Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

Our friends at Google recently shared with JumpFly an interesting technique for using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool when building a Google AdWords Content Campaign, and I thought it would be nice to pass it along. Of couse, this is not a foolproof method of building a Google AdWords Content Campaign and it does not guarantee success with Google Content based advertising, nor is it the only way to create a Content campaign, but it is a process certainly worth giving a try if you have never done it before.

Google AdWords Content Campaign Strategy

Step 1: Filter out the top performing keywords in your current Google AdWords Search campaign, putting the greatest emphasis on the keywords that are most relevant to the products you sell or most relevant to the services you provide.

Step 2: Individually type each term into a Google Search, using the standard Google search box you find at Google.com. For this example, we will use “golf shoes” as our keyword.

Step 3: Copy the Google URL that is generated in the address bar from the search. In this example, it would be –
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS259US259&q=golf+shoes&btnG=Search

Step 4: Using the Google Keyword Tool, make sure you have Website Content checked, then enter the URL above into the text box. Be sure to check the box labeled “Include other pages on my site linked from this URL.”

By following this process, Google analyzes the organic results, paid ads, and the sites being linked. You will then get a list of keywords that are grouped together by theme. You can then take these lists and create a Google AdWords Content campaign with a similar thematic structure.

Again, not the only way to create an AdWords Content campaign, but it is an interesting process to try and could generate some productive results for you to use as you see fit.

More about Jack

Today, Google released AdWords Editor 6.5 for Windows and Mac.

Here at JumpFly, we were excited to discover the new Keyword Opportunities tool, enabling Keyword Expansion and Keyword Multiplier functionality at the AdWords Editor.

When you open AdWords Editor 6.5 for the first time, you will notice a new button on the Keyword tab appropriately labeled “Keyword Opportunities”. Clicking this new button SHOULD open the Keyword Opportunities (Beta) window, however if you try to use this feature in an account that you previously opened with an MCC login then the feature will not work.

We found that if you open an account in AdWords Editor 6.5 that was previously imported into your Open Account window using your MCC login information, the Keyword Opportunities feature will fail to work and result with an “Authentication Failed” error window. Even after I tried the “Switch User” feature and used the original account login, the feature would still not work.

The solution to this minor bug, remember this is a Beta feature, is to first remove the account and then click “Add Account” entering the original account login information. Once the account is imported fresh using the original account logins, the new Keyword Opportunities button will work. Several of our AdWords Editor updates also failed to work after the update was installed. Completely removing the older version, rebooting, and re-installing the new version solved the problems.

We have notified our Google contacts regarding this bug that seems to only affect people like us who use a My Client Center (MCC) to manage multiple Google AdWords accounts. Everyone else should have no problems using this new Beta feature.

Now, once the Keyword Opportunities window is open, you will notice 2 tabs: “Keyword Expansion” and “Keyword multiplier”

The Keyword expansion tab should look somewhat familiar to anybody that has used Google’s Keyword Tool through the online interface. There is a field at the top where you can enter your search phrase. By clicking the “Get Keywords” button, similar keywords are then displayed in the window below.

Next to each keyword are two fields with indicators for volume and competition. Numbers from 0-5 will show in these fields with 5 indicating the highest amount of competition/volume. The data for estimated CPC and position that can be seen in the online keyword tool are not available in AdWords Editor’s Keyword Expansion window. The best part is that chosen keywords can easily be dragged into any AdGroup over on the right hand side of the window. If you don’t have a campaign or AdGroup ready, you can easily create one with blue hyperlinks located at the bottom of the window.

The Keyword multiplier tab opens a window that many of us in PPC management have seen before in the dozens of free keyword generation tools available all over the Internet. It has 3 fields across the top for your individual keywords and a button that will combine the 3 fields into their various combinations. While missing the ability to quickly switch the order of the 3 fields, this simple tool does do a good job combining keywords quickly and easily.

I found both tools to be welcome additions to the latest release of AdWords Editor 6.5. The ability to quickly add new keywords to AdGroups without the need to use the online tool is a real time saver. I’m sure our friends at Google will eventually iron out the bug that prevents MCC logins from using these new tools. In the meantime, any account that is active using the original logins will have access to these valuable new keyword opportunity features found in AdWords Editor 6.5.

