When you first set up your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Search ca
mpaign, you need to decide on what type of keyword approach you’re going to use within Google Adwords and which is best suited for your business. Normally, the average advertiser uses a mix of keyword match types dependent on their ultimate goal of the campaign. Are you a start-up company looking to push your brand into users’ faces to make them aware of your existence? Or are you an established local firm where your main priority is to generate leads or sales?
The difference between the different keyword match types could have a massive impact on your overall account performance. Here we take you through the 4 different types of keyword match types in PPC advertising plus a quick look at negative keywords:
Broad Match
Broad match isn’t the most ideal keyword match type you’d want to target but can still be useful if you’re keen to appear for absolutely any search queries related to your industry. However, the risk is you may show up for some irrelevant searches not related to your business unless you keep well on top of your negative keyword list.This will be attractive to companies who are looking for brand awareness and getting traffic to their website.
To use broad match as a keyword type you just type the keyword how you would normally, submitting it into Google Adwords keyword list with no symbols, unlike other keyword match types. Having a Broad Match keyword will allow your advert to appear whenever a user searches any word out of your keyword/phrase. This will include synonyms, related searches and other relevant variations.
Broad Match Modifier
BMM (Broad Match Modifier) gives you the wide range of terms you’re after but provides you more control. However, don’t forget the term ‘broad’ is still present within the keyword match type name.
BMM enables you to lock in keywords that you particularly want to appear for but gives you that needed flexibility to appear for terms you may not have thought for your PPC campaign. It is a great match type for a company who wants a mix of increasing brand awareness whilst trying to attain some business as well.
Locking in the keywords by adding a ‘+’ in front of the keyword/s that you definitely want to be included in a users search term will increase your odds of your advert appearing for relevant search terms whilst keeping a good spread of search terms broad. BMM contains modified terms or close variations but does not contain any synonyms and the order of keywords can be in any order. This is another match type where you will have to be thorough with your negative keyword list.
Phrase Match
Phrase match is a bit of an inbetweener. It’s still widely used in Google Adwords but you will find the common marketer will use a mixture of BMM and Exact keywords within their campaigns. Obviously, that all depends on personal preference and that is not to underestimate the power of phrase match keywords in PPC. Phrase match keywords are less restrictive than Exact Match but more specific than BMM. The search term must contain your keyword in its exact order but can include other words before or after your keyword.
To use a phrase keyword, all you need to do is put quotations marks around your keyword. It’s a great way of triggering different variations of search terms which could include an additional adjective, location or even your competitors brand name.
Exact Match
Exact match – the beauty, the simplicity and the effectiveness. If you know exactly what keywords you want to target for your PPC campaign, then this is the match type for you. The reason the Exact Match is a Digital Marketer’s favourite is that you know every user is pretty much guaranteed to be searching for a relevant search query associated with your business. Also, what makes it better is an Exact Match involves mis-spellings and plurals so you don’t need to worry about adding these as additional keywords. Sounds great huh?!
To use exact match keyword types, you just need to wrap the keyword you wish to have an exact match in square brackets. The downside of exact match type keywords is that it may be more expensive than other keyword match types due to the specificity of the keywords you’re bidding for. This is under the assumption that there will be increased competition for these sort of keywords which other competitors will likely be bidding on. However, you can get your keyword bid decreased up to 50% with a high-quality score.
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are your best friend. They are there when you need them the most and they are sorely missed when they’re not there. Negative keywords are more relevant for Broad, Broad Match Modifier and Phrase Match keyword match types, and will help stop your advert appearing on Google for unwanted search queries.
You may want to put negative keywords in because there may be search terms triggered un-related to your business, it may be a service which isn’t a part of your product offering or it could be an adjective which you don’t use to describe your services or products e.g. ‘Cheap’ when you pride yourselves on premium quality. If we take a look at some of the previous examples we’ve used per match type, we can see some of the negative keywords we could use to stop these search terms from appearing in the future:
What’s next?
There is no right or wrong way of choosing your keyword match types as long as you’re using keywords relevant to your business of the service or products you’re trying to promote. However, there is a more efficient way of potentially maximising your return by using the correct keyword strategies in Pay-Per-Click.
If you would like your business to appear on Google and discuss what keywords you’d like to appear for then get in touch and Yell will arrange a PPC Specialist to work with you on your account!
