A well-researched and thorough keyword base is the foundation for a strong search ad campaign.
That does not mean it needs to contain every keyword possible. In fact, scaling the size of a keyword base to fit the ad spend budget is important, otherwise a campaign will optimize slowly and likely under-perform.
Why Keyword Base Size Matters
It is also important to identify keywords that do not have adequate search volume for the PPC campaigns to match to them. It is too expensive, in terms of server capacity, for the platform to match to many long-tail keywords. So they declare them “Low Volume” and, in effect, penalize campaigns that use them.
Here is how we assemble a good keyword base through the process of keyword discovery.
A Good Keyword Base Is the Foundation
It is important to have a process for reliably building out the keyword base for PPC campaigns. The keyword base strongly influences how well a campaign can ultimately perform. The keyword base is the foundation for search advertising campaigns.
Spidering Competitor Websites and Landing Pages
We spider the competitor sites identified during our PPC competitive research process. We also spider your site and landing pages to extract and filter keywords that go into a keyword bucket, as shown in the diagram.
Reviewing Competitor Positioning and Messaging
While locating direct competitors, we also familiarize ourselves with their products and/or services. We take note of competing advertiser positioning, messaging, offers, and trends.
Expanding the Keyword Base
We then expand the number of keywords discovered using proprietary software tools until we have developed a comprehensive keyword base.
Scaling Keywords to Fit the Campaign Budget
At this point, we have most likely developed a keyword base too large for a pragmatic ad budget to serve, so the list is often pared. However, any wasteful or ineffective keywords will be parsed out of the campaign as we optimize it.
Keeping Keywords That Support Performance
The optimization process leaves only those keywords that perform well, or assisting keywords that pull traffic into the top or middle of the conversion funnel.
Finding Long-Tail Keyword Opportunities
Longer-tail keywords that convert well might be missed with a less robust keyword discovery process.
