by rogercarr

PPC Keyword Research

The first (and I must say) most important thing you need to do when it comes to Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing (known as PPC for short) is keyword research. In order for you to avoid paying high Cost Per Click (also known as CPC for short), it is necessary that you conduct a thorough keyword research to sift out low paying keywords that you can bid on.

Many times, these low paying keywords are also long-tailed key phrases (meaning each key phrase consists of 3 or more words, such as “how do i potty train my dog”, “fly fishing for newbies”, etc.). No doubt the keywords have a lower search volume, but people who search for these key phrases are much more targeted (and hence these people are much more likely to buy from you because they know exactly what they want).

When conducting keyword research, you can either make use of paid tools or free tools.

In this post, I’m going to share with you the top 3 free tools that you can use to carry out the whole keyword researching process.

1. Google AdWords Keywords Research Tool

You must make use of the Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool when conducting your keyword research – Because in my opinion, this tool is the most versatile free tool available on the Internet.

All you need to do is to enter keywords that you are searching for in the search box (if you are searching for more than 1 set of keywords, enter them in separate lines), followed by entering some characters as you see below the search box and hit on the “Get Keyword Ideas” to start generating a list of related keywords based on the keywords you have entered.

This tool will then return a list of keywords relating to the keywords that you are searching for.

You will see basic information such as:

Advertiser Competition – If the box is filled with green it means to say the advertiser competition is very high for that particular keyword, and if you want your ad to be displayed in the first page for that keyword, be prepared to pay a high amount of cost per click.

Local & Global Search Volume – This figure is a rough estimate of the number of searches for that particular keyword in a month. Do take note that the figures are just an estimate.

Apart from the basic information above, you can also retrieve the following information about each keyword result that is returned by the tool:

Estimated Ad Position – Shows the estimated ad position which your ad will be found if you bid on it.

Estimated Avg. CPC – An estimate of how much you need to bid per click for your ad to be displayed in the ad position as specified in the estimated ad position.

Search Volume Trends – Shows a bar chart of search volume for that keyword throughout a 12-month period.

Highest Volume Occurred In – Tells you at which month of the year where there are most searches for a particular keyword.

2. Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool

Another free tool you can use is the free Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool – In the free version, you’ll only get a maximum of 100 keywords in a particular keyword research that you conduct.

The search volume that’s displayed beside each keyword is an estimate of the number of searches over the past 12 months in the various search engines.

3. Keyword Discovery Keyword Research Tool

Similar to the free Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool, the free version of the Keyword Discovery Keyword Research Tool only returns a maximum of 100 keywords for a particular keyword search.

This tool is also similar to the free Wordtracker tool in that you can only search for one keyword at any one time.

The search volume indicates the number of searches that has been conducted for that particular keyword in the past 12 months.

The above are 3 keyword tools that I highly recommend you use extensively in your PPC Keyword Research.

By making use of the 3 free tools that I’ve just shared with you above, it should give you enough keywords that you can bid on in your Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing campaigns.