We all know the SEO value of keywords. But have you ever wondered which of the thousands of relevant keywords brings meaningful traffic to your site and earns you your real money? If not then it’s about time you do.

For a while now, the online marketing community has known that long tail keywords convert cheaper and faster. Long tail keywords are those millions of keywords and phrases that a site is searched for, but go unnoticed.

Long tail is the exact opposite of focused or targeted keywords. In SEO, everyone focuses on the “top keyword”. This is what everybody follows and tries to gain rankings for. But if you just dig deeper into referrals and study the traffic they generate you will realize that you are actually missing a major portion of search keywords and hence the market!

Marketing managers are often pleased to see their top 10 or 20 keywords ranking consistently. The focus is usually only on the popular terms and the number of visitors they bring. It is believed that 80% of the business is driven by these popular terms, but when you evaluate multiple sites, it is quite the opposite.

The top 10 terms do provide a lot of traffic, but when you calculate the percentage of traffic driven by terms after the top 10 or 20 most popular, they will add up to more total visitors than the top terms. More often than not, the visitors who come to your site using long tail keywords spend more time on the site and convert better. Most sites have a majority of their sales and leads generated from these terms. This is the heart of the long tail keyword strategy. So it makes perfect sense to SEO your site for these long tail keywords to the fullest.

Long tail keywords have added benefits when applied to SEO. The skill is to pick the right mid tier keywords and phrases and optimize your site for these. The profit gained from these terms can then be reinvested.

Google AdWords is among the most popular tools that you can use to find these long tail keywords and grow your search traffic. All you have to do is just enter your core keywords in the Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool and allow it to suggest other terms. Use “Exact Match” if you are selecting keywords for their SEO value and you will know how many times these keywords are searched for in a month. Then download the entire list in a text or excel format and there you have your own natural long tail keyword list.

If you are an established website then finding out what your competitor does to get traffic to his website is also a good idea. There are chances that your competitor might have already targeted a whole lot of long tail keywords. Your next step then should be optimizing your site and creating new pages which target those keywords as well. There are two ways of doing your investigation. One is to visit your competitor’s website and analyze all the webpages, checking out their title, metatags and backlinks. The other is to use tools like SEODigger. Just enter the site’s URL and you can find out which keywords your competitor is targeting.

So do a little thinking and get your long tail keywords on top and they will undoubtedly increase the amount of traffic you receive from search engines.

Contributed by Shruti Kekre, SEO Team

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Google AdWords has implemented yet another new feature for AdWords PPC advertisers. This really cool new feature is specifically designed to provide users with more options to click on. An advertiser can create richer, more relevant ads that improve the value of their brand terms and other targeted keywords. The feature will show up to four additional links under the main ad for ads that “meet a certain high quality threshold.” It allows advertisers to extend the value of existing Google AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within their sites, instead of sending all users to the same landing page.

Example of Ad Sitelinks



With Ad Sitelinks, you can point to specific information on your site, such as hotels, flights booking, holiday packages or even seasonal promotions. Early participants in Ad Sitelinks, like MakeMyTrip, found that presenting multiple link options made it easier to direct users to relevant information on their sites, driving them deeper into the conversion funnel.

Currently Ad Sitelinks is only being launched to advertisers that meet a high-quality threshold. If your account qualifies, go to your Campaign Settings Tab, then to the “Ad extensions” section. Look for “Show additional links to my site.”

Benefits of Ad Sitelinks

- Ad Sitelinks provides advertisers with a good way of promoting seasonal services or products.

- It allows visitors easier access to deeper content of your website, thereby potentially increasing conversion rates.

- It makes for more targeted search for the user. For example, a user searching for the key phrase “Make My Trip” could be looking for a flight, hotel or a bus ticket. Normally, this user would just see an ad that leads to a single landing page. With Ad Sitelinks showing more focused links in the site, it allows much finer targeting.

Contributed by Manisha Singh

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Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) allows you to insert any one of your keywords into your advertisement text. You need to use the following syntax in your ads {KeyWord:default term}. The default term is used by Google AdWords when the keyword is not allowed to be inserted (For example, if it exceeds the character limit).

