Category Archives: Web Metrics

PPC Magic: 3 Steps To Turning Hundreds Of Keywords Into Millions

Posted on by poonambhatt

Basically, the long tail approach dictates that we not only use high-search volume, general terms, but also load up our accounts with many, many niche terms—the theory being that these tail terms are cheaper due to less competition and also more relevant so they drive higher engagement with users.

I’ve seen campaigns with a few hundred terms perform very well. I’ve also seen campaigns with millions of terms perform poorly. Remember, we test everything in search engine marketing! So, other than the actual logistics of managing a huge list, there really isn’t any drawback to adding and testing many keywords if you think they even have the slightest chance of providing value to your advertiser. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that for beginners to PPC, try to limit your lists to 10,000 to 20,000 max.

The key is using modifiers

So, how do we take the hundreds of terms we uncovered during our research and turn them into tens of thousands (and maybe even millions) of long tail terms? The secret is with modifiers. For example, if you’re selling used cars, you may take a core term like used car and add buying modifiers so now you have purchase used car, buy used car, shop for used car, etc. As search marketers looking for tail terms, we may combine our core words with multiple modifier lists. For example, if we matched up every term with the dealer’s car brands, we wouldn’t have just purchase used car, but also purchase used Saturn, purchase used Ford, purchase used Toyota etc.

Each advertiser will have their own set of modifiers that make sense. However, some common modifier directions include:

Buying cycle. Used for awareness/interest terms, modifiers such as info on or research could be used. For users further down the funnel, buy, shop, purchase and so on also make sense.

Adjectives. If you’re selling broadband service, then description words like fast, speedy, and quick could be important. For banks, it might be performance words such as high yield or safety-conscious words like insured.

Geographical. Lists of cities, towns, states, DMAs, metro areas, etc. If the advertiser is a U.S. based national brand, you may almost always use states and top DMAs as modifiers. Certainly car insurance Omaha should be treated differently than car insurance New York City. Similar geographical modifiers can be used elsewhere in the world.

Here are three steps to using modifiers to build giant keyword lists.

Step #1 – Identify your core terms. If you’ve been through all of the research ideas in this column, you will have already compiled a pretty comprehensive list of keywords from keyword tools, competitor research, and so on. So, you should be able to look through all of the terms and quickly pull out a high level list of core terms. If you’re an online retailer, maybe those core terms are your main categories. Or, if you’re a service company, you will probably have a handful of terms that are used most when people search for your company.

As an example, I’ll use a clothing retailer based in the western region of the U.S. Here is their core term list. Make sure to include plurals and any very common misspellings in the core list.

  • T-shirt
  • T-shirts
  • Jeans
  • Shirt
  • Shirts
  • Dress
  • Dresses

Step #2 – Generate your modifier lists. 5 lists that come to mind for this retailer are:

Sizes: Small, Medium, Large, XL, XXL
Color: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Brown, White, Black, Orange
Purchase terms: Buy, Shop, Browse, Purchase, Deal, Cheap, Inexpensive,
Qualifiers: Brand name, Designer, Name Brand, Quality, Chic
Western States: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Montana

Step #3 – Generate permutations. You can use a permutation tool such as Keyword Lizard or Keyword Combinations to input your various lists. You’re always going to want to use your core terms in combination with modifiers where it makes sense. Here’s a screenshot from the free Keyword Combination tool:

Suddenly, you have tail term lists with designer jeans California, small blue shirt, and inexpensive XL t-shirts. In fact, from your seven core terms and five simple modifier lists, you can easily generate over 200,000 keywords.

Okay, here’s where the magic happens. Check the math: 7 Core Terms X 5 sizes X 8 colors X 7 purchase words X 5 qualifiers X 8 States = 78,400 variations of your core words.

Abracadabra!

Actually, you have more than that. There are keywords that won’t contain every list. So you really add one more modifier per list that is a “blank space”. Once you do that, you get 186,624. Wow! In fact, if you were to add just one more keyword to one of those lists, the total available permutations would be 207,360! You won’t use all of those keywords, especially if you cap them at 3-4 words per keyword phrase. However, chances are you’ll be using many more modifier lists and core terms so the list could grow to millions very easily. Ultimately, you certainly will have plenty of great tail terms to test.

