Choosing Search Phrases

One of the most frequent questions from people who are just starting out in pay per click advertising is "what search phrases should I select?". This is not only a very common question, but also a very important question. In this article I will give you advice on how to go about selecting search phrases to bid on.

The first part of the process is selecting an initial search phrase (keyword) to use. A good way to get started is to ask yourself "what keywords would people looking for my service/product/information use?" For example, if you own a website about chocolate, then obviously your main keyword would be "chocolate".

Now that you have you main search phrase decided, the next thing you should do is brainstorm some extra search phrases are extensions of your main keyword. Again, using the "chocolate" keyword as an example, you could choose search phrases such as "white chocolate", "dark chocolate" and so on. You should do this for multiple keywords. You could even take this strategy one step further and come up with even more variations of your additional search phrases e.g. "buy white chocolate", "best white chocolate" etc. The more variations you think of, the more traffic you will get. Similarly, these variations tend to not have as much competition amongst advertisers, therefore you will generally pay less per click.

Consider add-on words such as "buy", "best", "cheap" etc. Many people rely on search engines to provide them with information on topics which they may not know a lot about. When someone searches for "best chocolate", and sees your website listed in the search results, the user will regard your website as either a site that sells the best chocolates, has information on the best chocolates or a site that will help to satisfy the users need for information on the topic. Similarly, if the searcher is searching for "buy chocolate" then they are in a buying mood and are more likely to buy when visiting your website. This will improve ROI.

Some important factors to take into consideration when selecting search phrases to bid on:

* Is the search phrase relevant? You should only ever bid on search phrases that are relevant to your website. Visitors who are not interested in your website's topic will almost certainly leave straight away. Therefore, it would be a waste of money to bid on non-relevant search phrases.

* Are there any variations of your search phrase that you haven't thought of yet? If you bid on the search phrase "chocolate", why not consider bidding on the search phrase "chocolates" etc.

* Is your search phrase spelt correctly, and does it use proper grammar? Spelling mistakes can be embarrassing. If you spell your search phrases incorrectly then you will not be listed for the correct spelling (and miss out on traffic)!

* Know your market. What search terms do you use when searching for related topics/themes on search engines? If you search for a particular relevant keyword, than most likely your visitors will to.

* If your website is an ecommerce site, you only want to pay for visitors that are interested in buying your product. Will the searcher buy your product if they are not searching with the intent to buy? Some people may only be looking for information and not someone to buy. If your main focus is selling, be sure to only select keywords that will lure searchers looking to buy.

Selecting search phrases (keywords) is the most important part of any pay per click advertising campaign. Good search phrase selection will improve the performance of your pay per click advertising campaign.