How to Setup Google Ads That Work

Setting up Google Ads to boost your online marketing campaign does not automatically mean success. You probably have heard people telling you how they ended up wasting time with Google Ads. It only means that there are no guaranteed results here.

Do not get me wrong; I am not trying to dissuade you from putting the effort and time in it. What I am trying to tell you right now is that for Google Ads to work in your favour, you must be committed to it. It is not like you are getting the results you want overnight. You envision the prospective sales you get out of throwing a bunch of Google Ads. You perform some research, watch videos on YouTube, and read How Tos. After a day or two, you think you have more than enough to kickstart a campaign. Well, let me tell you right now that there is more to Google Ads than what you think you already know.

The Truth About Google Ads

Google Ads will work wonders if you know what you are doing. You may not get the results you hope for overnight, but success is inevitable. There is a chance that you have it set up in an hour or two and generate new sales right away. But do not think for a second that it runs on autopilot. It is the one mistake that a lot of people make, even those who see themselves as experts in internet marketing.

People search for all sorts of stuff on Google. But the one thing that makes all searches similar is that they all look for something specific. It could be a product to provide a solution or a service to provide a need. Your role is to give the searcher that solution. To do that, you learn how to anticipate the right search and at the right time.

Much has been said about search engine optimization and how critical it is to focus your marketing campaign on improving your website’s rank in organic search results. While it is true that SEO plays an irreplaceable role, you cannot deny that it is a painstakingly slow process. It is preposterous to expect results in a couple of months.

On the other hand, Google Ads gives you a faster turnaround. It is an essential component of your campaign, and these figures will tell you why:

• A small or start-up business will make $2 on average for every dollar spent on Google Ads
• Over 60% of individuals will click on Google Ads when they search the web to buy something.
• 90% of traffic that is generated by search advertisements is not replaced by organic clicks in case those ads are paused.

Know that those numbers are provided by Google, which exemplifies the true worth of investing in Google Ads. But before I start talking about setting up Google Ads that work, there is one thing I need to clarify for us to move forward.

It was about two years ago when Google decided to rebrand its Google AdWords platform, effectively renaming it into Google Ads. The idea was to integrate some features along with the standard text ads on a Google search. The new platform is more sophisticated, allowing businesses and brands to advertise via display, product listing, and even video.

For this article, my focus is on Google Ads search campaigns. So, if you are still interested, read on.

Creating an Account

The first step in setting up a Google Ads that work is creating an account. You can do it here How To Setup:

Supposed this is your first time, there is not much of a learning curve since there is a guided setup that makes the process easier than you probably thought. You just need to answer some questions, and you are good to go. You must import the Google Ad account to a Bing Ads account (provided you have one).

For this campaign to work, you need the following:

• Website
• Keywords
• Ad copy (the message you intend to convey to your audience)

Choose the Best Keywords

Do not forget that the way Google Ads work is that you pay for every click that your advertisement gets. Armed with that information, you will realize how critical it is to match your ad to relevant searches. If not, you are wasting away your money and efforts.

While you can come up with a hundred ways to bring keyword ideas to mind, you should know that there is a rather practical and quick way to choose an excellent keyword for the campaign. First, you must consider long tail keywords, and the reason is that it brings more specificity to your brand. Contrary to what you probably think, keywords are not case sensitive, but you must altogether avoid the use of special characters like that of #, &, and @. Be mindful of the use of spaces, too.

I talked to a lot of so-called experts in internet marketing about using branded terms. Most of them are not sold on the idea. However, my years of experience working with Google Ads made me realize how valuable branded terms can be. There is one reason why a branded keyword makes perfect sense, and that is to stave off your competitors.

When similar companies realize that you are an emerging competitor, they will begin creeping in by targeting the keywords you are using. This happens in cases when you have well-established competitors. The use of branded terms is an effective way of protecting your brand.

Furthermore, the quality score on those branded terms is expected to be high. Since you expect less competition from those keywords, it means that the cost per click will be reasonable, too. The ideal combination of a reasonable cost per click and a high-quality score usually corresponds to affordable clicks.