Certain facts about Dynamic Keyword Insertion

• Note that Google AdWords adds keyword, but not necessarily the search term. If you are using Broad Match, the advertisement may not be very relevant.Google actually inserts the keyword that is triggered by the user’s query. For instance, if the keyword in your account is “tour package” and the query is “tour package Thailand” and you’ve elected dynamic keyword insertion in your Advertisement Title, the advertisement title will be “tour package”
• Dynamic Keyword Insertion does not improve your Quality Score. As Google evaluates the advertisement copy and keyword to the search query in real time, it uses the actual advertisement (after DKI) being seen by the searcher to determine the Quality Score. Dynamic Keyword Insertion does not improve your quality score directly; however, it indirectly helps your quality score by increasing your keywords’ Click Through Rate.
• While your keywords may be approved for your advertisement group, it is possible they are inappropriate for insertion into your advertisement text. When this happens, the keyword is conditionally approved, with a restriction from insertion into your ad. That is, the keyword can trigger and show your advertisement to users, but it will not actually appear in your advertisement text.
• If the searched keyword contains than 25 characters, in some cases, the Google AdWords title may exceed the 25-character limit. The advertisement title can extend past the 25-character limit and Google AdWords will accept it as long as the default text remains 25 characters, or less.
• Be careful while using DKI for ads that target content network. You cannot monitor and manage ads on content sites closely. Search ads appear based on a keyword search, while Content ads are placed on a page by taking an overall theme of all the keywords in an Advertisement Group. It entirely depends on Google which keyword to insert for which site and by doing so you can show irrelevant ads.

Although there are a few problems while using the DKI system, its saves a lot of time spent in creating ads for each keyword and helps boost the CTR.

Contributed by Manisha Singh

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Google gives each keyword in your AdWord account a Quality Score or QS. QS is a numerical value that ranges between 1 and 10. To allot a keyword to an advertiser, Google conducts an auction. Keywords with high QS are eligible to enter the auction more easily and at a lower cost compared to keywords with a lower QS. Google’s goal is to encourage relevant ads for their users and their pricing system is designed in a way that favors relevant ads and keywords, i.e. ads that get a high click-through and therefore make Google more money.

The following factors determine a keyword QS:
•    Keyword’s click-through rate (CTR)
•    The relevance of the keyword and ad text to its ad group and the keyword’s landing page.
•    Landing page load time.
•    Keyword performance history.

Facts:
•    A Quality Score is calculated by the number of times a keyword matches a search query or, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad.
•    A First Page Bid is an amount advertisers in an auction pay, on average, for first page placement. So, if the first page estimate matches the ROI goal, then bid for the first page to obtain clicks and develop your CTR.
•    The only keywords that affect the overall QS of an account are the ones with really low CTR, which means that they have accrued impressions but have few or no clicks. Keywords with no impressions will not affect your score. It’s also important to note that the number of impressions weights the effect a keyword has on your Quality Score. So, a keyword with 0.0% CTR and 10 impressions will have a smaller overall affect than a keyword with 1,000 impressions and 0.0% CTR. So, in most cases long tail keywords have low volume and so the effect is minor (even if the word is performing poorly). The only time advertisers can run into trouble is when they have a large number of low traffic volume keywords. The total sum of all these impressions add up and can pull down an account’s performance.

