In search, optimization starts at the time a user sees your ad, and sometimes it doesn't end until months after they leave your site. The most effective advertisers are able to view this entire funnel and optimize each piece of it, thereby balancing engine optimization and profit optimization along the way.
Engine optimization
As competition in your category increases, identifying unique, quality keywords becomes increasingly difficult. While basic keyword research and expansion continues to be important, search engine marketing professionals need to find other tools to gain a competitive advantage. Web marketers need to be skilled at selecting keywords that will not only drive traffic, but also drive conversions in a cost-effective manner. Engine optimization focuses mostly on two elements and the interactions that occur between them: keywords and ad copy.
Keyword optimization has multiple elements and is constantly progressing. The initial piece deals with the keyword list in and of itself -- choosing the right keywords for your campaigns. The "right keywords" are different at each stage of your campaign.
At launch, the "right keywords" generally consist of keywords that will produce high quality scores in the engines and will effectively "burn-in" your account. Generally speaking, these are keywords that will produce a high volume of data in a short period of time so both you and the engine can make a quick decision about how well the keyword performs.
However, avoid keywords that are too broad or too competitive. Broad terms are difficult to target in a granular enough fashion to produce high click-through rates, and super competitive terms are generally overpriced and difficult to achieve high position on at launch. Higher volume, mid-tail terms (three- to four-word terms) that are relevant to your site are generally best for initial quality score.
When deciding quality score, engines are mostly looking at one element: click-through rate. High click-through rates both indicate a high expression of user interest and optimize engine profit -- making it the most dominant variable contributing to quality score. That being said, when launching a campaign, it's in the advertiser's best interest to make ads particularly imploring, oftentimes more aggressive than you would run long term.
It is important that the ad showing properly matches with the keyword query being searched. This requires a granularly organized account structure set up for proper ad serving. Experiments have shown that the most optimal account structure is based on semantic groupings versus random groupings or keywords grouped by quality score. When deciding if a keyword or a group of keywords require their own ad group, ask yourself, "Could the user intent of these keywords be any different? Is there any different messaging I would want to serve to make the ad more relevant?" If so, break it out separately.
Once keywords have established a sufficient click history and ad text is delivering high quality scores, a positive account history has been created. Now you can begin expansion. During this process, you can add longer-tail keywords to the account, as well as highly competitive terms. You can also begin to optimize the account toward profit goals through bidding and keyword value refinement.
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