I have purchased tools to help me help me with my pay-per-click campaigns, but you don’t have to. Assuming that you are on a very tight budget, you probably would like to use free tools and there are a number of them to pick from. They include:
- Google Keyword Tool helps me to find keywords relevant to my main keyword.
- Google Insights lets me see what other keywords I can use in my campaign, but better yet, it also can indicate which keywords to use as negatives.
- Google Trends, gives me some idea on how that keyword is doing overall and it informs me of the countries, cities, and languages are using the keywords. I focus on countries and cities.
- Google Search allows me to locate other keywords to use in my campaign or to use as a negative in my campaign.Using Google Keyword Tool and Other Tools:
When I use the Google Keyword Tool, I try to select relevant keywords that will cost me around $3.00. There is a column that gives on, on average, the average cost per click of a particular keyword. You will need to include the "Avg CPC" column to be added. Volume should also be included. Refer to both of these columns. Once you are in the Google keyword tool, you have two choices. Either select keywords that have a volume of 10,000 or more or select a lot of low cost keywords that don't have as much volume. For example, if my primary keyword is "starting a home business", some of the keywords I see that cost around $3.00 and have volume of over 10,000, include "how to start a business", "start own business", "start business", etc. Keywords that are low-cost, cost around $3.00, have volume for the same primary keyword, include "starting an internet business", starting a home based business, "homebased business", etc. For search marketing, I use exact and phrase keywords. For content marketing, I use phrase and broad. For each, be sure to include your negatives. The Google Keyword Tool also gives you a list of negatives.
Another way to select keywords is to use Google and put in your keyword, then look at your competition. There is a free tool that you can use to look at what keywords are being used by the top sites. Sometimes this tool will show you the keywords and other times it will not, but when you do find the keywords used by your competitor, include it into your campaign. The tool I am referring to is called, "Free Meta Keywords Tool". Do a search on this and you should be able to find it. You should see the name "Apogee web consulting" at the top. I have successfully used this tool. Another tool I have used is called Textanz. I use this tool to analyze frequency of phrases that are relevant to my keyword.
One other way to look at the keywords of your competitors is to use the Google Keyword Tool. Take the website of your competitor, click on the website content button, and put in the website address. Look for keywords that fit your criteria; low cost, less competition.Using Google Insights:
Google Insights gives more insight on how a keyword is doing. I use this tool to decide on whether a keyword is profitable. The information provided is shown with a graph. Be sure you are looking at the last 90 days. Using "starting a home business" as an example, the graph shows me that it looks to be a keyword to use in my pay-per-click campaign. I see also that the United States is the only country that has an interest, so the U.S will be the country I would select to market to. It also shows me keywords that I can either add to may campaign or add as a negative.
To verify whether this is a good keyword to use, I will also type this keyword into google search. The results of my search show me that the keyword has a high volume, which is not what I want. I want a keyword that has less than eight ads and a lower volume, preferably less than 500,000. Why? Because it will be easier to include my ad on the first page of Google and I will have a better chance of a prospect taking a look at my ad. If you are unable to find a keyword from your list of keywords that fits all of the criteria of being low cost and having less competition, then you can either continue using the keyword you have selected or select another primary keyword.
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