This post was inspired by Chad from CDFNetworks.  Chad wrote a post about the good and bad of using longtail keywords and I decided that I wanted to do a post along the same lines.  Even though he touched on both the good and the bad, this post will be one sided, I’ll only be talking about the benefits of using long tail keywords. I’ll be talking about some of the reasons Chad gave, and also expanding a little on those reasons and then adding my two cents on the issue of long tails.  Make sure to check out his post about removing long tail keywords.

What is a Long Tail Keyword?

A long tail keyword is simply a keyword that is made up of multiple words.  An example of a short tail keyword would be download ringtones, while an example of a long tail keyword would be download mp3 verizon ringtones.

Exactly how many words are required in order for a keyword to become a long tail keyword is really based on opinion.  I don’t believe there is actually anywhere on the internet that says this makes this a long tail and this makes this a short tail.  Basically if it’s short it’s a short tail and if it’s long it’s a long tail!  I know…Rocket Science stuff here!!!

What are the benefits of long tail keywords?

There are two big benefits to long tail keywords.  The first being that normally long tail keywords convert at a higher rate than short tails.  This is largely do to the fact that most long tail keywords are very specific as to what the user wants.  Now obviously the long tail keyword has to be related to your niche and product or service in order to produce the best results.

The second thing that makes long tail keywords valuable is the fact that you can bid on these keywords and obtain the top positions for a lot less than what you’re spending on short tail keywords!

Obviously better conversions yet you pay less for the clicks sounds great and a marketer would be stupid not to use them then…..right???

Actually, you’d be surprised at how many affiliate marketers don’t spend time and energy on long tail keywords.  “Why?” you ask.  Because there is one huge disadvantage to long tail keywords…and 99% of you already know that this is….lack of volume (traffic).  A long tail keyword might receive 100 searches a month or it might receive 1 search a month.  Obviously it depends on the keyword, but a long tail keyword will never be able to match the volume of a short tail keyword and that’s expected…..

So should I write long tail keywords off?

This is what I really wanted to talk about in this post…

As I said, believe it or not, a ton of affiliates write off long tail keywords and decide that their time would be better spent focusing on the short tail keywords only.  Why?

This is just my opinion and from what I’ve hard over the years during consultations with people, but the reason that seems to pop up the most is that it’s easy for people to launch a campaign with a thousand keywords than it is to launch one with tens of thousands of keywords.

When you are focusing on long tail keywords because there is a lack of volume, you make up for that lack of traffic by having a ton of long tail keywords.  Now this does of course mean more ad groups and ads, however, I really believe it’s worth your time…especially for new affiliates!

You need to remember one thing here.  Most of the big affiliates are probably bidding on the same short tail keywords that you are!  Now do you really think as a new affiliate you’re going to be able to take them on head on with your limited knowledge?  Of course not!  However, as I said earlier, a lot of affiliates don’t mess with the long tails and this leaves them wide open for you!

As you start to convert on the long tails, you are then able to slowly bring in the short tails and eventually you’ll find a happy medium with the two and have a campaign that kicks butt!  So please, please don’t write off long tail keywords.  They will and always will play an important part in your affiliate campaigns if you use them right!

You’ll need to maximize the video in order to view it properly and see and read everything.

Let’s move on to the topic in the title now.  The question I have asked today is are you bidding on ready to buy keywords or research keywords?

Many affiliates when doing their keyword research do not take the time to go through their lists or to even sit down and think about their niche before they get started.  They simply open up a keyword tool like Wordtracker or Wordze and start punching in keywords that are related to their niche.  However, you really need to take a step back as an affiliate and make sure that you’re doing your homework before opening up these keyword tools and punching away.

You have two types of searchers when it comes to people looking for products or services.  The first searcher you have is the one that is simply searching for information about a product or service.  These people are typing in keywords looking for more information about a niche.  They are trying to find the best product, price, features, etc.  They are basically shopping around.  They are not in the buying mode yet and are very hard to convert into a sale or lead as they haven’t even made their mind up yet as to whether or not they even want or need the product or service yet.

