How To Do Keyword Research For AdWords

By: Adrian Key Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Everyone knows that when it's time to start a new AdWords campaign or review an exisiting one, it's important to find the right keywords. But, it's amazing how many don't know how to do keyword research right.

I know, your impatient to get going, eager to watch the visitors roll in and anxious to experience that feeling of excitement as the sales start to rack up. But, the harsh reality is that you're going to miss out on hundreds of keywords that could benefit your business if you don't do your keyword research first.

To fully exploit your niche and beat the competition, you must "dig deep and go wide".

I'll explain what this statement means to you later in this post.

But first ...

Create Your Seed Keyword List

In every instance keyword research starts with a single seed keyword and a good keyword selection tool.

A seed keyword is any short, popular keyword relevant to your market on which you can build your keyword list. And a keyword selection tool will effortlessly expand your seed keyword into a list of related keywords that match what people enter into a search engine when they perform a query.

Every AdWords user has their own favourite keyword selection tool. If yours is a good one, it will return hundreds of keywords that contain your seed keyword and have been used recently in search queries.

Imagine for example, you're running a small business from home that makes chocolates. To market your business with AdWords you might use "chocolates" as your seed keyword.

After typing your seed keyword into your favourite keyword selection tool, you get hundreds of keyword suggestions. Looking down the list you pick out some that look useful and in doing so create your seed list which includes phrases like:

+ chocolate chip cookies

+ chocolate strawberries

+ chocolate bars

+ dark chocolate

These are all phrases that describe products you make and sell in your business.

Dig Deep And Find Your Keyword Tails

Just a few seconds ago, I told you that to fully exploit your niche and beat your AdWords competition, you'll have to "dig deep and go wide". Now use the seed list you've just created to dig deep and find even more keywords for your campaign.

Enter each phrase from your seed list into your keyword selection tool to create more keyword lists. These new lists are your keyword tails.

Returning to the previous example, selling home made chocolates, to dig deep into your seed keyword list you'd type each phrase into your keyword selection tool and pick out all the relevant keywords for your business to create your keyword tails.

Typing "chocolate chip cookies" into your keyword selection tool returns hundreds more phrases from which you can select the most relevant. Some examples of what you might find are:

+ chewy chocolate chip cookies

+ oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

+ best chocolate chip cookies

+ healthy chocolate chip cookies

+ double chocolate chip cookies

All describe the different types of chip cookies your business sells.

If we do the same again using "chocolate strawberries" this time we get keywords like:

+ chocolate covered strawberries

+ chocolate dipped strawberries

+ strawberries in chocolate

+ strawberries with chocolate

These are all excellent keywords that could be used to describe your business. Notice now your seed list is starting to quickly build into a very powerful list of quality keywords for your AdWords campaign.

You've Dug Deep, Now Go Wide

To "go wide" with your keyword research, create a new seed keyword list with phrases that describe different categories within your niche.

Categories that you'd search on for your chocolate business would include:

+ easter chocolate

+ valentine's day chocolate

+ christmas chocolate

+ halloween chocolate

These are all examples of special occasions when people might buy chocolate. Targeting keywords in AdWords for these occasions a few weeks previous to the day would therefore be a good strategy for your business.

By entering each phrase into your keyword selection tool, you can pick out more keywords that are perfect for your business and create new keyword tails to use in your AdWords campaign.

P.S. When you learn how to do your keyword research properly, you can quickly and easily build huge, targeted keyword lists for your AdWords campaigns.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: Adrian Key is editor of the AdWords Adviser, a blog dedicated to making AdWords more profitable for you. Find the keyword selection tool that is right for you and discover resources, ideas and tips to improve your AdWords campaign at: ==>> www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/