Archie Jeter

The first mistake that people often make is rushing to get their campaign started. The selection of the right keywords will make or break the campaign. Here is a keyword discovery roadmap that will help choose the right keywords.

Step 1: Positioning Statement

This may sound like an unnecessary step for keyword discovery, but understand that all your kewords relate to your positioning. When drafting your positioning statement ask yourself the following questions.

• What pain factors drive our customers to buy?
• Who are our customers on the Internet?
• Who are we as a company on the Internet?
• What image do we want to create for our business?

The answers to these questions will help you create a positioning statement. You and everyone that works in your company needs to by crystal clear about who your customers are and how they shop for your products online.

Step 2: Brainstorm

Brainstorming is important because it allows you to break free of keywords that you automatically associate with your business and open up to ones that you never would have thought of, but customers are using.

Invite everyone to this brainstorming session; customers, sales team, IT, customer service reps and all front line staff. The first question you should ask is, “How would you search for our product or service on the web?” Your keyword list will come out of all of these questions being answered.

Other things to consider:

• What are customers needing/wanting/looking for/hoping for?
• What word or phrases do people use when they call our company?
•  Run through every product that you sell including descriptions, models, sizes and colors

Step 3: Keyword Research Tool

It is vital that you only use a keyword research tool after you’ve completed the brainstorming session. A keyword reaserch tool is a data aggregator of customer keyword search activity on the web. Here are some keyword tools to check out:

• Google Keyword Tool
• Wordtracker
• Keyword Discovery

Step 4: Negative Keywords

The most overlooked step in discovery discovery are negative keywords. These are keywords are a list of search terms that you do NOT want to show up in your advertising. You could end up paying for wasted clicks. For example, if you sell cars and NOT car parts or rentals you want to exclude the terms parts and rentals. By creating a negative keywords list you will save money and receive better conversions from you PPC campaign.