The second type of searcher you have is the searcher that is ready to buy.  They have already done their research, found which product or products appealed to them the most, found a price they were willing to pay and which features they need, etc.  They are the cream of the crop and are the ones that will convert with ease if you have even the slightest idea what you’re doing!

Of course, it’s hard to tell sometimes whether a certain keyword is a ready to buy keyword or if it’s simply a research keyword however just to give some examples, I’ll use some of the more obvious ones.

Types of Research Keywords:

• Information on Canon Cameras
• Digital Camera Features
• Top 10 Digital Cameras
• Cameras with Steady Shot Feature
• Digital Camera Price Ranges
• Buy a Digital Camera
• etc…

Types of Ready to Buy Keywords:

• Buy a Sony Cybershot DSC1310
• Best Price for a Kodak EasyShare E915
• Special Package Deal for Cybershot DSC111
• Nikon SLR151 with Fast Shipping
• etc…

As you can see most of the easy to tell ready to buy keywords get very specific in terms of the camera they want, however, as I said above there are more not to out there keywords that could still very well be ready to buy keywords.  Of course, with these types of keywords you’ll need to use some wisdom and also at times may need to actually try them out to see.

The bottom line is that you should always stop and think before you actually start your keyword research and consider what types of keywords are going to be your ready to buy keywords and which ones will be your research keywords.

Ready to buy keywords will always have a higher conversion rate if you can meet the need of the customer which allows you to bid higher on these types of keywords to start and can make the difference of having a campaign that gets enough volume and conversions versus someone just bidding the same thing on all their keywords to start.

Step One: Researching Your Niche!

One of the most common mistakes I see affiliates make is researching keywords for a niche when they know nothing about the niche they are gathering keywords for! Understanding your niche is an important step to creating a keyword list that will help you rise to the top in any given niche. Each niche has their own lingo, slang, or sayings that are specific to that niche. Without researching your niche, you’re not going to type in these words in whatever keyword tool you’re using!

Before you even start researching your keywords, you need to make sure that you understand all the terminology for that niche, understand what different sayings mean, etc. Without this knowledge, you will most likely fail!!!

Step Two: Understand How Most Affiliates Research Keywords!

The next thing you need to realize before you even start building your keyword list is the fact that most affiliates, I’d say about 90%, open up a keyword tool and start typing in generic keyword phrases for their niche in order to build their keyword list. If you do this as well you’ll end up bidding on the same exact keywords that 90% of other affiliates are bidding on!
Be creative, think of other ways people might be searching for your product or service! Are there terms you discovered in step one? If so, use those terms instead of the generic keywords that every other affiliate is using! Is there another type of audience closely related to your niche that you can target? Think Outside of The Box!

Step Three: Start On Paper!

When I first start thinking of keywords for a niche, I don’t just open up a keyword tool and start punching them in as I think of them. I first brainstorm my keyword ideas on paper or in a notebook. The reason I do this is so I’m able to look at my sheet of paper and know exactly which search terms I have already used.

This also allows me to focus on making sure my list contains a ton of various keywords and keep my searches as broad as possible allowing me to cover all the bases. Keyword tools are there to help you, but they can’t replace your brain! USE IT!

Step Four: Take Your Time!

Instead of timing yourself and seeing how quickly you can get done gathering your list of keywords, I challenge you to see how long you can gather keywords before you get so tired of doing it that you swear you’ll never use one again!

Again, keyword tools are made to help you get your job done faster, however, if you move too fast you’ll miss out on a ton of keywords because you’re in a rush! Slow down and think while you’re building your keyword list! Think about each keyword you type in and see the results the keyword tool gives you, don’t just add them to your list and go.

By giving yourself a minute and looking through the list as you go, you’ll most likely see a keyword phrase or two that will pop out and make you think of another keyword phrase. By doing this, you’ll turn a list of 10,000 keywords into 50,000 keywords!