You may not realize it at this juncture, but creating Google Ads using your branded terms will help in sending a strong message to your audience. You likely will have your homepage rank for your brand name, and doing so means that visitors to your site will hover over the meta description before deciding to click. Simply put, your advertisement allows you to have much better control of your message.

Tips for a Compelling Ad Copy

After putting your best foot forward in figuring out the keywords to use, it is time to focus on your ad copy. This is where the magic happens.

The headline is critical because it grabs your audience’s attention. Google only allows 25 characters, but that is all you need to pique someone’s interest. When creating your headline, put yourself in the shoes of someone who is browsing Google to look for stuff they need. You never want to go to a website or ad because of a misleading headline. Therefore, you want it to be precise, relevant, and honest. The goal is to give someone enough motivation to read the next line.

Next, you have a bit more room to work with for the ad body, two lines and with 35 characters each to be exact. The ad body is where you describe your offer to your audience. It is your only chance to generate a comprehensive understanding of what you are trying to offer or sell to people. This is not the part where you try to create some mystery or force someone to do the guesswork. You also cannot write something too vague since it will do nothing but waste your money when you get clicks from ad visitors with high bounce rates.

The Landing Page

Google Ads can work to your advantage when they are high performing. They become an effective means for people to get to your website. The challenge that you must face is paying for the ads, regardless of a visitor becoming a customer or not. The way to improve your chances of conversions is to come up with a compelling and relevant landing page. You want it to fulfil the promise and high expectations from your Google Ads. You do not want to create an impression that your brand is only useful in creating a Google Ad but cannot live up to the hype.

Taking Advantage of Ad Extensions

One mistake that a lot of people make in Google Ads is undermining the importance of the ad extensions. You are probably one of those whose attention is solely on the headlines, descriptions, and path of the leading advertisement. You think that ad extensions are a waste of time. Well, you could not be more wrong about it.

Ad extensions are valuable because they help improve customer experience and add that much-needed boost for your main ad. Those extensions are a way to tell a detailed story about your brand, thereby affording the information that your target audience may want to learn about your company. I recommend putting some effort in the following ad extensions:

1. Callout extensions – You can take advantage of these callout extensions to build trust with your readers. You want them to feel like you know what you are doing, and in the process, it convinces them to check out your brand. Some examples are “quick and reliable service,” “guaranteed premium service,” and “worry-free subscription.”
2. Sitelinks – This extension is as straightforward as it can be – you simply add links that direct to the landing pages on your site.
3. Structured snippets – The purpose of this extension is to deliver information about the product or service features you are offering to prospective clients. The term “structured” means that the information you provide is based on highly specific categories.
4. Location extensions – If you happen to have a physical address or store for your business, you can use this extension by linking your Google My Business page to your Google Ads account. It is useful because it displays your business’ physical address, phone number, and other relevant contact information.

Go Mobile

More than half of your would-be customers will use a mobile device to browse the web. It is a trend that you must learn to embrace sooner than later. When it comes to Google Ads, you must see to it that you come up with a mobile-focused campaign. Going mobile is your only way to engage a significant percentage of your prospective customers successfully. In other words, you want to reach them using the right platform for their preferred device for browsing the web.

For this reason, I recommend that you create separate campaigns since it is the most convenient way to drive qualified clicks. I suggest that you perform some research on your own about the percentage of conversions on the different devices used to browse the web. You will realize that every data that you obtain will point towards mobile compared to both tablet and desktop.

A step in the right direction is to incorporate a positive bid modifier that detects visitors to your site who are using a smartphone. This method helps you maximize your ad’s visibility.

Another way is to add a copy of a previous campaign and negative bid mobile for the current campaign. You can use this method if mobile is driving a substantial percentage of conversions. And you intend to come up with aggressive budgeting for it.

Final Thoughts about Google Ads

Setting up Google Ads is no cakewalk, but you have lots of references over the web to get things started. But learning how to do it is just the first step. You must put in the effort, time, and patience to learn all the ropes for it to work.

