Search Engine Monkeying

Simple Instructions to create a new Google AdWord keyword campaign.

1. Brainstorm and figure out the different uses for your product. Your trying to be really broad and come out with different groups and niches that would be interested in your product. Freemind is a great open-source application for mind-mapping (brainstorming and organizing your thoughts)
2. Use a product such as WordTracker to come up with the main AdGroups. A lot of the terms are going to be similar so you don’t have to use everything WordTracker kicks out but remember Google highlights plurals differently then singular terms so you’re going to want them in two separate AdGroups.
3. After adding an AdGroup to Google, I use Google’s Keyword tool next to find keywords. Try to make sure the keyword is placed in the most relevant AdGroup. After adding keywords, make sure to run the tool again to find negative keywords.
4. Use other tools to find even more keywords. I think Keyword Discovery (Trellian) does a great job. ThemeZoom is another tool that pulls down a lot of keywords. However, the tool wasn’t meant for PPC and a lot of results are based of obscure tangents and aren’t relevant at all.
5. Usually, I do a variety of internet searches and check Wikipedia to try to find related products and brands which I will then add to a new AdGroup.
6. Additionally, check glossaries of books related to your product field to find more keywords.
7. You may want to create an Excel document containing common phrase prefixes and suffixes for your product and run these against the keywords that you have and add the new phrases to your AdGroups. Common prefixes include “new” and “newest” and a common suffix would include “information” or “support”.
8. Use the keyword edit tool in Google to add Exact and Phrase matching for all your keywords. Google’s instructions say this step is unnecessary but I’ve noticed that it dramatically lowers bid prices.
9. Use AdWord Editor to copy and past your old campaign creating a new campaign that is identical. Change the setting on the first campaign to be Google and Search Network only and the second campaign to be Content only. Content bids should generally be half of what your search campaign is. This will save you a lot of money. Also, if you want, you can erase all the Exact and Phrase keywords from the Content only campaign. If your feeling really motivated, you can separate the search campaign further into a Google only campaign and Google and Search Network campaign and adjust the bids but I really haven’t noticed an advantage.

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