Best Practices for Increasing Google AdWords ROI: Keyword Match Types

 

In addition to the basic best practices of AdWords, there are multiple ways to continue to improve your campaign’s performance. To continue our blog series covering increasing Google AdWords ROI, the next technique we will cover is utilizing the various match types in Google in order to increase the amount of relevant traffic your campaign drives to your company’s website.

By default, all keywords are set as “broad match.” While this setting is very useful for attracting a large audience, you may not be getting the relevant traffic that you think you are. Take a look at your bounce rate (the percentage of visits to your landing page that immediately leave). Is it high? This probably means that people are clicking on your ad and are not finding relevant content on your landing page. Note that you are still paying for these clicks on your ad, even though the visitor isn’t staying on your site long.

Tips to attract relevant traffic with targeted keyword selection:

Let’s say that you are a company that sells office furniture. You may bid on keywords such as “office furniture” or “desks”. In this case, your ads will probably reach your target market, but you might also show up for irrelevant search queries such as “office supplies ” or “desk calendars”.

To help combat these unwanted impressions (and useless clicks), consider using some of the other match types Google offers.

Phrase Match: The search inquiry must contain the phrase, and may contain other words

• Example: “office furniture”
• Your ad may show up for search inquiries such as “cheap office furniture” or “business office furniture”

Exact Match: The search inquiry must be the exact same as the keyword phrase

• Example: [modern office furniture]
• Your ad will only show up when people search for “modern office furniture”

An option that we have found very useful is broad match modifier keywords. These keywords allow for the best parts of broad match and the other two more exclusive match types, in that it allows search terms to be shown that contain similar words, but the search term must also include all of the words in the keyword phrase.

• Example: +modern +office +furniture
• Your ad may show up for search inquiries such as “office furniture modern” or “modern business office furniture”

Another important keyword type is negative keywords. By choosing negative keywords, you eliminate any searches that contain that word or phrase.

• Example: -used
• Your ad will not show up for search queries such as “used office furniture” or “where to buy cheap used furniture”

Google provides this chart to illustrate the various keyword matching options:

In summary, we suggest considering using multiple types of keywords in your AdWords campaign. This will enable you to not only reach a large audience, but to reach an audience that is interested in your company’s offerings. In addition, eliminating irrelevant searches gives you the greatest return on your advertising spend, as you are not paying for irrelevant clicks on your ad.

Need help with your AdWords campaigns? Contact Launch today! And be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with our insider marketing tips.

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