I have seen a lot of people who wasted the opportunity to increase their sales using Google Ads because they did not understand the very essence of a PPC campaign. Before you dream of ramping up your revenue, you first must acknowledge that Google Ads is part of your investment in internet marketing. You put money to it and hope a return on your investment. Since Google charges you for every click on your ad, you must see to it that you are optimizing the campaign in a way that it will drive conversions as efficiently as possible.

7 Ways to Make Your Digital Marketing Strategy Totally Rad

Digital Marketing Is Important Because – Raise Your Hand!

We all know the importance of digital marketing in today’s world.

In an online driven world, a solid digital marketing strategy is one of the strongest tools you can pull out of the box- but the online space is insanely competitive.

Makes sense though. In comparison to off-page efforts, the ROI of online marketing is through the roof.

✔More than 46% of consumers will check their smartphones before getting out of bed.
✔Over 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product while conducting a search on their smartphone.
✔There’s 369 active monthly users on Twitter alone.
✔3.03 billion people actively use social media around the world.
✔20% of users will read the text on a page, but 80% will watch a video.
✔60% of consumers click on mobile ads at least weekly.
✔Two-thirds of consumers can recall a specific brand they have seen advertised on mobile in the last week.
✔Businesses make an average of $2 in income for every $1 they spend in AdWords.
✔A delay of one second in mobile page response can reduce conversions by 7%.

And guys, these are just a handful of stats that help drive successful digital marketing strategies around the world.

Throw These 7 Things Into Your Strategy

If you’re looking to improve your digital marketing strategy, we have some rad tips to help you out.

From fun, flashy content to the not so fun techy parts, incorporating these into your online strategy will boost your profitability and help get you seen online.

Make Sure Your Mobile Compatible (& Not Just Your Website!)

Look around, and you’ll see everyone on their smartphone.

Seriously, the use of smart phones- even for online shopping- has near triumphed desktops and tablets.

If your website isn’t mobile compatible, you’re going to have a real tough time getting seen online. If your websites design, load time and content isn’t optimized for mobile, Google won’t like you.

Did yah know? Google gets just over 53% of ALL their traffic from mobiles.

Mobile optimization for your site is crucial, since 50% of people report they would use a brand less if their site didn’t work well on their phone- even if they already liked the brand!

Why?

Well the same percentage report that it indicates to them that a business doesn’t actually really care about their business.

But if you really want to step your mobile game up, leading online marketers see app development and mobile only PPC campaigns as an essential part of their marketing mix.

PSA- Adjust your social media campaigns for mobile as well- content, imagery & messaging will differ.

The world of smart phones is quick, and it’s busy. You also have limited screen space, so while you can get away with a touch of lengthiness on desktop, you certainly can’t on mobile.

Offer Online-Specific Promotions & Discounts

Just how a retail space entices customers by offering deals and promotions, your online efforts should do the same.

Again, the Internet is a busy place- stand out from the crowd and reward your customers.

It will also drive traffic to your website, increase brand loyalty and encourage sharing- (which is basically like the online world’s version of word-of-mouth.)

Video Marketing is THE Thing

Video marketing has surpassed every other form of online marketing out there.

Like, by far.

As we mentioned earlier, 80% of people will watch a video compared to only 20% of people who will sit there and read text.

Video marketing thrives off peoples busyness and laziness (the irony, we know.) It also thrives off peoples need for visual stimulation.

YouTube marketing may not actually work for everyone, but shaping some of your content as video rather than text is a sure fire way to increase engagement and conversion rates.

43% of people visited a company’s website after viewing a video, even if they’d never heard of the brand before.

Interact With Your Customers Online

If a prospective customer walked into a retail store and was ignored, we could likely all countdown to the bad Yelp review to come.

It’s the same online.

Whether communication is digital or in person, it still does the same thing. Communicating with your customers through your blogs, social media and website no only increases your organic traffic, but also builds rapport with prospective and continuing customers.

Don’t only comment on your stuff though. Engage in your online community, whether it’s local businesses or forums related to your brand.

Engaging with customers already at your door is a pillar in inbound marketing– which, if you haven’t read up on, you really need to.

Don’t Ignore Email Marketing

Email marketing is powerful. There’s a conception out there that email marketing is annoying or spammy, but it actually proves to be one of the highest converters out there.

