Author: Brennan Deitsch
Date: December 16, 2010
Isn’t the idea of Pay Per Click campaigns great? All you have to do is develop a keyword list and ads that are relevant. Additionally, advertisers only have to pay when their ads are clicked on. Sounds fantastical, doesn’t it? If you have invested your time and money into Pay Per Click programs such as Google Adwords, you will understand me when I say that PPC management is not always profitable. Sometimes there is too much competition for certain keywords and companies can not afford to place high bids to achieve high rankings. The easy solution is to only focus on long tail and niche keywords. However, what do you do if that approach is still not enough?
Manipulate Your Visitors Into Creating New Keywords
Manipulate your consumers into developing a keyword list for you! You do this by creating a blog and writing unique and fresh content and include words that you might not find in all the various keyword tools found on the internet. Manipulating others should be easy for all of us as we have been practicing the craft of manipulation since we were able to speak. If you have kids, you know what I am talking 
about. One final note on behalf of this digression; kids are excellent manipulators! I think I made my point!
Commonly, when internet marketing experts write blogs and content for SEO purposes, they commonly use keyword tools. They research keywords and transfer those keywords into the content of their blog. It can be extremely difficult and costly to compete for those keywords organically and in Pay Per Click campaigns. Instead of inserting those keywords right into your blog, think of other variations of the keyword. Often readers will use your blog to educate themselves and they may even use the same keyword variations from your blog on a search engine to find your website. If you do not believe me, that is ok. Here is an example from some of my work as an Online Marketing Manager.
I was hired by the Vietnam Veterans of America to head their internet marketing strategies to help them raise more funds with their car donation program. One of the first strategies I implemented was keyword research. After researching the competition, I developed a keyword list that looked something like this.
Donate car
Donate your car
Car donations
Donate car to charity
Vehicle donations
Donate my car
Car donation tax deduction
(My beginning keyword list had at least 1,000 keywords). While this keyword list is a good start, all of the competition is already investing their SEO strategies and money on those keywords. The fact is that those keywords are too costly and are too broad.
This is where you have to think outside the box. What specific product or message is your website selling? Referring to my example again, all the car donation proceeds benefit homeless veterans. With that in mind, the keyword list will require you to brainstorm for new keywords and throw away those so called “keyword tools”.
This is how my new keyword list looked:
Donate your car for veterans
Veteran car donation
Donate car Vietnam veterans
Car donation homeless veterans
Donate car Vietnam veterans of America
Donating car to veterans charity
Vehicle donations for veterans
Donate car Vietnam veterans
Donating cars veterans
Donate my car Vietnam vet
Donate car for homeless vets
Car donation tax deduction veterans
Donate car veterans Michigan
Car donations disabled veterans
Donate car to disabled veterans
Give car to veterans
Hopefully you get the idea. I used the generic keyword “donate car” and “car donations” and made them into more specific keywords. When I first started working for the Vietnam Veterans of America, the keyword “veteran car donation” received an average of 10 searches per month.
After two months of using those new long tail keywords in my blog at helpourveterans.wordpress.com, I noticed that the amount of searches including donate car for veterans tripled. I discovered this trend using Google Analytics. Analytics showed me the actual keywords users were typing.
I focused on writing content that included many different variations of car donations and veterans. This also makes the blog sound less promotional. I sometimes would even write blogs that never mentioned the target keyword of car donations. The most successful blog does not always promote a product or service, but it should stir up the emotions of the readers. Regardless, after potential donors left my blog, they used my blog as a reference and used keywords that the competition was completely missing.
What This Keyword Targeting Strategy Means To You:
This strategy is perfect for new businesses or any business that fits into a niche market. This SEO technique will make it easier to achieve top ranking organically and it will lower your costs per click. (CPC) Here is another example to help you understand:
Estimated CPC for the keyword “donate car”: $5.00-$10.00
Versus
“Car donation for veterans”: $1.50-$2.00
This is because there is less competition for the keyword car donation for veterans. Using niche keywords such as car donation for veterans will not bring you as much traffic, but it will allow you to operate at a budget you can afford. It was especially critical for the nonprofit charity. In addition, the more targeted a keyword is, the higher the conversion rate! After I made those adjustments, the conversion rate jumped to 10-20%. The conversion rate for the generic keywords was no higher than 4%! Job well done!
I was then hired by other car donation organizations to run their campaigns as well because of the great results I achieved. I did this by thinking outside the box and allowing the general public to establish hot new keywords for me! Many reputable bloggers already do this, but they may not even realize it.
My advice is to write blogs in a non-promotional manner and stir up the emotions of your visitors! Stop relying on keyword tools to develop keyword lists and generate your own! Start your own blog and keep an open mind when writing the blog. Make sure you track your progress using analytics. When you start to see a trend in new keywords, add them to your website and use them in you Pay Per Click programs. If your competition isn’t using those keywords, you can achieve top ranking organically easily!
Unpaid Advertisement:
-Brennan Deitsch
Toledo, Ohio
Marketing Your Business Online In Ohio 