Google Adwords displays your ads based on the keywords you place inside your campaigns, and Adgroups, therefore making keyword selection very important. It is so important that it can determine the success or failure of your online marketing effort. It becomes challenging because we have to try and think outside the box when deciding on keywords, and try to pick keywords that people on the internet will be searching for when they want to buy something. Relevancy is also highly important when deciding on your keywords. We do not want to randomly pick keywords just for the sake of exposure. The power of internet marketing comes with the fact that we can pick highly targeted keywords, and make a relation between keyword, product and sales cycle.

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Most internet searching is primarily done for research and education, in this process of the buying phase the conversion ratio is extremely low, therefore we want to ensure a good balance of exposure in the research phase, and with the sales purchasing phase.

Example, assume we were looking for a new bike tire. You go to Google and search for “bike tire”. You visit some sites but then you realize that is too broad of a search, so you search for “BMX tire”. After looking at some sites you find that you want a “Michelin Mambo BMX” Tire, so you search for that, find the tire you wanted at a good price and make the purchase.

That entire string of searches was used in the research and purchasing phase for a new bike tire. You want exposure at all levels, since level 1 and level 2 of the research phase is mostly branding, market exposure and familiarity. Once the internet user has gone through this phase of research, they will make the commitment to make a purchase on a highly defined and targeted keyword. If you allowed yourself the right amount of exposure, you may very well have familiarized yourself with the user so much, that when the purchase is made, it’s done from your site on the final keyword search phase.

Take into account this will make some keywords look like they are highly profitable, with a high click through ratio and conversion ratio, making you want to eliminate those broader terms and just focus on those long tails. An even balance of all keywords and a commutative cost per acquisition will help keep this in line.

When choosing your portfolio of keywords also remember to try and think as those that are searching for something on the internet. What is the relationship between keyword and product? If you sold antivirus software, would you use the keyword virus in your keyword portfolio? What about using the keyword, computer protection, or internet security? Is there a relationship between keyword and product? How about including the keyword computer or internet? Remember Google rewards for relevancy.

Thinking outside the box can be very challenging because we know and understand our product in depth and many times we become simple minded or single sided. We know what it does, and what it doesn’t do. The problem is that we don’t really know how others will perceive your product and how they will associate it with what they are attempting to search for.

In the next articles, I will explain how to develop your keyword portfolios, how to do keyword research, how to estimate bids, and how to predict the volume of searches done per month for your keywords.

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