That is, if it’s done correctly.

Multiple emails a day, (or even a week) with no personalization and poor design will send you to the block list faster than a toxic ex-partner.

But highly relevant, valuable and personalized messages sent at high converting times can be a money making addition to your digital marketing strategy.

Email marketing has a $40 ROI to every $1 sent, which is over double PPC ads at $17 to $1.

Don’t Forget Your Call to Actions!

If a customer can’t see a call to action on your website, ad or social media post within 3 seconds, they’re likely going to miss it.

Call to actions (or if you want to be really cool and hip, CTA’s) increase conversion rates by a ten-fold. They are the driver between converting a browsing customer to a paid customer.

Yet, it’s one of the most under-utilized tools out there.

Diverse Your Online Marketing Budget

It’s great to say you’re going to throw $3000 a month for your online marketing ventures.

But even if you stick within that budget, not knowing where it’s going or what it’s being spent on means your money isn’t being spent wisely.

Breaking it down into social media, website and blogging isn’t much help either.

You will want to know how much is being spent on each platform, yes. But you’ll need to dial those metrics in tighter than that. For example, you’ll also need to understand the dollars behind customer acquision vs. customer retention.

How to “Do” Content Marketing: 5 Ways to Build Your Content Marketing Strategy

Building a solid content marketing strategy is almost imperative to every online advertiser out there.

In today’s info driven, visually focused market, strategic content marketing is a cornerstone for most marketing strategies out there- but, it remains a little hazy as to what content marketing actually is and how to “do” it.

Content marketing has been around forever, way before the Internet even came into play. Our current definition of content marketing brings YouTube, blogs, articles and social media to mind- but content marketing encompasses so much more than that.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing aims to create a story, a brand and a voice around a product or service. It involves the creation and distribution of relevant content to defined target segments, similar to creating paid ads for specific audiences online.

Content marketing is designed to initiate interest and buzz around said topics, and to support a business in capturing leads at every stage of the buying funnel. Effective content marketing doesn’t have the end goal of explicit promotion.

The goal is to produce valuable, relevant and consistent content for each defined audience in your market and to use this content to retain these leads.

What Isn’t Content Marketing?

Just because your activity online has content, doesn’t mean that it’s content marketing. Content marketing brings new and retained leads back to your brand continuously, rather than interrupting prospectives to throw your business right in their face.

Moreover, Content marketing is not a campaign of paid ads with content, nor is throwing up a blog post a few times a year. Content marketing is not push marketing; content marketing supports inbound marketing- and the outcomes are very different.

Wait- What’s Inbound Marketing?

In order to grasp the core concept of content marketing, you need to understand the methodology of inbound marketing and how effective content marketing is built around these ideologies.

Inbound marketing comes down to the idea of drawing people to your brand through relevant content, offers, products, services and communication. Sometimes known as pull marketing, it’s counterpart – push marketing- focuses on bringing your brand to people and interrupting their daily absorption of advertisements to see yours.

While we aren’t saying one is better than the other, and we certainly aren’t saying you shouldn’t have both methods in your marketing mix, we are saying that effective content aligns with inbound marketing and brings people to your brand.

Successful content marketing also considers each stage of the buying funnel and capitalizes on each potential customers needs at that time.

The Buyers Funnel Stage & The Inbound Marketing Flywheel

Inbound marketing runs on flywheel, which aligns perfectly with the typical buyers funnel. The flywheel of inbound marketing was designed to pinpoint stages at which you, as a company, can offer value at every stage to each potential and retained customer.

At each of the flywheel’s three stages- attract, engage and delight- there is an ample opportunity to speak to your potential leads in a language that suits exactly what they’re looking for and boosting the chance of a later conversion.

It’s almost perfectly parallel with the natural buyers funnel.

