public recently on Twitter and immediately checked it
out. The home page looks like this:

16. 1610 MUST-USE KEYWORD RESEARCH TACTICS FOR PPC
Except the “seeker” is animated. It’s weird. Don’t get
distracted. As with any other keyword tool, you just
plug in a topic and go. It’s a UK-based tool, but you
can select a different country from the dropdown:
Here’s the cool part – the results come back in visual form. First, you’ll see a “wheel” of
question keywords related to your topic. I entered “AdWords,” and here’s what I got:

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Some keyword ideas we got from this visual include:
AdWords for photographers
AdWords without a website
Using AdWords to make money
This tool is cool because it provides keywords and phrases
with words like “versus”, which surface PROBLEMS that
your target audience is having and that you can then solve.
TACTIC #10: KEYWORD PLANNER
Don’t underestimate the power
of Keyword Planner! Google
offers a robust free keyword
tool that is well worth exploring.
It’s pretty straightforward, but
there are a few cool features you
might not be aware of that we
want to highlight.
The primary focus of this search
tool is to find new keywords,
along with their search volume
data. To do this, input your basic
product or service keywords,
your landing page URL and/or
your product category. You can
also include targeting criteria,
such a target location, language
and networks to get more
precise data on your keyword
recommendations.

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Google will then use this information to produce a list of relevant new keywords for you to
consider, along with their search volume, competition and suggested bid.
If you like the terms suggested, you can add them to your “plan.” Once your plan is complete,
you can either download your list to share it with your client or coworkers or add it directly to
your account.
Concatenating Keywords with Keyword Planner
The Keyword Planner also offers a concatenation tool to help you build out new keyword
combinations quickly and efficiently. To use it, plug in your key terms in List 1 and your
modifiers in List 2.

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The tool will then generate a new list including every
possible combination of your terms. This definitely
isn’t rocket science, but it sure is easier than creating
the list manually (or in a dreaded Excel spreadsheet).
Don’t Forget to Add Negative Keywords
As you create your keyword list, don’t forget about
negative keywords. These are the search terms that
you don’t want your ads to show up for, and they’re
an important part of any campaign, because they
help control costs and keep your ad targeting as
relevant as possible.
The main reason to include negative keywords is to
prevent your ads — and, by extension, your brand —
from showing up alongside search queries that are
irrelevant or offensive. For example, a seller of high-
end furniture would want to target affluent customers,
and would add terms like “cheap” and “free” to the
negatives list to prevent their ads for appearing
alongside those terms. You’ll also want to rule out
impressions on terms that are similar to but not really
related to your business — such as “hair dryer” if you
sell home appliances including washers and dryers.
Not only will you find new keywords using the tactics
above, you can also find new negative keyword
candidates.
The main reason to include negative keywords is to prevent your
ads — and, by extension, your brand — from showing up
alongside search queries that are irrelevant or offensive.

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Finally, keep going! You’re not going to discover every keyword you should bid on (or exclude)
in PPC on the first go, so iterate on keyword research regularly. We recommend dedicating
about 15% of your PPC management time to keyword research. Ideally, you’ll do a little bit
of keyword research (adding new keywords, setting new negatives, or experimenting with
new match types) every week. Over time, your account will get stronger and more relevant
because of it.