Keyword Research & Keyword Grouping

Keywords…

Picking the right or wrong keywords makes the difference between going down in a blaze of glory or "potentially" earning hundreds every day.

Some people start with keywords when they do their market research and product selection.

They type in simple keyword phrases like buy, cure, how to, and others into the Free Wordtracker Tool or the Google Keyword Tool — and get the most popular things people are looking to "buy" or "cure" or "figure out how to do".

Then they look in ClickBank for products in that niche.

This works. Really well.

Generally speaking — you want to identify and use "buy" keywords and you want to avoid "information" keywords.

Farming for "buy" (transactional) keywords — while at the same time having the strength to discard the useless "info" (informational) ones — is absolutely the key to a successful campaign.

Sometimes it's a hard pill to swallow … having to turf out so many keywords — but YOU MUST DO IT!

Be brutal in your keyword selection. I know it can be tempting to just leave in those borderline keywords. Don't do it — at least in the beginning. Throw em' out!

Markets are different — and the consumer buying behaviors in those markets are never the same. Its very important to know as much about your market demographic as you possibly can find out.

Do your research. Try get into the head (mindset) of your target visitor.

It'll help you understand the "intent" behind each keyword phrase search. What keywords to keep — and which ones to dump.

In consumer markets, for example, where visitors are looking to purchase, say, an iPod, they may go through a few stages in the buying cycle.

They may start off doing informational searches on a particular product. Over time they'll then change to comparative searches (price shopping) as they move closer to making a buying decision.

For example — if someone is searching on Google for "ipod" they are browsing and looking for information.

If they are searching for "download movies to my ipod" they are a lot more specific and probably in a buying mood.

If they are looking for "buy 24 season 3 for ipod" they have a credit card nearby.

By the way — every season of 24 rocks. ;-)

Finally, when that person has all the questions in their head answered — they'll move on and make the final buying decision. Of course, the keywords used all the way along this buying cycle will vary a lot.

You want to catch these "buyers" when they are in the final stages in the cycle. Knowing the market will give you a massive advantage.

In fact — knowing the market can be the difference between success and failure. Some markets are just plain out weird. You'll never successfully mine them for gold if you don't know enough about how those consumers tick.

I went through this very same buying cycle just two weeks ago. It lasted a few days as I pondered on what was the best LCD computer monitor to purchase.

It was between a Dell 30-inch Widescreen Digital Flat Panel LCD monitor — or the Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display.

I needed to get rid of the duel 19" CRT screens from my desk. (Because they were big bastards that took up far too much desk real-estate.)

The process took days. Those ads that I clicked on in the beginning when I was just looking for reviews — earned nothing from me.

In fact I cost those advertisers money as I clicked on their ads to get to where I wanted to go as quickly as possible.

I finally chose the Apple monitor — but God only knows how much money I had cost those advertisers while I was deep in the informational searching stage.

So pick the keywords that you intend to spend money on, very, very carefully.

I have a feeling that the WoW gaming market is pretty weird. I'm going to have my hands full trying to distinguish buyers from freebie seekers. (And no — freebie seekers don't always include the word free in their searches either.)

Keyword Research Tools

There are more keyword research tools than I care to think about. Here are just a few of the most important ones IMO…

And you know what — out of all those tools … I pretty much exclusively use Wordtracker and the Google tools to harvest keywords. That's it. Nothing else.

With that said — I also use iSpionage for keyword list grouping … which is just one of its MANY features. That tool is a lifesaver. I love it!

Read the Sales Copy First!

People often jump right into generating 10,000 keywords. READ THE SALES COPY FIRST before diving in to use your favorite keyword research tool.

You won't know what kind of keywords to look for if you don't. Every market has a specific "language" that they use — and you need to know it. You need to get into the head of the target market.

For me to get down and dirty with the gaming market — and more specifically the World of Warcraft market — I need to figure out how they tick. How they search. What they search for, and how they go about their business.

There's no better place to get a glimpse of their language then to read the sales copy of the product you plan to promote.

A well written sales message will speak to the audience in this special language — using specific words and slang. This is gold.

Make a note of all these words. You'll need them when you start your keyword research.

Keyword Research

Now that I've read the sales letter for the product I'm planning on promoting — I'm going to fire up Wordtracker.

The product is all about tricks on getting World of Warcraft gold. It also has a really cool hook which I'm going to exploit in the next section. (More about the hook later.)

For now — I know that this audience is all about wanting to get gold for their virtual world. I'm going to start off searching for the broadest root keyword: warcraft

Wordtracker: warcraft

The results are pretty interesting. The most searched on keyword phrase just happens to be world of warcraft, with 14,787 search per day.

The interesting thing is that this three word phrase outstrips the single word search of just warcraft by a factor of 6. That's amazing. You hardly ever see that.

world of warcraft gold is the third most searched on term. I'm going to dig deeper into that search term — as it's what I was looking for in the first place anyway.

Wordtracker: world of warcraft gold

Digging In Wordtracker — It's Actual Work

Once you use the keyword basket to find relevant phrases you have a few options. What you want to do now is "dig" and find related and relevant keyword phrases. Here are your main choices:

  • The "old school" way is to dig on a phrase like "world of warcraft gold", save everything to your basket, then dig on all the phrases underneath that like "buy world of warcraft gold" and "cheap world of warcraft gold", etc. Then bounce up a level and see if there are any other relevant phrases and repeat the process.

  • Use the "new school" Keyword Laboratory tool and enter in a few main keywords like "world of warcraft", "world of warcraft gold", etc, and let Wordtracker generate a list of 1000 keywords for you. One thing though, the list isn't targeted. You have to go through it and remove the keywords that don't fit what you're looking for.

If both these steps seem like actual work — they are. Don't worry too much right now about the Internet dream of sipping Mohitos on the beach, and just do it.

Keyword List Grouping

Finding a couple — or a hundred — or a thousand "buy" keywords isn't enough. You have to segment your keyword lists!

The days of throwing 2000 keywords into one Ad Group are long over and if you aspire to the Nirvana of low CPC and Google love you need to make sub lists.

And this isn't just a Google thing. There is plenty of money to make on Yahoo, MSN, Adbrite, and the other advertising venues.

But real success usually is marked with effort and here we need to create focused groups of keywords. More about why later…

Group #1: Buy Cheap Gold
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Group #2: Cheap Gold
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Group #3: Buy Gold
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Group #4: Earn Gold
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Group #5: Farm Gold
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Group #6: Guide
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Group #7: How To
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Group #8: Make Gold
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Group #9: Purchase Gold
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Group #10: Tips
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Note: I can also probably combine group 7 & 8 together.

But you get idea, right?

2009 UPDATE: I use iSpionage now because it's fast, accurate and super easy to use. It's an online web-based tool. You use it from within your Internet browser.

You can, of course, use Windows Notepad or Microsoft Excel to segment your master keyword list.

Doing it manually with 100 odd keywords isn't the end of the world, but let me tell ya … when you are trying to filter 1000s of keywords in Excel, it can, and does, take HOURS! (Even days!)

AdWords Keyword Research Conclusion

It's ll about the keywords — or more precisely — the intent behind the keyword search.

Trying to figure out the conversation in the searcher's head — and then closely matching it with a marketing message is the secret to conversion and mega sales.

This process — the market to message match — all starts with the ability to effectively segment your keyword list into tightly focused groups.

Simply dumping 100s or even 1000s of keywords into one ad groups is insane. You won't make money that way. Not in a million years — not anymore.

The PPC game is too competitive for stupid marketing.

This game is about to get interesting. We're about to go to war. We're about to take fire. But we'll be prepared. I've got your back…

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