Stages of the Buyers Funnel

1. Awareness- prospective is aware they have a problem or a need, but not a whole lot of ideas on what to do about it

2. Interest- prospective has become aware of your brand, but is actively shopping around and still unsure of what to do next

3. Consideration- shopper has decided they need to take action and begins shopping around to select best option

4. Intent- shopper has now indicated the desire to purchase and is looking to be “swayed”

5. Evaluation/Purchase- prospective now has selected a brand and may or may not need prompting to take final step of purchase

Step 1 correlates with the desire to “Attract”, while steps 2-3 speak to the need for an advertiser to “Engage”.
Steps 4-5 demand the need for advertisers to “Delight”, where customer service and value are paramount to getting that final conversion.

While inbound marketing as a whole is imperative to successful marketing in today’s world, it’s important to understand in relation to content marketing to understand why and how to produce content- and most importantly, what to say and when.

Building a Successful Content Marketing Strategy: 5 Tips

#1- Content Marketing Relies on Inbound Marketing and the Sales Funnel

We just covered it above, but we can’t stress it enough. Understanding and practicing inbound marketing, and having a concrete understanding of the buyers funnel is crucial to effective content marketing.

For example, during the awareness stage, you need to focus on producing content that captures prospective by relating to their problem in a non-brand centric manner. Someone suffering from seasonal dry skin may not yet know why this is happening or whether they need a range of products.

Writing a blog article on tips for dealing with skin changes during the winter will draw a prospective to your brand, but not give them a brand centered sales pitch that will likely put them off.

Where as during the intent/evaluation stage, an email with well done video with an influencer using your product and reviewing it would be a great piece of content to produce. By this stage, the lead has already formed some attachment with your brand and is now in the stage of wanting to be sure they have selected the right option.

The wrong message at the wrong time is likely to lose you a sale.

#2- Consistency Is Key in Content Marketing

Content marketing is like SEO– it needs to be consistent.

The Internet is a busy place, and there’s literally millions of pieces of content floating around everyday. In order to get noticed, you need consistent content to make sure you’re always at the front line.

Customers also look for fresh content to show relevancy and timeliness, but Google also looks for consistency in order to decide search page rankings.

Old content, or content that is sporadically uploaded won’t be readily available to prospective clients when they need it.

Be consistent in your creation and uploads of content. And always review your own specific buyers funnel to see any opportunities for additional or better conversation with your leads.

#3- Great Content Marketing Requires “Topic Clusters”

You could create the best content out there, but it will never bring you the desired results if you’re uploading content that changes focus every time.

We use topic clusters within our content marketing for many reasons. Building topic clusters allows you to create tonnes of pieces of content centered around one main idea. Not only does it allow for very targeted keyword optimization, it also draws a path for your content marketing online.

By circling around main subjects and directing towards others, you have a distinct content network. That is harder to break and easier to get noticed than random pieces of content here and there.

For example, “seasonal skin care” would be a great centered topic, while your topic cluster could be comprised of:

i. How to deal with winter skin

ii. Best natural products for skin changes

iii. Summers here: how to choose your best sunscreen for the sunny months

And the list goes on.

Each article can branch off from a main topic, but be heavily and specifically keyword optimized while being written for each stage of the buying funnel.

#4- Only Use Platforms That Make Sense

There are tonnes of platforms to distribute content on.

Chances are, you should not use all of them.

Advertising platforms differ. So choose the ones that make sense to you. Where your target audience is, where you can get the best message across and whether it will drive traffic.

For example, we see lots of people making YouTube channels because they heard that YouTube is the second largest search engine around.

Is it? Yes.

Does that mean you should advertise on it?

No. Not if doesn’t allow you to put valuable content in front of your target audience.

#5- Don’t Forget Analytics

Content is measurable. Many people assume that there isn’t a way to measure the success of content marketing. But there is- and it’s important to do so.

Once marketers understand the difference between general content and strategic content marketing, we can begin to understand how to track these pieces the same as you would paid ads or a TV commercial.

Track your blog posts, videos, social media campaigns etc. the same way you would your website. Depending on your goals, your metrics may be different. But watch for conversions, bounce rates, time spent on page, email sign ups etc.

Content is not content marketing. Your content marketing Strategy should be very defined and measurable and should always have a goal. Otherwise, it’s just words.

