Archive for the ‘Keywords’ Category

If like me, you probably check your most important keyword rankings on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes Google likes to personalise the results it returns based on sites you have previously visited. Resulting in your site or any site you regularly visit appearing higher for you than it would for others. A nice touch at times but a tad frustrating and perhaps misleading when you want to check how your SEO is truly doing. Continue reading

When doing keyword research you need to understand not only what your customers are searching for but where they are searching from. Google’s Trends and Google Insights can be used alongside the Keyword Tool to give you comprehensive market research data. Continue reading

If like me, you'll agree that keyword research is the backbone of a successful SEO strategy. And you will also know there are endless tools to help brainstorm and select keywords. So where’s the best place to start?

Many will correctly point to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool but how about mining your keyword data through Google Analytics for strengths and ‘low hanging fruit’?

Continue reading

Google Analytics rocks, but the single most annoying thing about it is its inability to provide the exact search phrase that a visitor enters in a search engine through PPC. Instead Google AdWords & Analytics only reports the keyword/phrase that you bid on. If you are an AdWords marketer and are with me this far, I am sure you share the sadness I feel :(. If not, don't worry, read on and I will share the sadness, but also the shining bright light to AdWords keyword happiness! :)

Ok, an example perhaps?

Sure - by default, a broad match for a keyword or keyphrase is used in AdWords.

So, Let's say I bid on the term ‘Google Analytics’ with a broad match in AdWords and a visitor enters ‘The Cheaters Guide for Integrating Google AdWords & Analytics’ into a search engine.

Providing I had bid enough and the Quality Score for the keyphrase was also high enough, the ad would show - but up until now, the only data that AdWords or Analytics would provide about the search keyphrase are the keywords that I bid on and not the exact words that the searcher entered.

This is ok for an exact match, but what can you learn about the search behaviour for a broad or phrase match? Very little! I originally thought Google had selectively chosen to exclude this data for commercial reasons in an attempt increase its ever expanding money pockets.

Fear Not...

The guys from GA-Analytics have been busy formulating a filter to solve this exact problem. In fact, I have found it very useful for Yahoo & MSN PPC campaigns too.

It turns out that Google is not being quite the scrooge I first thought. But they certainly don’t make it easy! Luckily the GA-Analytics boys do:

1) Create two filters as per the images here:

Override Bid Term 1 & Override Bid Term 2 2) Create a new profile for your existing site. This keeps the detailed keyword data in a separate profile. You can apply this filter to your main profile(s) if you prefer, but a separate profile allows for continuity and top level reporting in your main profile with keyword detail available as required. 3) Apply the two filters to the new profile, in the order Override Bid Term 1 *then* Override Bid Term 2

What does this mean?

This awesome extra bit of detail can help in the refinement of your Google AdWords campaigns. It can really boost your long tail keywords strategies. The long term concept focuses on a smaller volume of searchers for more specific niche terms.

Long tail keywords are often less competitive and have the potential to have a really high conversion rate for your products and services. Oftentimes, the more keywords a searcher users, the closer they are in the ‘buying search process’ – wohoo, real them in baby!

It can also be used to identify keywords that are not relevant and do not convert for your product or services. You can build up a list of negative keywords for all or some of your campaigns.

I really love this filter. Remember though, filters can be used to include or exclude data. For this reason I would make sure you make a duplicate analytics profile when applying a new filter, until you get your bearings and are sure you haven’t filtered out any useful data!