Keyword Research, SEO Vs PPC

Keyword research for SEO and PPC can be quite different, you have to consider your goals for each one and what you are trying to achieve.  Then, you have to think about the keywords and how you plan to use them.

SEO and PPC are very different.  With SEO your goals should be more based on the keywords of the topic.  What are people looking for, what do the search and what do they want?  With PPC, the goal is to find keywords that you want to bid on that will bring returns.  Always  zone in on words that will assist in completing your goal and that you can’t easily rank for organically, because using them would defeat the purpose.

The keywords you use will feature throughout your PPC campaigns and ad groups and presumably on your landing page.  This means that they all need to tie together very well to make sure that your Quality Score is high. For SEO, the keywords you choose are the bones of your website and everything that goes with it.  Use these keywords on your website, meta data and content to highlight the keyword.

In SEO, the mistakes are easy to make.  You can use keywords that don’t work, but change them and fix this issue.  Always make sure to refresh your keyword research from time to time so that you are not falling in the rankings with no answer as to why.  SEO doesn’t cost a cent so don’t shy away from using high competition keywords alongside your others from time to time, even if it doesn’t work so well the mistake won’t cost you anything and makes your site more user friendly because the user will find headings that are simply what they are looking for and not a variant of how to say it that they had not thought of.

The PPC mistakes are less easy to make when it comes to keywords, although mistakes cost you money.  You’ll need to examine your keywords very well to make sure you’re using the ones that have the greatest ROI for you and making sure there are not newer, better keywords available to be used.  Always keep the Quality Score in mind when you are doing this.

The next time you are doing keyword research, or discussing keyword research carried out by your consultant and you notice that certain keywords are left out, remember the difference between the two mediums of online advertising when you ask why.  Just because data is available, doesn’t make it useful.