Mistakes in Google AdWords Aren’t Always Obvious

We all make mistakes with Google Ad Words. Seriously, all of us. It’s a tricky platform to navigate around, let alone optimize. Generating steady revenue from Google AdWords is entirely possible (ask our clients!) – but it’s easy to make mistakes when setting up or running your Google AdWords campaign.

Of course there are the obvious offenders- badly written ads, incorrect keywords, missing information, even mathematical errors. But don’t be fooled. Hidden in the AdWords interface are sneaky little settings that could be costing YOU more money than you need to spend. Because look- Google always wants to make money too, right?

We wanted to give you some little inside secrets that you can watch out for and change within your account.

Location Settings in Google AdWords

Common question: why are my ads showing in different countries?

Have you ever looked at your Google Analytics report, and seen that you have a large chunk of visitors from countries literally all around the planet? Better yet, looking into your location report within your Google AdWords account will tell you where your ads have shown- right down to the postal code.

Take a look at the bigger picture though, and analyze where your ads are showing. If they’re being shown in random countries completely outside of your business parameter, we can almost guarantee it’s due to your location settings in campaign creation.

The default setting that Google applies is to show your ads to: “People in, or who show interest in, your targeted locations (recommended)”.

This means that although you have decided on a target location (like the ones selected above), your ads can be shown to anyone who shows an interest in that area, was just visiting there or worse- fraudulent clicks rings.

What you need to do is toggle the option below. This makes sure that only people who are physically in your target location see your ads; actual potential customers.

Ad Schedules in Google AdWords

Should my Google Ads run all the time?

This topic is widely debated by PPC marketers, and you will hear conflicting opinions about setting ad schedules. Our thoughts? Unless you’re an e-comm or a 24 hour service like a plumber, your ads shouldn’t run all the time.

Hear us out. Depending on what you are selling/advertising, a click at 2am will signal way less purchasing intent than someone browsing at 2pm. Yes, there are exceptions, but as a general rule- clicks made between the hours of midnight and 5am are pretty irrelevant in comparison to their day counterparts.

If you’re starting out Google AdWords, or running them on a budget , every click counts- so it’s best to catch people at the time of day when they are most active and ready to spend.

You also only want to advertise to people when you’re open, so you catch every lead- while a plumber will want calls anytime of the day, Betty’s Boutique is likely only open 10-7 and won’t want people calling the store and not getting any response.

Setting an ad schedule is awesome- talk about hyper sensitive advertising!

Negative Keyword List in Google AdWords

Do I really need negative keywords?

YES. YES. YOU. DO.

Negative keywords are just as important as your regular keywords- hands down. Signalling what search terms you DON’T want your ads to show for means you are blocking a huuuuuge amount of irrelevant traffic and saving $$ every day.

Building negative keyword lists is so, so easy. Right within your keywords tab, you cand add negative keywords individually or made into a master list that you can apply across all campaigns in an account.

Use your search term report to find actual searches that have shown your ads and add every irrelevant query as a negative keyword. Use industry expertise, competitor names (especially if you’re on a budget)- whatever source you want to draw from- to create words and phrases that you don’t want associated with your ads.

And unlike regular keyword lists where best practice is to limit how many are active, you can and should add as many negative keywords as you need.

Call Extensions in Google AdWords

Why Does Google Show a Number That’s Not Mine?

Conversion tracking is imperative with Google AdWords. It’s literally how you know your ads are working, and generating revenue. There are lots of options for conversions (website visits, contact form filled out etc.) but a powerful conversion tracking tool is the call extensions provided by Google.

Calls from your ads signifies direct lead generation, so you definitely want to know the stats on them.

Buuuuuut- here’s the downside. In order for Google to track how many calls you received from your ads, they need to apply a tracking phone number that they can pull the data from and provide to you.

Many businesses actually use third party call tracking software like Call Rail or Call Tracking Metrics to integrate into their online marketing campaigns. Google kinda does the same.

On your ad though, it will appear as a 888 or a 866 number. Yours won’t be listed. For some, this is a no-go; they want correct info displayed in every area of the ad for brand recognition or recollection.

For us, being able to accurately track all calls derived from ads (and visits to the website after) is undeniably important.

