How to Expand Your PPC Keyword Portfolio

Paid search is all about keywords. The more targeted keywords you have in your accounts, the more sales you are likely to realize from pay-per-click advertising. Invest just 10-20 minutes per day reviewing new keyword ideas – it will pay off big time in the long run.

Below is a list of helpful tools to get started.

Microsoft’s Keyword Mutation Detection

The easiest (and cheapest!) way to squeeze extra juice out of your PPC campaigns is to sprinkle misspellings across top performing campaigns. Microsoft’s tool does a great job at generating misspelling variations that matter. You don’t need to have thousands of keywords that a lot of other misspelling generators on the web offer. Focus on high traffic terms such as top product names and/or top brands.

Google’s New Search-based Keyword Tool

Make sure you log in to your AdWords account before going to this one. One major advantage of this tool over Google’s old tool is its direct link to your AdWords account. In other words, Google will only give you keywords that you do not have in your account. While it’s not perfect, and does produce duplicates from time to time, this tool is a must for all AdWords account owners. Run it on your account today and you’ll be surprised how many searches you’re missing out on.

Quantcast

Quantcast is not a keyword research tool. I would classify it as a public web analytics data aggregator. Regardless of the title, however, it has a few useful side tools that may be used in the search arena. Run a search for your own website and look for “Also Visited” and “Also Searched” columns on the right-hand side. Run the same search in Quantcast for your competitors. If you follow the thinking “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are,” you’re likely to stumble upon a few new word permutations that your customers use regularly to find either your site or sites of your competitors. The key here is to continue drilling down deeper into related-site URLs to figure out what may be some other ways to call your product/service.

Remember, the key to a winning pay-per-click campaign is to capture maximum traffic share and convert those visitors into paying customers. By investing just 10-20 minutes per day expanding your PPC keyword portfolio with relevant keywords, you will dramatically increase the chances of getting more prospects in the door.