Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of PPC campaigns. The first step a digital marketer takes when starting an online campaign is to do keyword research.

Here are some of the most common mistakes that you should avoid while doing keyword research. This can help you set up a very successful keyword research strategy.

Before we move on, if you need any kind of help with your digital marketing campaigns, you should definitely reach out to us. Check out our team. Let’s talk.

Considering broad match instead of exact match

When it comes to selecting a keyword, search volume is one of the most important metrics we take into account. Most of the digital marketers use one or the other keyword research tools available to do the same. This is where the first mistake happens.

Keyword research tools give you three types of Keyword matching

• Broad match contains all variations that involve your keyword. It may also contain other words as well. For example, if your keyword is ‘Wireless keyboard’, the broad match may include ‘Wireless keyboard for Mac’, ‘wireless keyboard for windows’ and even stuff like ‘wireless keyboard with mouse.’
• Phrase match includes your keywords along with some other words to give them more meaning. For example, ‘best wireless keyboards to buy’ and ‘great deals on wireless keyboards’
• Exact match contains only your keywords in a given order – “Wireless Keyboards”

There is a huge difference in search traffic between all these results. If you ignore it and estimate your traffic based on the broad match, the results you get will be disappointing.

In order to avoid this mistake, make sure you use ‘exact match’ instead of ‘board match’ and ‘phrase match’.

Using single-word keywords

This is yet another common mistake while selecting keywords. One-word keywords are often too general and are very competitive, making them very hard to rank for.

It is not just that short-tailed keywords are highly competitive, they also lack context. A person searching for ‘Movies’ may be searching for movies to download or he or she might be looking for movie tickets.

Making long-tailed keywords help give more context to your keywords and takes you closer to your customers.

Assuming the keywords

Keyword research is a tough job. The most common mistakes that people do is to assume the keywords your customers will search and take it for granted. You might think you know what your customers are going to search. Do not make that mistake. Do extensive research before coming up with your set of keywords.

You can make use of keyword research tools to do the research but do not entirely rely on them as these tools are not fool-proof.

Checking for your competition  

Ranking for your keywords often means beating your competition. Instead of relying solely on tools, run a search for your keyword and see the top 10 results that come up.

If these results are web pages that rank so high with great content and hundreds of backlinks, you will require lots of time and effort to get ranked in the top.

On the other hand, if the top-ranked web pages are not that great, it will be easy for you to get ranked for that particular keyword.  

Not updating your keywords

As you go into business, you will evolve and your business will too. It is more likely that your customers will also change. This is why it is important to keep updating your keywords from time to time.

Keywords are something that keeps evolving from time to time. If you don’t update your keywords, you are not going to get the desired results.

Not using the language of the customers

The keywords you choose must be the same ones that your customers search for. Using the industry jargon as keywords is a very bad idea as your customers may not know about it.

This is why you need to get into the head of your customers and use keywords that they actually search for. You could get around this problem by talking to your customers directly or asking your salespeople about the terms they use to describe your product.

Keyword research is a little difficult but it is unavoidable. If you do everything right and if you chose the wrong keyword, all your efforts will be in vain. This is why you need careful keyword research before starting your PPC campaigns.

As always, feel free to reach out to us if you need any help with your digital marketing campaigns. That’s all for now, cheers!