Building A Keyword List For A New Campaign

So you are getting ready to start a new campaign and your building your PPC keyword list.  What is your first step?  How do you go about building the perfect keyword list to maximize your profits?  Well I hear a lot of people talking about how they have 10,000 keywords and some even talk about having even more.  Well let me be the first to tell you this is not how I go about it.  Have you ever tried going through 10,000 keywords to cancel out the non converting one?  Not too much fun my friend.

There are programs out there such as wordtracker or Wordze, but I’m really not  a big fan.  There are just as effective ways to build a great keyword list without spending a bunch of money if you are a newbie.  I get quite a few keywords from just using the keyword tool on Google Adwords.  The other way I like to do things especially when I am familiar with the topic is to use good old word pad and just write them out on my own.  You can cover not only broad keywords but you can also start doing the long tail ones.

If you are not familiar with the meaning between short tail and long tail keywords here is a quick description.  Short tail keywords are very broad based.  If you are marketing diet pills a short tail keyword would be, “Diet Pills.”  On the other hand a long tail keyword could be, “Cheap Acai Berry Diet Pills.”  Generally your long tail keywords are cheaper but also get you less traffic.  They do have a higher conversion rate because they are more focused and there is a higher chance your visitor is ready to buy.

So the next time you are starting a new campaign try coming up with your keyword list on your own.  The chances are if you have a list that is 10,000 keywords long about 70% of them will never get a click.