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Adwords PPC Basics – Keyword Targeting

Picture of Honcho Honcho : Dec 8, 2010 5:04:28 AM

Welcome to another PPC Guide blog, this week I will be taking you through keyword targeting and the importance of directing the right keywords to the right target audience. So to start, what is keyword targeting? And how will it affect you? Keyword targeting is an essential part of any successful Adwords campaign. To have a good amount of success with any keyword you need to target the correct audience and do so in the most effective way. Think of it as selling an expensive sports car. If you take the car to a retirement home then your sales potential will be much lower than if you took it to an auto show, No matter how good the car is. Figure 1 shows the three main types of keyword targeting with a description about how each type differ.

Figure 1. Representation of how many people see each match So now we know about the three main types of keyword targeting in Google Adwords let’s see how they could be applied to a real life situation. Let’s say you’re selling your sports car and you create an advert using the keyword “Lamborghini Sports Car” and compare the results we get for each match type when a person searches Google for “Fast car sports”. Broad Match If you have made your ad with the keyword “Lamborghini Sports Car” and selected broad match then your ad may be shown when searching for “Lamborghini car sports”. This may bring customers to your site that have no intention of purchasing a Lamborghini. But broad match has its advantages as someone could be searching with the keyword “Lamborghini Car” That wants a Lamborghini Car. Phrase Match If your keywords are phrase match targeted then your advert will not appear when a client searches “Fast Car Sports”. But if someone searches “Fast Lamborghini Sports Car” for example, the ad could appear as the phrase is within the keyword. This search could or could not be relevant to your business. Exact match If your keywords are targeted by exact match then the ad will not appear for either search “Fast Car Sports” or “Fast Sports Car”. This will ensure that only people searching the targeted keywords “Lamborghini Sports Car” see your advert. This could possibly lose you potential traffic and miss out on possible opportunities like searches for “Buy Lamborghini Sports Cars”. There are two more match types that you can use to refine your target audience. Negative match Eliminates searched phrases you don’t want your ad to appear for, such as cheap or free. For example by putting a negative match on keyword “Rent” would eliminate keywords such as “Rent Lamborghini Sports Cars”. This will prevent clicks from people who are not interested in purchases only renting. Not including negative matches has the potential to have a negative effect on CTR and quality score. Embedded match Allows you to prevent your ad from appearing in relation to certain phrase or exact matches. To prevent our advert showing for expensive and possibly unrelated terms we would use an embedded match on the keyword “Lamborghini”, this would prevent our add for showing if someone just searched “Lamborghini”. Adverts would still show if the term “Lamborghini sports car” was searched. The success of your ads are reliant on making sure the correct people see your adverts, with the different match types Google allows you to do this effectively. My next PPC guide is about Keyword selection so make sure you check it out.