Digital marketing and successful campaigns are driven by the effective use of high-performing keywords, especially when paired with a compelling ad campaign. Instead of using the Keyword Planner to start over every time you need to run a new promotion, you can use the tips below to create high-converting campaigns in a matter of seconds. Below, we’re covering how you can find high-value keywords in your pre-existing campaigns and other keyword tools that you can use to build into your framework.
How do you identify high-value keywords?
Finding high-converting keywords is an ongoing experiment. Google continually changes and evolves, forcing businesses to re-evaluate their marketing strategies. High-value keyword strategies aren’t built exclusively on more expensive or the cheapest keywords. Instead, strategic marketers work to strike a balance between long-tail and short-tail iterations relevant to your business’ pillar topics, but that still come in at a relatively competitive bid rate.
You’ll also want to consider the competitive nature of the keyword that you want to include. After all, there are many ways to select the right keywords for your campaign. It isn’t a bad thing to try to rank for more competitive keywords, especially if your site is already reasonably well indexed and ranked for SEO. However, attempting to rank for less competitive keywords is a great way to invite a more immediate higher rank.
How do you find high-value keywords in pre-existing campaigns?
If you’re using a PPC ad campaign tool such as Google Keyword Planner, you can easily reference your past campaigns and analyze their performance. Identify ads that got exceptionally higher reach and click, and determine what keyword clouds were considered in those campaigns. Different factors can influence how well a keyword performs, however. What worked for one campaign may not work for another.
When identifying strong keywords from your prior use list, consider the relevancy based on the following categories:
1. Location-based use
If you’re running ads in different areas, the language that you used in that specific region or area may not apply. Often, keywords require exact matching or an iteration of that specific term to be pulled by the algorithm. Because of this, you want to consider the language of the locale, the colloquialisms, and the potential searches that your prospect may be conducting before finding your “fix.”
You can use Keyword Planner to do this process and support your research, or take your high-performing keywords from prior PPC campaigns and apply them to regionally-specific language and use.
2. Density and categorization
High-performing PPC campaigns are not generally built in extremes. They often require a more nuanced strategy behind them in order to perform as well as you need. When reviewing your previous campaigns, you may find that your list is made primarily of highly competitive keywords. While these may have performed well in their search setting, you may not get the same results — and may de-rank yourself. Using a blend of previous high-performers with newer keywords in a range of categories can get you the best results possible with your PPC campaigns.
3. Audience relevancy
Pulling keywords from your previous campaigns can get you a return on investment in your current outreach strategy. However, analyzing your PPC campaign results from prior launches can also give you the opportunity to review your keyword clouds and refine them to suit the needs of your current prospect. Continuing to create and refine your ideal customer profiles, or ICPs is a great way to remain competitive in your ad campaigns and overall outreach strategy.
4. Copy congruency
To get the best possible results out of your PPC campaign, you should use high-performing keywords that are congruent with your ad copy. Using too many can clutter your ad and de-rank it. A stronger strategy to consider would be choosing just a few specific keywords to target in both your ad and copy that have been proven to perform — continuing to refine and iterate as needed.
What tools should you use to find quality keywords?
There are many tools that you can consider to manage your PPC campaign and related keyword strategies. We’ve listed a few of them below:
1. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is one of the most commonly used tools for campaign management and is one of the most comprehensive platforms on the market. You can enjoy in-depth analysis, as well as the ability to target specific keywords and demographics in your campaign. It’s nested in Google’s suite of e-tools, making it exceptionally easy to use and integrate.
2. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool for your site, allowing you to view competitor keyword targets and backlinks, and analytics dashboards that you can use for data-driven analysis on your website. They are well known for their accuracy and quality audit tools, offering quick ways to improve your strategy and rankability, helping you create more competitive ads and pages.
3. SEMRush
SEMRush is a great tool for search marketers, whether doing SEO or PPC. We have been using it for years to keep track of SEO Metrics, do competitive analysis to understand gaps, and leverage keyword research tools to expand existing sets.
Leveraging these keyword tools will give your search marketing campaigns a boost by expanding keyword sets, scaling campaigns by adding more keywords, and even making campaigns more efficient by finding keywords at a lower CPC to drive conversion.
