You might be tempted to skip the whole process of keyword planning. Maybe you think you already know what searchers are looking for. If you do, that's great. Unless you have done a comprehensive keyword analysis in the past, however, you don't really know what words searchers enter. Oh sure, you know some of them. But what about the ones you do not know? Every valuable keyword you miss is an opportunity for your competitors.Chapter 4, "How Searchers Work," searchers exhibit very specific behavior when they look for information. Keyword planning enables you to present searchers with the right content at the right timeyour content, that is. As with all of search marketing, keyword planning derives its value from the basic goals of your site that you developed in Chapter 5. There are two basic reasons to engage in search marketing: building brand awareness and increasing Web conversions. Let's look at each one before we take on the keyword planning process itself.
Whether you like it or not, many people have never heard of your company. These people might be customers, if only they knew they should be buying from you. It is well accepted in other forms of marketing that raising awareness is the first step in landing a new customer, and many forms of advertising are devoted to nothing but brand awareness.Chapter 5) might or might not ever become your customers, but your product has a far better chance of being considered if they do decide to move to the Shop phase and eventually make a purchase. Marketers call the group of companies that shoppers might purchase from their consideration set. To be in the consideration set, you need to have high brand awareness.
So how does search improve brand awareness? The simplest way is to ensure that you are targeting broad keywords that capture prospective customers while they are still learningbefore they have made any brand decisions. But there are other ways, too.
In your paid placement programs, always use a well-known brand name, if you have one. And if you don't, you might find that constantly using your brand names will begin to build some level of awareness. Searchers are much more likely to click results with brand names they know. So, paid placements for Snap Electronics should always have Snap in the ad, or SnapShot for its digital camera ads. Because that name is well known, searchers will choose it over a generic ad for digital cameras. When you purchase unbranded keywords, such as digital cameras, and you put your brand name in the ad, you are building brand awareness.
Another way to build brand awareness through search is with tie-ins to traditional advertising campaigns. As mentioned previously, most traditional advertising has some brand awareness goals, such as the TV commercial for cars. But where do people go after they see the commercial? Where do they go when they see your print ad in the airline magazine? They probably do not troop down to the dealership for a brochure. More and more, their next step is to go to the Web.
Perhaps you think that they remember the name of your company and they type in the URL of your Web site. Or they remember the URL you printed at the bottom of the ad? Well, maybe they do. However, it is more likely that they perform a search, for several reasons:
They remember your company name, but they do not know what your Web site address is.
They do not actually remember the name of your company; they just remember the name of the car.
They did not catch anything from the ad except your slogan, but they were interested in that car.
If you do a good job generating attention with your print and on-air advertising, you prompt people to seek out your Web site, which they will often do by searching. If you are introducing a new product or a new concept about your product, you might find people wanting more information when no one was interested before. So, if you are raising interest offline, you must follow through online.
Frequently, search marketers are caught unprepared when a new offline (print or on-air) campaign begins. A keyword that was not important in the past is suddenly hot, but you have no search campaign in place to capture the traffic. Perhaps your company is introducing a new catch phrase. Maybe your product designers are adding a hot new feature to a product. Any of these events can draw attention and prompt searchers to start using new wordsthe words you use in your offline campaign. Stay in touch with your offline counterparts so that you are ready for sudden success from unexpected places.
Similarly, do not fret about being too early to target a keyword. Sometimes you should stick with an unpopular keyword when you know your organization is committed to building awareness. Searchers might simply not have been exposed to the term yet. Daniele Hayes, a manager of paid search programs at IBM, refers to this phenomenon as "keyword timing," noting that each keyword has its own life cycle, where it rises from out of nowhere, might become very popular (quickly or slowly) and eventually fades into oblivion.
Hewlett-Packard and IBM have dueling marketing campaigns that demonstrate keyword timing. IBM's is called "On Demand," with HP touting "Adaptive Computing." Keyword planning performed when these campaigns were launched revealed almost no searches for either term. As both companies ratcheted up their offline media campaigns, searches for these words took off.
It's not just big companies that can do this. Whenever you send out a press release or hold a gala event, it's news. Make sure your search marketing program has a campaign cooking to catch the happy result of your publicity. If brand awareness is one of your goals for search, keep that in mind as you go through your keyword planning process.
As you saw in Chapter 6, "Measure Your Web Site's Success," the simplest justification for search marketing for most businesses is "If they can't find you, they can't buy from you." And, as you also saw, online purchases are only one kind of Web conversionyou decided what the important conversions are for your Web site and you will use search marketing to drive more of them.