Call tracking shows not only the number of calls from your ads, but the length, the time, what keyword prompted that call and more. It gives you great account data to make marketing decisions from.

Don’t worry though- you can actually place this number on your website so that the given number remains everywhere.

Bad Websites WILL Affect Your Google Ad Words

Okay, okay. This one is super obvious but we HAVE to touch on it.

Ladies and gents- a bad website will limit the success of your Google Ad Words campaign. It will bring down your quality score and force you to pay more for each click than the going rate (and your competitors.)

A bad website does not signal to Google that your content is relevant, or will solve the problem the search engine user is facing. Your ads will be shown less, or not at all. Poor websites are difficult for Google bots to crawl, some impossible to crawl. Then you definitely will disappear.

Building a website for Google Ads is not necessarily difficult, but you need to do it with many best practices in mind. Even a simple landing page (wait, what’s that?) can help boost the effectiveness of your campaign; to find a solid, profitable place on the Internet, though, you need a website built for both human users and Google bots.

A great website, and great ads = great running start for your Google AdWords campaigns.

Mistakes within Google AdWords happen, but they cost you money. A great digital marketing agency can make sure your ad campaigns are profitable from the get-go, without wasting money during learning curves or the wrong strategies.

I know. I know. You’re freaking out at my headline because you know I hate pay-per-click (PPC), but don’t. I know what I’m doing. Let me explain How to Use Free Keyword planners.

So the reality is, no SEO strategy is going to get your website at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) in a short period of time. As discussed in other posts, SEO takes at least a couple months before you start seeing results. That being said, some new businesses do not have that luxury of time.

For them, PPC offers a few advantages SEO don’t, such as: position on the page (paid search dominates above-the-fold content. A user will always see the paid search Ads, even if they choose to scroll past them), improved Ads (PPC Ads are just that: advertisements.

Free Keyword Planners and PPC

As you can see, with PPC you have far more space for delivering your marketing messages), visual product Ads (Google provides the option of visual shopping Ads [Product Listing Ads, or PLAs] that can help a user see what they will be clicking on.

This kind of Ad can really improve the click-through rate by offering a feature not available in organic search). Other advantages include targeting (PPC provides a laser-targeted way to get in front of potential customers based on time of day, day of the week, geography, language, device, etc.) speed (PPC campaigns can be created in days and ramped up in weeks) and agility.

Speed provides agility. Want to test a new product? A new marketing message? You can get rapid feedback on a new product launch (or minimum viable product) by running a short PPC Ad campaign.

But whether you’re running an SEO or PPC campaign, one thing that is pertinent to both is keyword research. What Is Keyword Research?

SEO keyword research is the process of identifying what words and phrases people type in when they are trying to find information about a specific topic online” (DemandJump). It can give you insight into the demand for certain keywords, and what it takes to compete for the top position in SERP.

Why Do You Need A Keyword Research Tool?

In order to do keyword research, you need to use a keyword planner that will ***? And because I love my clients so much, I would never deprive them of any opportunity that could work in their favour. So that’s why I am going to show you how to use free keyword planners for SEO and PPC strategies. No client gets left behind.

First, you must understand that there are many keyword planners for SEO and PPC out there on the market. However, for the purpose of this article I will discuss the one most people are familiar with, i.e, Google Keyword Planner (an SEO keyword planner tool for PPC campaigns), along with a few others including Answer the Public and Google Keyword Planner.

Google Keyword Planner

According to Google, its Keyword Planner “helps you research keywords for your Search campaigns”. It provides another way to create search campaigns that are centred around in depth keyword research.

You can use this free tool to discover new keywords related to your business and see estimates of the searches they receive and the cost to target them. Not only is it free, but it is not difficult to use, especially as Google has an easy to read Guide.

You can use Keyword Planner to discover new keywords related to your brand. It will show you estimates of the searches those keywords receive along with the cost to target them. However, when creating an online campaign, you must know how to effectively use this free resource for successful outcomes. So how do you do that?