And, if you do it right, you can easily segment the keywords into groups and campaigns. For this example, there could be a “sizes campaign” or a “states campaign.” That way you can address similar words with the most relevant ad text and landing pages. Next week, we’ll dive deeper into campaign and ad group segmentation.

How To Use E-mail To Benefit SEO

Posted on by poonambhatt

We all know that search engines do not crawl or index e-mail. What we forget is that you do have the option to view a copy of the e-mail you receive in a browser. Usually this is reserved for e-mails that are sent from brands to people that have registered for a newsletter, etc. This copy of the e-mail is usually just a simple HTML page that can be crawled and indexed by the search engines, and, if you play your cards right, could benefit your SEO efforts.

If you’re a Marketer, most of the E-mail you send out to your audience will provide the option to view the e-mail in a browser, usually identified at the top of the email with something like “If this message is not displaying properly, click here to launch your browser.” When clicked, your browser opens up the same version of the e-mail as a static HTML page. Typically this e-mail has links back to your web site for additional information or other calls to action, which can be used to pass link equity for SEO purposes.

There may be certain content or emails that you don’t want to have crawled and indexed by the engines. In this case, simply format your robot.txt file accordingly. Here’s some tips & examples on how to go about this:

  • Put all of the HTML versions of the e-mail that you do want to have crawled into a directory. In this example, I’ve named the directory “Google_Email”.
  • Put all of the HTML versions of the e-mail that you don’t want to have crawled (due to sensitive content) into a directory. In this example, I’ve named the directory “No_Email”.
  • Update your robot.txt file to disallow the “No_Email” directory:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /No_Email

  • Make sure that all of the HTML versions in the “Google_Email” directory are utilizing SEO Best Practices – Optimized Headlines, Body Copy, Links Using Keywords and pointing to your site’s targeted SEO pages.
  • To further increase links and traffic to your targeted SEO pages, add a “Share” option to the e-Mail that links to your site’s targeted SEO pages, thereby creating the opportunity to increase link equity naturally.
  • If you cannot add body text links in the e-mail, create a “Quick Links” area in the right panel to offer links to your site’s targeted SEO pages.
  • Add these E-Mails (the actual URLs) to your XML Sitemap.
  • If possible, setup your web metrics to see what impact these e-mails have on your SEO performance.

It’s that simple!

Google Starts Displaying Pages Similar to Search Results

Posted on by poonambhatt

Google has just launched a new search feature that aims to help you easily find new websites that are similar to the ones you are familiar with and are related to  the subject that interest you, particularly for your current search session.

The new feature called “Pages similar ” makes the Google search feature “similar” more prominent and visible on your search results. You can find a box just below the search results page containing list of links that point to, well pages that are similar to the current search results that Google has yielded for your search terms.

The links listed on this Pages similar box are alternative sites that you won’t normally check they don’t directly answer your search query but then again the site may contain contents that would otherwise be useful to your current search.

Google gave the following example illustrating Google’s Pages Similar to feature.

For example, with the recent earthquakes around the world, many of us have been looking for international relief organizations. We knew that Direct Relief International has been actively involved in Haiti, so we started off by searching for [direct relief international]. The first result on the page linked us to the Direct Relief website, where we found many ways to help in Haiti. But what if one wants to support several organizations? If you click the “Similar” link that’s on the same line as the “www.directrelief.org/” URL, you’ll find other nonprofits that are also involved in relief efforts.

We’ve offered a “Similar” feature on results for a while now as a way to discover new, useful sites, but it hasn’t been too visible. Since we’ve been continuously improving this feature and we think it’s really useful, we’re now going to start showing these alternative sites more prominently. Starting this week, for queries where similar sites are likely to be helpful, we’ll display a list of “Pages similar” at the bottom of the results page. For example, this is the list of sites similar to Direct Relief International: