In case you need a refresher, or an easy reference point to all our series posts this week, here are links to each of the posts:

Rockin’ Around the Holiday Keyword Research Tree – Sarah

Have Yourself A Merry Little Account Structure – Kayla

All I Want For Christmas Is For My Ads To Show! – Felicia

Oh Come, All Ye Awesome Holiday Landing Pages – Dave

Hopefully this is everything you need to know to get started on your holiday PPC planning! If you have any tips of your own to add, feel free to share them in the comments below. Thanks for reading and we wish you a happy and successful holiday season.

In the spirit of the holiday list making (and checking off), here is your holiday PPC keyword research checklist:

1) Make a list of all the holidays people will be shopping for. There are a lot of holidays in November, December and even January that you’ll want to be prepared for, i.e. that you’ll want to include in your holiday keyword lists. Take the time to list out all the gift-giving holidays/events. Because I’m feeling especially generous in my thoughts of the holidays, I’ll start you out. Hopefully I won’t miss too many!

Winter Holidays of Importance to E-Commerce Accounts:

• Black Friday
• Cyber Monday
• Green Friday
• Hanukkah
• Free Shipping Day (December 17^th)
• Christmas
• Kwanzaa
• Boxing Day (or day after Christmas sales)
• New Year’s Day (and the sales that tend to follow)

A few more tips on using holiday names as keywords. Make sure you include all common misspellings and spelling variations of holiday names. Hanukkah, for example, earns a different spelling every time I try to write or type it, and Kwanzaa is also easy to misspell. Also keep in mind that not everyone searching for Black Friday deals will be using the term “Black Friday” so be sure to consider all terms people will use for each event.

2) Make a list of all possible gift recipients, considering the relevancy of your products. If I’m selling ties, for example, I can likely assume that they will be purchased predominantly for male gift recipients (fathers, grandfathers, brothers, boyfriends, uncles). Why create a list of likely gift recipients? Because you’ll want to capture everyone searching for “Christmas gift ideas for boyfriends/fathers/grandfathers.” This list could get quite extensive, as people will be searching for gifts for family, friends, co-workers, service providers (mail delivery staff, hairdressers, cleaning staff, babysitters, etc.), so really consider everyone your products might be relevant for.

3) Make a list of all your products. I know you already have this list in your PPC accounts, but it’s still helpful to think through your products when making phrases for holiday gift searches. Go a step beyond this and make sure you include relevant generic holiday product terms, like gift, present, stocking stuffer, etc.

4) Make a list of possible holiday promotions. Online shoppers are savvy and they’ll be scouting out good deals for the holidays, so in this list of list-making tasks be sure to think through the deals people will most likely be searching for. Of course people will be searching for general holiday sales, but also keep in mind that shipping is a great selling point for e-commerce holiday shopping. Go beyond “free shipping,” as many shoppers will be scouting out online stores that provide “guaranteed delivery by X” (whatever holiday gift they’re searching for).

As a side note, you can also use this list to create holiday promotions to advertise via PPC.

5) Utilize keyword research tools. Once you’ve got a basic list of holiday search terms, don’t forget about the available keyword research tools to help you expand your lists. If you’re an AdWords user, definitely take advantage of Google’s Keyword Tool (under the “Reporting and Tools” tab in AdWords). AdCenter also has a great keyword research tool.

6) Start putting your lists together. Now that you’ve got your keyword lists of all pertinent days, recipients and products/promotions, start putting them all together. You might find it useful to use Excel’s concatenate command to come up with some of your search phrases, but I recommend taking a more human approach to begin.

Start thinking through how people would search for your products as holiday gifts using the terms you generated. You might also want to consider plugging some of your terms into Google Insights to get a basic idea of search volume. This will prevent you from under or over estimating your holiday search traffic and will allow you to budget accordingly.

7) Brainstorm some negative keywords. Last, but certainly not least, it’s also a good idea to think through negative keywords to help keep your holiday traffic as focused as possible. Keep an eye on your search query/term reports after you implement your holiday campaigns, but being proactive about adding negatives will go a long way in saving you money. Google Insights and the keyword research tool in AdWords are good tools to use for this. Plug in a holiday search term and pay attention to related terms that pop up.

For example, when I used the AdWords keyword tool to find search terms related to “Christmas gifts for Dad,” I saw a number of phrases related to homemade gifts. Unless I’m advertising homemade goods, I would definitely want to use “homemade” as a negative for my holiday campaigns.

I hope these tips get you started in your keyword research for the holiday season! Check back tomorrow for Kayla’s tips about implementing a good account structure for your holiday PPC efforts.

Starting this coming Monday, we’ll be posting one blog a day about how to effectively plan for and implement a varied strategy for the holiday season in your PPC accounts. This particular series is going to focus on ecommerce and ramping up sales around Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the like with some touch on B2B and lead generation-based accounts. However, keep an extra eye (maybe you found one on Halloween?) open in December for the follow-up series, specific to ending this year and starting next year as strong as possible for B2B and lead generation.

My fellow PPC Hero’s and I know you all can’t possibly be asked to wait until Monday to see what’s in store, so here’s what we’ll be covering. Sorry ahead of time for the titles, we’ve been hit with the holiday spirit hard this year:

Monday: Rockin’ Around the Keyword Research Tree – Sarah

Tuesday: Have Yourself A Merry Little Account Structure – Kayla

Wednesday: All I Want For Christmas Is For My Ads To Show! – Felicia

Thursday: Oh Come All Ye Awesome Holiday Landing Pages – Dave

Friday: Series Wrap-Up

My goal with this post is to expand on the information Bethany has already laid as solid groundwork for an overall approach to negative keywords. What I’d like to offer in this post are some additional places to look for negatives that you might not have previously considered. Sometimes you’re not dealing with lists of terms that are easy to brainstorm on your own, and we all need more focused and qualified traffic. Why not spend some time monitoring the buzz around your keywords, products, etc. in the realm of social media?

This isn’t as labor-intensive as it might sound, as there are a number of great (and free) services out there that will help you keep track of your top keywords, but more importantly related terms people are using to search. Added bonus: this will be an easy way to keep tabs on your competition.

First, let me illustrate how social media monitoring can be useful in finding appropriate negative keywords, and then I’ll share some services to help you on your way. The benefits of social media monitoring are that you can quickly see the most frequently used keywords surrounding a term you’re monitoring. This is similar to Google’s suggested search terms at the bottom of their SERPs, but it’s, well, more tidy and requires less digging. In addition to related keywords, you’ll get the latest mentions of your target phrase across online discussions, blogs, etc.

One of my clients sells wedding favors, which seems easy enough on the surface to come up with relevant negative keywords, but when I did a quick social media search I found people blogging about using charities as wedding “favors” for guests. This is valuable information as I honestly wouldn’t have thought of this myself, and now I have a whole slew of new negatives to add to my account, as people searching for charities to make donations on behalf of their guests aren’t likely to click on my ads for various goodies. And this knowledge is also good in crafting future ad text if I know there are a significant number of people aware of charitable donations as a possible idea to show appreciation to their wedding guests.

To help get you started, here are some great free services you can use to monitor social media buzz:

Social Mention: Type in your company name, product name, topic or keyword in Social Mention’s very user-friendly interface and you’ll get back the latest mentions across blogs, comments, etc. You’ll also get top keywords related to your main search, as well as top hashtags. Social Mention’s interface will only show you the top 10 related keywords (left side column), but you’ll have the option in the right column to download the full list (under CSV ­Data). You can also create an RSS Feed or email alert out of any search on Social Mention.

Addict-o-matic: Addict-o-matic is a lot like Social Mention, but data is presented more like a news page than an analytic report. I like the Addict-o-matic will show you results across search engine, which could be very useful for accounts with campaigns in both Bing and Google. Addict-o-matic also includes Twitter content. To refer back to any given search just bookmark the page.

addict-o-matic

BlogPulse: The name says it all, search across the blogosphere to see what people are saying. At first glance, BlogPulse may seem too simplistic, but I’ve gotten really good, in-depth information here. I’ve found a number of products being written about that my client doesn’t offer. You can narrow your parameters by search terms and start dates.

Facebook Search: I hadn’t thought about using Facebook previously, but with Facebook’s recent filtering for user comments (public vs. private) anyone can search public posts via keyword. A quick search for “wedding favors” spits back posts from brides to be talking about what they’re ordering (and what they’re not). Definitely insightful when trying to find terms to block from your search queries!

I hope this helps to expand your arsenal of research tools in looking for good negative keywords for your accounts, although this information could be used in a number of other ways as well.

Do you think social media monitoring is effective in refining your negative keyword lists? Will these types of services help you in your efforts? Let us know in the comments below.

For additional reading about negative keywords here on PPC Hero, check out Jessica’s post on using negative keyword lists and Erin’s post on defining negative keyword match types

In any case, optimizing your results for low search volume campaigns can be tricky, and sometimes you’re simply challenged with low search volume keywords out of necessity. But, after managing a PPC account with an overall low search volume and seeing the account become more and more successful, I can offer some tips on how to optimize an account with overall low search volume. After all, you don’t necessarily need to reach a broader audience, you just have to target the right audience, especially if your account is conversion-focused.

Broadening Your Account

How do you broaden an account when keyword expansion isn’t viable? You’ve got all relevant keywords in your account, now what? First of all, make sure you’re testing all match types of your keywords. Maybe you’re limiting your traffic by excluding too many broad terms. If you’re running your account in Bing/Yahoo, make sure you’re using explicit bidding for each keyword match type.

Second, focus on your branded campaign(s), or if you aren’t currently running a branded campaign, create one! In my low search volume account, my branded campaigns outperform my other campaigns by leaps and bounds, even with low search volume keywords in tow. These campaigns have click-through rates with percentages 10 times higher than other campaigns in the account. One of my branded campaigns has a phenomenal click-through rate – 9.6%. So, if your product/service terms aren’t performing well, focus more on your company and branded names.

Along this line, also make sure you’ve set up a campaign to grab some traffic from people searching for your competitors.  I always see a few conversions a month from my Competitors campaign.

Identifying Your KPI

In low search volume accounts, hopefully you’re measuring more key performance indicators than clicks, impressions and click-through rate because otherwise you could be in for some serious frustration. In my account, my KPI (key performance indicator) is conversions, so as long as I can increase conversions month over month my client is happy.

In order to maximize conversions with low search volumes, my advice is to really pay attention to your account spend, especially if you’re limited by your monthly budget. If your low search volume campaigns are further handicapped by limited budgets, your account’s performance is only going to get worse. This is especially important if your keyword bids are high. Google will cap you campaigns somewhat prematurely to prevent them from overspending, because at a higher cost per click you’ll spend much more quickly. While this is a good thing in terms of managing cost, it’s not great for garnering more visibility, and sometimes you’ll need to set your budgets slightly higher than you’re actual budget to get them to spend your full goal amount.

Also, don’t start off spending too aggressively at the beginning of the month, as you’ll be much better served by gradually increasing your spend over the course of the month than having to pull back to stay within your budget goal. In my experience, during the months that I’ve started off too aggressively and had to pull back, my conversions have been the lowest, even when my cost per month has been the same from month to month.

Odds and Ends

I have just a final few tips to end on. Don’t discount the Opportunities tab in AdWords. Sometimes when I think I’ve exhausted all keyword options Google will suggest some really useful terms, and I can vouch for their success once they’ve been added to my account. Just be sure to take AdWords’ suggested location (campaign, ad group) with a grain of salt. Sometimes my best keywords have been suggested for other ad groups.

Lower search and click terms only make great (and relevant) landing pages that much more important. Once you’ve found your target audience and they click on your ad, you’ll want them to convert. So, invest the time and energy into developing quality pages, and research which type of page better serves your audience (long vs. short form, educational, etc.). If you need some help with your landing pages, be sure to check out our video post on landing page optimization. Dave also wrote a very helpful post on conducting a landing page audit.

I hope this post helps you better optimize your PPC account with an overall low search volume, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s post in our How I Manage A PPC Account With/Without ___________ series from Felicia about how she manages a PPC account with a small budget!

Thank you to everyone who participated in this month’s Heroview – real-time discussions with PPC industry experts via Twitter.  Stay tuned for next month’s Heroview!

August 18, 2011

PPC Hero: Welcome to #Heroview everyone! To get started, tell me a little about yourself. How long have you been working with PPC?

Michelle: Hey everyone! Thanks for having me, @ppchero. This should be a lot of fun! A little about me: I graduated from college in 2010 and got hired as an in-house PPC assistant close afterward. Now I manage all of our PPC accounts & have fallen in love with PPC. Fun work, great challenges, and a wonderful community.

PPC Hero: Glad to have you Michelle, lets dive right in! How do you typically begin your keyword research process?

Michelle: My first step is always to come up with a list of “common sense” keywords – something I would search for. Then, I take those words & search them in to Google and Bing. I try to get a feel for competition and searcher intent. Search engines know what their users are looking for. Their SERPs can give you great search intent information. Use it!

PPC Hero: There are many excellent sources of data out there. In your opinion, where are the best places to look?

Michelle: I have a hard time trusting any tools estimates on search traffic. I’ve not found one that I feel gives accurate numbers. That said, I think both AdWords’ and adCenter’s keyword tools show a correct hierarchy of keyword search traffic. What I mean is although the numbers of search volume are not accurate, if the stats show that keyword #1 is better than keyword #2 (in terms of volume). I usually find that to be true. So even if you can’t predict actual numbers, you can guess which will have more traffic.

PPC Hero: Do you include any negative keyword research into your initial strategy?

Michelle: Yes, but not as a separate process. With new groups of keywords, negatives are nearly as important as the keywords themselves. When looking for new kws, if I see a word I know I don’t want to show up for I write it down in a separate list. Most of my negative keywords will come from search query reports after the new keywords have been running for a while.

Every tool out there will inevitably give you some keyword suggestions that would be better negatives. Take advantage!

PPC Hero: On average, how often should keyword research be performed for a given account?

Michelle: I think a good PPC manager should always stay on top of their SQRs to be on the look out for opportunities. As far as a regular schedule goes, a lot depends on your company’s products/services & the size of your account. Companies with small lists of products/services might have a hard time branching out into new keyword lists with any regularity, but companies with tons of products and services might have constantly changing market demands to keep up with.

First, I think it’s worth noting that keyword research is NEVER done. Queries are always changing.

Michelle: Generally, the higher your level of traffic, the more often you should do some form of keyword research. I think you need to make sure you’re using your time effectively & making changes from large enough data sets. The accounts I work on have about 100,000 keywords, so I do some sort of keyword research (negative or expansion) nearly everyday just to stay on top of things.

PPC Hero: Excellent points! So, how do you coordinate your keyword decisions with your client/boss?

Michelle: Coordination can be a big benefit – even in-house. Every once in a while, our company will expand, or we’ll see a new opportunity and we’ll get together and chat about kw, targeting, and structuring ideas. Sometimes it’s extremely helpful to bounce your ideas off of other people. One of the best things we have created is a “Low Scores” campaign. This is where we send all of our ad groups that have terrible QSs but still generate great traffic.

PPC Hero: More communication, the better! Should your keywords be tailored to specific engines (Google, Bing, etc)?

Michelle: Definitely, keywords should be targeted to different engines. But I don’t think those differences are imperative in initial research. Tools like Soolve.com and the engine specific tools give suggestions that are slightly different for each engine & that’s great. But I think most of the differences are found later through SQRs. There usually aren’t major differences.

PPC Hero: As you mentioned earlier, SQR’s can be a good source for new converting keywords. Are these always successful in the long-run?

Michelle: New SQR keywords are wonderful. They can give you great results, but they’re not guaranteed to have long-term success. Changes in product features, discounts/sales, legal regulations, or news events can have long or short-term implications. All of these types of changes can have big effects on your account. Sometimes they’ll last for a week or so then lose effectiveness, other times they could be a benefit for years to come!

Once you’ve added some new keywords from SQRs, you should keep an eye on them to make sure they’re still performing well.

PPC Hero: Interesting! Let’s say you have a HUGE keyword list. What’s the best way to distinguish keywords with the most potential?

Michelle: That’s a tough one. I think “potential” is something each company needs to define for themselves. Account goals need to be well defined from the start. Some people are going for traffic, so broader keywords are the most important.

Michelle: Others are more concerned with lowering CPAs and high conversion rates. For those people like me, longer-tail and more restrictive match types tend to be the route to take. If those tighter groups perform well, there’s always the opportunity for expansion into new match types later.

PPC Hero: To wrap things up, do you find it important or beneficial to maintain a close relationship between SEO and PPC keyword research?

Michelle: I think it’s very important to keep close ties between SEO & PPC because they work hand-in-hand. SEO tends to be a longer-term goal while PPC is more immediate & usually a good testing ground. Also, not all searchers are alike. Some click on ads, others click exclusively on organic results. Catch them all!

First of all, I’ve never heard of commanding more space on a SERP as a bad thing.

Michelle: Here’s a study showing the relationship between SEO and PPC in terms of incremental clicks: http://t.co/lANGE1o

PPC Hero: Thanks for the excellent insights! Does anyone have any questions for our guest?

@JeffAllenUT: In your opinion, is it better to start specific using long tail and exact match and then move out?

Michelle: Thats usually my method. Start with mostly exact w/ some phrase & bmm mixed in. I can expand after that if I need to.

@Mel66: You’ve learned a lot about PPC in just a year. What are some of your favorite training resources?

Michelle: Thanks Melissa. My biggest source of information is twitter. All of the members of #ppcchat are amazing and so helpful! Other than that, I do a lot of blog reading. @sewatch @sengineland @clickz @ppchero (of course) There are so many!

@Chriskos: Any comments on keyword organization, choosing ad groups and campaign distribution?

Michelle: Keyword organization for me is done mostly by the modifying keyword. We have a set list of words for our company, but different people search for them differently. I try to get as specific as I can when creating a new ad group. Makes for better copy. I tend to make campaigns at the product/service level, than the ad groups are the modifiers for those products or services.

@MikeRyan2: Very well done. What’s your take on bid optimization? What’s a good starting bid and what factors influence changes?

Michelle: Great question. Bid optimization is huge. As far as starting bids go, that can’t be answered as a rule of thumb. I would say to start your bids at a price that you wouldn’t be mad paying for every click you get on that keyword. Once you’ve gathered some data, you can optimize for clicks, conversions, & average position in line with company goals.

PPC Hero: Well, that’s all the time we have. Thanks to @Michellemsem for some great insights, as well as everyone following along today!

Michelle: Thanks for having me @ppchero! This was a lot of fun!

You’ve heard of the three little PPC pigs right? The first PPC pig started building his account without conducting any keyword search because it was the easiest thing to do. The second PPC pig created a list of generic keywords which made his account a little stronger than the first. But the third PPC pig spent time looking at his website, expanding upon relevant keyword variations, understanding his customer, and utilizing keyword research tools which made his PPC account was the strongest of all…

Ok so maybe that’s not exactly how the story goes, but keyword research is the foundation on which you build your PPC account. The stronger the keyword list, the stronger your account will be and the less likely you are to get eaten by the big bad high CPL wolf.

This post will walk you through the steps of setting up your initial PPC keyword list using our company, Hanapin Marketing, as an example. I’ll also provide some quick tips for keyword list creation at the end.

Start With The Company Website

The first place you should start looking for keywords is the company website. This is the best way to identify the core words and phrases that describe your business. Looking at the website layout will also help you see any keyword themes that may be present. Let’s take a look at website for Hanapin Marketing.

Right away you can see the three categories of services we offer:

• Pay Per Click Management
• Search Engine Optimization
• Website Redesign and Development

To help keep myself organized, I like to group my keywords by theme, in this case types of services offered, instead of just creating one long keyword list. Next, I’m going to click through to each individual service page and write down every relevant keyword I find on the site for each category. Here’s an example of some of the keywords I identified for Pay Per Click (click to enlarge):

As you are going through your site, don’t forget to include branded terms when developing your keyword list. Branded keywords are extremely beneficial to any PPC account as they tend to have higher conversion rates and lower cost per conversions. Below are the list of keywords I put into my excel spreadsheet from the website.

As we move through the rest of this example, I’m only going to focus on building out the keyword list for the Pay Per Click terms.

Include Synonyms and Keyword Variations

After you’ve pulled keywords from your website, look at your list and see if you can think of any synonyms or variations of those keywords. For example, pay per click is also known as paid search, so I’m going to substitute “paid search” for “pay per click” in my keyword list. Pay per click also has other variations. It is commonly abbreviated as “ppc” or is written to include hyphens “pay-per-click.” I want to target these keywords as well so I am going to substitute the variations in for the original keyword.

Think Like Your Customer

Now that you’ve spent time looking at the company website and thinking of other keyword variations, take a step back and put yourself in the customer’s shoes. What would someone who’s looking for your product or service type into the search engines?

Hanapin is targeting people who need management for their PPC accounts. However, if the person searching is inexperienced in the industry they might not use the term “pay per click” or “paid search”. They may search on more generic terms like “online advertising” or “internet marketing”. Just because you are knowledgeable of industry terms doesn’t mean your customers are.

Also think about the intent of your customer. If a person is looking for help with managing their account it’s likely that their current account is not doing well and they want to improve performance. Because of that “improve ppc account performance” is a longer-tail keyword we could also target.

Keyword Research Tools

Now that you’ve spent time brainstorming, enter these keywords into a keyword research tool to uncover more terms that fit your business. There are many great keyword tools out there, both free and paid, that will help you expand your PPC keyword list. I’m going to use the AdWords keyword tool since it’s free and one I use often, though I do recommend using a variety keyword tools to get different perspectives.

All you have to do is enter in a keyword and hit search, and Google will generate a list of related keyword ideas.

Go through the list and check the ones you think would fit into your account. You can see here I’ve selected four of the first five words, but left pay per click management software unchecked since we don’t offer that service. Once you’ve selected your keywords you can download them into an excel file and add them to your original keyword list. Below are some of the additional keywords I found using the keyword tool.

Notice that I’ve also expanded these new keywords to the other pay per click variations identified earlier. I’ve also broken down my original pay per click list into sub categories. I try to keep myself as organized as possible when creating keyword lists because it will make setting up your AdWords account a much easier process.

Tips For PPC Keyword List Creation

Here are 3 tips for creating your initial PPC keyword list:

• Start small. Once you start researching keywords it’s very easy to create a list of thousands upon thousands of keywords. It’s important to focus on the quality of keywords rather than the quantity. The best keywords are the ones that are relevant to your products or services and accurately reflect the content of your website. I recommend starting your PPC account with an initial list of a couple hundred keywords. Let these keywords run and then see where your PPC account has opportunities for growth.
• Don’t be too general. General keywords are going to have a lot of competition, which means a higher cost-per-click. For example, even though PPC is a form of advertising I wouldn’t bid on the keyword “advertising”. Unless you have a large PPC budget, stay away from very general keywords and focus on more specific keywords that better describe what you offer.
• Don’t be too specific. Although specific keywords tend to perform better than general keywords, being too specific can limit your ad exposure if very few people are searching for it. For example, I wouldn’t include “companies that can improve my ppc performance” but instead just include “improve ppc performance” which will pick up traffic from those longer-tail search queries.

Keyword research is an on-going process, but starting off with a strong list of initial keywords will start you on the path to PPC success. Be sure to come back tomorrow to learn about setting up your first PPC campaign!

So, without further ado, I’d like to celebrate the wacky world of PPC by sharing our WTQs from June!

First, I have the top associative WTQs.  These are queries that may not seem so bad when taken out of context, but quickly become crazy when connected with ad groups.  Really?  That query caused the searcher to click on that ad?  What the query?!

4. “face washing lesson plans” -> Art School

3. “anger management activity for high school small group” -> Coupons

2. “what do polar bears eat” -> Coupons

1. “jack black weight loss” -> Christian Book Publishing

And as the crème of the crop, here are the search queries that were just…well…see for yourself.

4. “nursing program jealous people”

3. “what is good job to get with nursing degree”

2. “converts in Denver”

1. “how will budgeting and creating as ending plan be much easier and faster in organizing business revenge”

Yeah.  Let’s just hope that organized business revenge has fallen through.

What crazy queries have you found in your accounts?

Want more PPC strategies and tips?  Check out our other episodes of Ticker Tuesday:

Ticker Tuesday 1: Making Good PPC Accounts Great

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we give you 4 tips that will help clean up your account and get it ready for the pay-per-click big time.

Ticker Tuesday 2: Bidding Strategies, Part 1

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we walk through when it’s a good idea to increase bids, and when to decrease them.

Ticker Tuesday 3: Bidding Strategies, Part 2

In Part 2 on our series on bidding, we discussing the specific tools Google AdWords has to offer for bidding, and how each method relates to your end goals.

Ticker Tuesday 4: Understanding adCenter’s Quality Score

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we discuss how adCenter’s Quality Score works, and how it differs from Google AdWords’s Quality Score.

Ticker Tuesday 5: Setting Up Data Feeds In Google Merchant Center

In this episode of Ticker Tuesday, we take you through what to be especially careful of when setting up a feed on Google Merchant Center.

Ah, search queries, those unedited moments of personality that come with a click.  Granted, because we work very hard to keep our keyword lists refined, most of the time there aren’t many surprises in an SQR.  But every now and then, you stumble across a word that makes you confused, amazed, amused, terrified, or all four at once.  I call those WTQs – “What The Query?!” – and I love them.

Sometimes, these WTQs reflect wishful thinking from searchers (“people should not wear unfroms to school”), or unusual tastes (“chicken decor inside the home”).  Other times, WTQs remind me that some people treat Google like a consultant (“I want to buy bicycle online and make monthly payment can I do that”), or even a secret confidant (“my boyfriend wants to adopt my 2 year old her dad is in preson”).  But my two favorite types of WTQs are those that make no sense when compared to the ad group they’re connected to, and those that, well, just make no sense at all.

So without further ado, here are my top 5 search query -> ad group connections from the last few months.  I promise, I’m not making this up.

5. “archery lessons” -> Art School

4. “fencing” -> Interior Design

3. “list of dirty things” -> Online Scheduling

2. “landscape companies” -> PPC Management

1. “dr dre beats laptop software” -> Business Continuity

And as a grand finale, here are my top 7 search queries that are just plain strange, no ad-group explanation needed.  Seriously, guys.  WTQ?!

7. “trombone fetish”

6. “how to wear a thong to school”

5. “how do i make a fashion desine with fabrick?”

4. “cocaine use and aortic dissection”

3. “how to ride a book”

2. “please google help me find a publisher”

1. “argeneau vampire family tree how to contact by phone emergency”

If anyone can explain #1, please, please, let me know.