Effective Keyword Research & List Preparation (for PPC) - Day 3

Step Three - Cleaning Our Keywords List and Splitting it Into AdGroups

Hi guys and gals,

What a bright sunny day - at least in my mind it is… Being here in the great Britain, the weather is the most unpredictable part of life - we have everything else rather well sorted.

I wanted to give you a virtual *patt on the back* if you've stuck around for so long with the Case Studies.

You see, I won't be exaggerating if I tell you that for sticking around so long you've already made more effort than a lot of other people who decide to make a living online.

Just before we begin with today's session, allow me to a little *rant*.

At least in the beginning it is very daunting and definitely full of info that you can't seem to get on top of :o).

Two things I want to recommend to you from someone that's been there and done that… Get in the right circle of people - they will mentor you and save you a lot of headaches, and will act as a positive support. And the second one, have eyes on the back of your head - just meaning, try and learn as much as possible - be aware of the industry you're in.

Righty oh, this is where it gets very interesting!

We get on to the next step of our case study - cleaning our list.

You can either do the cleaning manually"one by one" and even thought you only have just over 5000 kwds it will still take you hours, and you'll probably miss out some stuff…

Or you could use KeyWord Companion (KWC) to cut that time dramatically and also, be sure not to miss anything.

Now, there are some tools that you just have to have if you are to do a certain job - and this IS one of them.

I tend to over sell this tool - but it is just because I love it soo much - it is intended purely to help you get better at the kwd list building process. It will really bring value to your business. So I hope you would just take my word for what it is - the word of someone who uses this tool every time a kwd list is involved - and it is damn good :o).

Actually, you'll see how good it is in the next few steps…

So, I have my list in Excel and now I want to clean it up, get my negative kwds out of it, my short list, and to group it in appropriate ad groups ready to put into a PPC campaign.

2) How to use one of the best kwd manipulation tool I have ever owned, to segment your kwd lists in seconds.

I won't go into extreme detail on how to use KeyWord Companion, because this is not why we're here. But will point out the benefits that it can directly bring to you.

So, now I've imported my full Excel list into KWC into a new project. Make sure you keep the hits estimates you got for each word from Wordtracker.

1. Delete duplicates:
   If you're importing your list from Wordtracker, you shouldn't have any, because they de-dupe it as you collect the kwds, but if you've got your list in any other way in an Excel file you are likely to have some if not many. It's just a matter of ticking one box (1) and then refreshing your list (2) - and it's done.
2. Delete the phrases with unwanted characters:
   You do that by selecting the box underneath the duplicates tick. Now we're left with just 5474 phrases from 5530.

Step Four - Clean and Collect the Negative Keywords

This is where we will start to shape up our negative kwds list. This is a very nifty method I learned from Perry Marshall.

Basically we'll go down our list and see which kwds/phrases we don't want our ads to show for. We'll put these aside in an Excel sheet and will then delete them from the main list in KWC, but we'll keep them to add to our campaign as negative kwds.

Adding appropriate negative kwds to your campaign will allow us to only get our ads displayed for relevant searches - when someone types in a broad or generic phrase, that may carry other meanings we're not interested in. Hence our CTR (click through rate) gets better and our CPC (cost per click) costs fall :o) Magic!

So the first few phrases I can see here are:

• Atkins
• Numbers
• Green tea

And so on. So go through the list and weed out all those negative kwds - but make sure that as you're deleting them from your main list - you are adding them on to your negative kwds list.

After removing these I am left with 4343 - in second.

I'll keep going with this process until I am sure I have all the kwds I want to remove… Be right back ;o)

OK for now. I'll move on to my kwd grouping now. The negatives list I will finalize when I am done with grouping - it will flesh out any other words I haven't spotted yet.

Stage Five - Splitting Your Keywords Into AdGroups

This is where the KWC software shines!!!

Phase 3 in the tool. This is where you'll be able to separate all your kwds into relevant groups - or ad groups if you think in Google AdWords terms - within minutes and not hours.

OK, pay attention here :o) - because we are only doing a short and powerful list at this stage.

I will go for the "buyer" phrases now.

Later, when we have tested our short list and we have an idea as to what converts and how well, we will come back to the longer list and segment it then. It will be done effectively the same way we are about to do this one - it's just a lot wiser to do the rest when we are ready later, because we'll have more knowledge of the market, and we can check if there are any new kwds that have come on the market since our last list generation.

So, I have 4343 phrases left after taking the most obvious negative words out.

Now I'll sort the left over phrases by the amount of searches they have received.

Next, I will go down the list looking for the most voluminous "buyer" kwds and form groups around those.

I've picked anything with 100 searches and above. The rest of the terms I will look at later, as these may contain more specific phrases with lower volume of searches, but good conversion potential.

So from the high volume list I get these groups:

• best weight loss
• build muscle
• burn fat
• diet plans
• diet program
• exercise tips
• fast weight loss
• fat burning
• fat loss
• gain muscle
• how to gain weight
• healthy weight loss
• how to lose weight
• lose fat
• lose weight
• muscle building
• strength training
• teen weight loss
• weight loss
• weight loss diet
• weight loss program

I know it looks like a lot, but remember the phrases inside these groups are very closely targeted. This is important, because it means that my ads for each group will be as targeted as possible increasing my chances of getting a good CTR.

A good CTR will likely decrease the cost for each click I pay.

The other deeper reason for the close targeted groups is so that I can understand in a very short time - without having to re-work anything, which kwds are profitable and which are not.

So at the end I've only picked the ones that had over 100 searches and were relevant to us in terms of the criteria I outlined for you above.

I ended up with a short-list of 110 keywords.

Note that I have decided to add some more kwds I found in the Wordtracker main list. You can do that within Keyword Companion - it lets you add them one by one to a specific group.

This is one of own tactics - it's just that I don't like to miss out on things :o). The words I added are very relevant and I need to add them for piece of mind.

Also, remember I mentioned that this product is somewhat of a brand in itself.

A simple search on the name will bring out over 1 million search results, and naturally there's a lot more competition.

Anyway - PPC is not a straight forward science thing - that's why I love doing it. I cannot cover every scenario here. It's about thinking within the context of every situation and being creative with your marketing tactics.

So this is my take on what "brand related" kwds to add:

Now, I still remember the days (unfortunately) when I didn't have KWC and the same job would have taken me at least a day. It's crazy to think now that I would have had the patience to sit through this then.

With that, I will finish off for today. I don't want this to get too long for comfort, so tomorrow we'll tackle the next and final step of kwd list manipulation. Let me know if the information chunks are too big of too small.

And don't forget that I need your feedback and questions :o)

Till then…

Anita

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