Find Relevant Keywords

Google Keyword Planner can help you discover new keywords that your target audience uses when searching for brands like yours. You can find quality, relevant keywords you never thought of with GKP:

By filter: If your brand has a physical storefront and you want to target people searching around your area, you can use GKP’s filter that lets you see a keyword’s popularity based on location. While a specific keyword might have a high search volume in a wide area in general, this filter allows you to see if that same keyword is widely used in your targeted area by:

• Keyword: If you already have a keyword that you know is solid, type in the keyword and GKP will generate several long-tail keywords from which to choose.
• Landing page: if you type in the URL for any page on your website, the GKP will scan that page and create relevant keywords based on the content on that page.
• Product category: If you pick a product category that best describes your brand, the GKP will help you discover keywords that are frequently searched for by users of similar brands.

Refine Your Keyword Search

As mentioned, Google Keyword Planner gives you options to filter for relevant keywords. You can also refine your budget and audience. Here are the choices for filtering when you are setting up your keyword plan:

• Discover new keywords – lets you generate new keyword ideas by typing in a phrase or website.
• Using multiple keywords lists lets you combine two individual lists to create new keyword combinations.
• Get search volume and forecast – know trends by seeing the historical and trending data for keywords.
• Review performance forecasts for clicks and costs to understand performance projections for a keyword list based on average bids and your budget.

After completing your filter and running the report, you still have another option to further filter based on data range, reach, monthly searches, keywords competitors looked at, etc.

See What Your Competitors Are Paying

Not only can Google Keyword Planner show you what keywords your competitors are looking at, but it can show you what they’re paying for these keywords. It can also assist you with finding effective keywords that fit your budget.

Keyword costs are often dependent on how competitive they are. I.e. depending on how many people are bidding on them, the competition level will be ranked low, medium or high. As you can imagine, the higher the rank the more costly the keyword. As such, it can be quite costly to rank at the top of SERP. That’s why the Google Keyword Planner is a handy tool to provide insights into keyword targeting.

However, although the GKP is a great free tool for PPC campaigns or getting started in SEO, in many ways it is still limited. For example, the GKP can only be used for specific purposes, so it requires SEO experts like myself switching between tools to meet all the needs of my clients.

AnswerThePublic

Another free keyword planner for SEO and PPC strategies is: AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a search listening tool that “listens into autocomplete data from search engines like Google then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question people are asking around your keyword”.

It’s a treasure trove of useful information that can help you plan your SEO and PPC strategies. With AnswerThePublic you:

• Meet your customers exactly where they are
• Keep your finger firmly on the pulse
• Uncover hidden treasures
• Stop wasting time on gut-feel and guesswork
• Make solid business decisions: take fewer risks
• Streamline your content production

AnswerThePublic provides FREE searches (over 500k a month!). If unlimited searches is what you need, then you can upgrade to one of their pro or education plans. How else can you use AnswerThePublic for SEO and PPC strategies?

• By tracking shifts in brand perceptions and spotting seasonal trends.
• By easily comparing search behaviour changes over time in your research. Btw, did you know 20% of daily Google searches have never been seen before?
• By creating folders to organise your search, i.e. Collections.
• By exporting your results to CSV.
• By producing high resolution images.

Conclusion

As I mentioned at the beginning, there are many free keyword planners for SEO and PPC strategies. Some are not totally free–you have to upgrade at some point. I didn’t even get to:

• DemandJump’s SEO keyword research tool,
• Keyword Magic tool,
• Amazon Keyword tool,
• Reddit’s KeyworddIt,
• Ahrefs Keyword Generator, among others.

Instead, I showed you how to use Google’s Keyword Planner and AnswerThePublic as great starting points for your SEO and PPC strategies. Want us to go through some of the others? Let us know in the comments below. Know a few free keyword planners that have produced favourable results? Why not share with our audience?

Hi! I’m AJ… the Best SEO in Canada. Are you still unsure after reading How to Use Free Keyword Planners for SEO and PPC Strategies? Don’t worry. I’m here to help. My team and I have over 10 years of experience doing SEO. We can work with you to use any keyword planner to generate the most relevant keywords for your SEO and PPC strategy. Give us a call or send us an email. You’ll be glad you did.