Whip Your Keyword List into Shape

Last week we talked about the importance of starting broad with your keyword research. That's a tactic which allows you to evaluate a number of opportunities and determine which keywords truly have the potential to drive profit on your website.

Step 2: Refining Your Keyword List

However, keyword analysis will be a chore if you don't impose a meaningful order and organization on your list.

 

The next step to better search campaigns is to segment your keyword list into small, tightly related groups. This will allow you to efficiently target a group of keywords with relevant PPC ads and landing page copy, as well as helping you determine the groups of keywords you should target via organic search (and how you should structure your site).

This means improved Quality Scores and increased conversion rates for paid search, as well as better rankings and more and better qualified organic (SEO) search traffic.

So what's next? We know breaking down a large keyword list can be daunting. Here are three tips to get you started:

1. Start with large, high-level groups. Some characteristics of good top-level keyword groups: usually one word (a noun), often corresponding to a product or service provided by your business (such as "cabinetry" or "pies").
2. Next, segment your top-level groups into narrower subgroups. Second-level groups often include a modifier that specifies the offering in question.
3. Keyword grouping tools, like our Free Keyword Grouper and Free Keyword Niche Finder, can make quick work of what would otherwise be a cumbersome manual process.

If you want to dig deeper into keyword grouping best practices (and start getting more return from your SEO and PPC campaigns), we offer a free white paper that walks you through four simple steps to creating keyword groups that work for PPC and SEO. Also, our WordStream Keyword Management for SEO product offers powerful grouping functionality at a low price (available to try free for free, starting at $49 a month).

Next week, we'll talk about going beyond high-level keyword groups to create a smart keyword infrastructure that can scale along with your search engine marketing campaigns.

See you next week,

Larry Kim, Founder & VP of Product Development

 

P.S. Please feel free to reach out if there's anything about search marketing in general or any of our products that you'd like to learn more about: just jot it down and hit reply!

 

WordStream Inc.

177 Huntington Ave., 16th Floor

Boston, MA, 02115

 

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