When it comes to Google and Bing Ads, there’s a lot of effort to be put into choosing the right keywords. A correct keyword can drastically improve your ad’s performance and bring the conversions you need for your business.
Keywords are terms, words, or phrases used to match your ads with the terms people search for. Therefore, when advertising, you must choose keywords relevant to the user and highly related to your offer.
This match is essential to the success of your online marketing strategy. High-quality keywords can put you in front of the user and bring more interesting leads to your website. The higher the match between what people are looking for and what you offer, the better it is for your business.
But how do you choose the best keywords?
When it comes to keywords, you have to pay attention to two aspects: competition and search.
Competition refers to how many advertisers are bidding on that keyword. This will undoubtedly impact your marketing efforts because paying more for keywords to get a sale may jeopardise your chances of breaking even and making a profit. There’s a balance between how much you are willing to pay for each keyword and how many leads that term can bring you.
Search refers to how many users look for a specific expression every month. If you are comparing two keywords and one of them has low traffic, it means people don’t use that expression to find something. Therefore, it is better not to use it.
Combine search and competition, and you will know which keywords are more valuable for each of your campaigns. But it is also crucial to look beyond keywords that are the most wanted.
Enter long-tail keywords
Long-tails are terms composed of 3 or more words. They tend to attract lower search volumes because they are more specific. However, the traffic they attract is more relevant.
An upside is that long-tail keywords have less competition due to most advertisers wanting broader keywords to reach different sets of users.
The key is finding a long-tail keyword with low traffic (low but not inexistent) and less competition. This may be the sweet spot where you can get meaningful conversion without paying too much.
By using a long-tail keyword, you specify your product or service, have less competition and rank well on searches.
A long-tail keyword example
A high traffic and highly competitive keyword is “coffee”. It has billions of searches every minute on Google.
To advertise your coffee shop, you need to minimise competition (which will allow you to pay less for the keyword) but not decrease any interesting traffic numbers. The goal is to be more specific with the keyword.
For example, “coffee shop” narrows the search to places. The user is not looking for a “coffee machine” or “coffee beans” to buy. They are looking for a place.
Therefore, if you use the keyword “Coffee shop Amsterdam”, you are targeting searches looking for a place that sells coffee in the city of Amsterdam. You may be targeting local people, people who come to the city for work and need to grab a coffee in the morning, or tourists visiting the city who need a place to drink or eat.
The long-tail keyword will be much more effective than just using “coffee” or “coffee shop” because it will be shown to people with a specific need that your store can fulfil.
You may use other long-tail keywords such as “coffee shop with wifi” or “coffee shop with outdoor seating”. In this case, if someone is searching for this information, you can see what they are looking for and what they want in a coffee shop.
How to choose long-tail keywords
The digital marketing strategy you should follow is a mix between broad keywords and specific keywords. The exercise is to see which terms draw more people to your website and the best conversion terms.
Here are 4 ways to search and choose long-tail keywords for your ads or blog post for SEO purposes:
1 — Think like a customer
Put yourself in their shoes to understand what they are looking for and how they write. Start by building a customer journey to identify touchpoints and tendencies. You can also ask your current customers how they found your business or which words they relate to your brand.
2 — Query research
Google gives you an excellent free tool to check what people most search for. Just open the Google search bar and type one or two words. Below will appear results with suggestions of what other people are searching for when they also type those first words.
These can serve as examples of long-tail keywords you want to target. When you are searching, check the suggestions presented after the first 10 results.
3 — Google Keyword Planner
In terms of ads, you cannot skip this step. Researching for keywords ensures you are using the best keywords and keep updating your ads according to different tendencies on user search.
You can use Google’s tool for this, Keyword Planner, located in your Google Ads account. There you can search for a keyword, get estimates on bidding values, and create your plan. Use the tool to find the low-competition terms with good traffic but that are not as competitive as others.
4 — Study the competition
In terms of long-tail keywords, look at the search terms your competition is using and paying for. Check the structure of the ad, the headline, the description and which offers they are advertising. Pinpoint the keywords they most use and see if they could bring interesting results to your campaigns.
You can do this by looking at organic results and seeing which top 5 websites appear for a given search term. If these companies coincide, meaning they’re getting organic and paid results, you will have a tougher time reaching the top spot and can probably stay away from those highly competitive terms.
In the Advertio app, we suggest the best keywords based on the effective results long-tail keywords bring. Start using the app for your campaigns, improving your results from day one.
.svg)