Tips to improve quality score:
•    Write relevant ad copies - An ad copy should be relevant to your keyword and landing page’s content. Incorporating both into your ad will get the best possible Quality Score.
•    Remove/pause ineffective keywords that continuously achieve a low quality score, because they affect the overall QS of an account.
The moment you load a keyword into AdWords, it receives a Quality Score. This initial Quality Score is determined by each keyword’s performance history, including other advertisers. Google AdWords has monitors s a keyword’s historical performance for multiple advertisers who target this keyword. Google determines an aggregate score and this is becomes a “base score.” This score is a keyword’s starting point with regard to Quality Score.
•    Make your landing page more relevant – Your landing page and ad copy should provide a smooth presentation. The landing page should deliver on whatever is promised, offered or advertised in the ad.
•    Make your website more credible – To acquire a significant QS, you need a good website as well. Not just the landing page, but it appears that the entire site has to meet certain criteria such as: a contact page, a privacy policy, and at least three pages of relevant content. Google cares about the quality of the site and that is why the QS is called Quality Score. So, as long as you have a good, high quality website, and the page you send the searcher to matches with their search, your keyword can earn a very high QS.
•    Establish a pattern of high quality campaigns- Google uses data to establish patterns and trends. When you create several campaigns that earn a high QS, Google will reward your future campaigns with a higher quality rating.
•    Choose a more focused keyword matching option - Consider using a phrase or an exact match for your keywords to narrow down the search phrases that can trigger your pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Although you will get fewer impressions, the ones you do get will be much more applicable to your PPC ad.

Contributed by Manisha Singh

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Introduction
For those not familiar with Quality score (QS). Google gives each keyword in your AdWords account a Quality Score or QS. QS is a numerical value that ranges between 1 and 10. To allot a keyword to an advertiser, Google conducts an auction. Keywords with awith higher QS are eligible to enter the auction more easily and at a lower cost compared to keywords with a lower QS. Google’s goal is to encourage relevant ads for their users and their pricing system is designed in a way that favors relevant ads and keywords, i.e. ads that get a high click-through and therefore make Google more money.

The following factors determine a keyword QS

• Keyword click-through rate (CTR)
• The relevance of the keyword and ad text to its ad group and the keyword’s landing page
• Landing page load time & content
• Keyword performance history

A few important facts on Quality Score
A Quality Score is calculated by the number of times a keyword matches a search query or, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad.

A First Page Bid is an amount the advertiser in an auction pays, on average, for first page placement. So, if the first page estimate matches the ROI goal, then bid for the first page to obtain clicks and develop your CTR.

The only keywords that affect the overall QS of an account are the ones with really low CTR, which means that they have accrued impressions but have few or no clicks. Keywords with no impressions will not affect your score. It’s also important to note that the number of impressions weights the effect a keyword has on your Quality Score. So, a keywords with 0.0% CTR and 10 impressions will have a smaller overall affect than a keyword with 1,000 impressions and 0.0% CTR. So, in most cases long tail keywords have low volume that the effect is minor (even if the word is performing poorly). The only time advertisers can run into trouble is when they have a large number of low traffic volume keywords. The total sum of all these impressions add up and can pull down an account’s performance.

Tips to improve Quality Score
Write relevant ad copy – An ad copy should be relevant to your keyword and landing page’s content. Incorporating both into your ad will get the best possible QS.

Better keyword management – Remove/pause ineffective keywords that continuously achieve a low QS, because they affect the overall QS of an account. The moment you load a keyword into AdWords, it receives a QS. This initial QS is determined by each keyword’s performance history, including other advertisers. Google AdWords has monitors s a keyword’s historical performance for multiple advertisers who target this keyword. Google determines an aggregate score and this is becomes a “base score.” This score is a keyword’s starting point with regard to QS.

Make your landing page more relevant – Your landing page and ad copy should provide a smooth presentation. The landing page should deliver on whatever is promised, offered or advertised in the ad.
Make your website more credible – To acquire a significant QS, you need a good website as well. Not just the landing page, but it appears that the entire site has to meet certain criteria such as: a contact page, a privacy policy, and at least three pages of relevant content. So, as long as you have a good, high quality website, and the page you send the searcher to matches with their search, your keyword can earn a very high QS.

Establish a pattern of high quality campaigns - Google uses data to establish patterns and trends. When you create several campaigns that earn a high QS, Google will reward your future campaigns with a higher quality rating.

Choose a more focused keyword matching option – Consider using a phrase or an exact match for your keywords to narrow down the search phrases that can trigger your pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Although you will get fewer impressions, the ones you do get will be much more applicable to your PPC ad.

Contributed by Manisha

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