The Four Kinds of Keywords and Their Stories
Like many companies, you want to increase traffic to your website. You are already paying for PPC advertising with well-researched keywords. Is there a better way?
Yes, but first, let’s define the four types of keywords you may or should be using. Explicit keywords describe a product or service, such as web development; Problem keywords describe the condition the service solves, such as an outdated website; Symptom keywords describe the problem, for instance, a website that needs to be updated for mobile browsing; and product names/part numbers keywords are the actual name of the product/service you are seeking, for example, responsive web development.
Sorting your keywords into these four categories is a good idea because you will have something that addresses all the ways searchers think; e.g., some potential clients will conduct their web search by looking for solutions to their problems, some will be searching for specific products/services, and others will want to find explicit companies.
Next, take these keyword categories to craft stories. For example, let’s say that you want people using smart phones to be able to view your website, but you are not savvy enough to rework your codes (symptom). You need a web development company to fix your website (problem). The web development company’s service you want is the development of a responsive website that is dynamite not only on a desktop computer, but also on a tablet and on a smart phone (product/service name). You find Blink Tech and hire the team (explicit).
Instead of creating stories after doing your keyword research, try creating these scenarios and use them to find new keywords.
For example, let’s assume that your company offers responsive web development. You look up “smart phone websites” using the Google keyword tool and find it has 12,100 searches a month. You then do a search and realize there are very few ads showing for this keyword. A little more research and you have discovered a dozen variations of “smart phone websites,” which leads to about 30,000 impressions a month. Gold!
You have tapped into a very low-risk strategy for expanding the scope of your paid search campaign. Your new combination of keywords has little competition, low cost per clicks (CPCs), and high conversion rates.