Download AdWords Editor 6.5 here.

Normally, if I’m going to talk about Google, I’m going to have pretty positive things to say. After all, nine times out of ten, when they do something, they do it right. When they do a new version, they improve on what they already have. They seem to really test things out in the real world of PPC management, and make my life as a PPC advertising account manager easier. Well today I’m blogging about something that’s the exception to the rule, something that’s not been an improvement. It’s the Google Keywords Tool…

For those who don’t know, the Google Keyword Tool is a tool for finding additional search terms that you might be missing in your account. (You can find it here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.) You put in a search term or even multiple terms, and Google spits out a list of additional keywords based around your search term, or are very similar. You can add your terms directly into one of your AdGroups, or export them to a spreadsheet or text file.

Well, lately the reliability and usefulness of the Google Keywords Tool has changed. For some reason, the Google Keyword Tool has taken a few steps backwards. It’s become harder to use, harder to find the information you want, and less reliable at giving me keywords quickly.

The majority of the time the first results you get are what Google calls “Additional keywords to consider.” Well, those additional keywords are usually one’s that I DON’T want to consider, that are too broad for my narrowly targeted AdGroups or just way off base, yet I have to scroll though a very large list, usually about 150 terms, to get to the ones I actually want, which is the section “Keywords related to term(s) entered.” And there’s no way to change which shows first, so you never know where you’re going to have to look. It’s very easy to overlook that “related terms” section.

Then there’s the issue of what you get for your results. There are many times when the results don’t seem to be complete. There’s another tool that we can use, and if we put in the exact same search term, we may get an additional 20, 50 or 100 terms that Google won’t or doesn’t report on. If we were to try the exact same search a little later, we might get different results. If we reverse the order of the words, or put a space in or remove a space from a search term, we might get something different, including terms that should have been in the original results. For example, I might put in a search for “adwords management” and get maybe 10 search terms in the related category (with another 174 in the “consider” terms and 15 in the “similar” terms). Another time, I might get 14 reported terms. If I were to do a search on “ad words management” I might get another five or six or ten terms that the first search didn’t turn up, including ones with “adwords management” that should have logically come up in the originial “adwords management” search. And because AdWords caps the results at around 150, you never get to see those terms Google might consider less important, even though they are more related to the search terms I started with.

Sometimes the “consider” terms might have something actually worth considering, but there’s so many terms that are usually so off the mark (in my example above there were terms like: make money, content management, click pay per tool, overture ppc, seo, keywords, earn money, pay per click marketing, etc). Buried in that stack was the term “adword management” – which to me makes more sense as a related term, considering the only difference is that it is missing an “s” off my original search term.

It just seems like Google has taken a step backwards in the Google tool – they’re watering down the more targeted keywords with all this unrelated mess, that it’s hard to use.

So here’s my Google KeyWords Tool wish list:

1. Give me the Related Terms at the top of the list.
2. Quit watering down the related and similar terms with terms that aren’t really that related or that similar.
3. Include plurals as a rule in the Related Terms, instead of forcing me to do individual searches on it, or include a check box that allows me to include or exclude plurals from my results.
4. Let me immediately default to Phrase Match or Exact Match results, instead of always defaulting to Broad, OR include a check box that allows me to include exact and phrase match terms in one spot, instead of having to switch between screens or select from the drop-downs.
5. Allow me to add different keywords that I might find into different AdGroups. There is a function here which allows me to do it, but it’s a bit cumbersome. I might find terms that need to go in three or four different AdGroups – right now I can only do one at a time.
6. The ability to filter “in” terms instead of only “out”. If I’m searching for “product 703″, I want all my results to have the number 703 in it.
7. Be consistent on results, so I don’t have to do the same search several times in order to get all my results.
8. Don’t give me different results if I’m within an AdGroup than if I’m using the external Keyword Tool.

So c’mon Google, please work your magic. I know you can get the Keyword Tool back to giving us relevant results.