Step Five: Make Sure You Actually Use Analytics!

So, you’re proud of yourself because you did everything you were told to do including installing analytics on your site. However, have you actually ever logged into it and taken a look at more than just how many visitors you had for the day or month? Most analytic tools will allow you to see what keywords people are typing to find your site organically in the search results!

By checking this out, you’ll find keywords to put into your keyword tool to expand and grow your campaign even more! Make sure you use this tool to it’s full advantage or you’ll miss out on some great keywords you could be bidding on!

Conclusion:

Keyword research doesn’t have to be a hard and difficult task. However, it shouldn’t take you a couple hours to build your keyword list! Make sure you take your time and do it right the first time and use the tips above and you’ll come out on top with a keyword list that 90% of affiliates aren’t using!

Do you have any other suggestions for keyword researching? Anything to avoid? Let me know in the comments!

This post will hopefully provide him as well as all my readers some tips on growing your affiliate marketing business with ease and simplicity.

Offers Come and Go!

One of the first mistakes I saw him making was focusing on niches that come and go. He was doing a lot of seasonal offers like taxes for example. Now, these are really great niches to get into and seasonal niches can really bring in a big buck in a short period of time, because a lot of people don’t worry about seasonal offers at all, including myself! ::embarrassed::

However, he was mostly only focusing on these seasonal niches, so he would get a campaign doing well, and then it would fade in a month and he would have to basically start from scratch.

Also, even regular campaigns you setup, you need to realize that any day the network could pull the offer that your running, or the company could end the affiliate program. So you should always be prepared. I’m a very big believer in scaling a campaign as much as you can, but I’m also experienced enough to know that you shouldn’t only be concentrating on one or two niches!

So my advice to you if your in this category is to work on setting up some other niches, some niches that are pretty safe in terms of they’ll be here for a while. Just some examples, ringtones, dating, insurance, etc. Continue to do your seasonal offers as they are a great way to make a good income, but don’t rely totally on those niches.

Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin!

Another problem I see a lot of young affiliates do is spread themselves too thin.  They start making money and instead of focusing on scaling their campaigns or starting new campaigns, they instead decide to start a blog on affiliate marketing, etc.

Now, I have no problem with an affiliate starting a blog about affiliate marketing, in fact, I encourage it eventually because it’s great for several reasons which I’ll talk about at a later time.  The thing you need to remember is in the beginning your working on growing your affiliate business.  Blogs and other side projects take a lot of time, and they don’t normally supply the money like your current affiliate marketing business would if you scaled it some more.

Another point of affiliate marketing is too not try to start up too many offers at the same time, or have too many campaigns that require your daily attention running at the same time, etc.  If you start campaign after campaign without actually finishing and scaling a previous campaign your going to neglect campaigns you’ve already done and before you realize it they are going to start losing money as others compete against you in your niche and win!

Become Friends With Your Affiliate Managers

One of the quickest and most effective ways to make more in any given niche is to get a higher payout on an offer that your running.  The best way to do this isn’t bringing in tons of volume, okay maybe it is for a really big payout, it’s simply becoming friends with your affiliate managers.  Talk to them, chat them up a bit.  That doesn’t mean IM them and ask them a ton of questions, they get enough of those everyday, instead maybe ask them if there are any offers you should be running and then strike up some small talk.  It works wonders!

Make Sure Your Tracking at The Keyword Level!

I get the question of how do I scale/grow my affiliate business all the time, yet when I ask them which keywords are converting for them currently, they can’t tell me!   They aren’t tracking at the keyword level.  Yeah you can make money in this crazy game we call affiliate marketing, but if your not tracking your keywords its near impossible to scale without just throwing in a bunch more keywords and hoping for the best.  Tracking is key in this business!!!

I wrote a post about Keyword Tracking via Google’s Adwords Pixel, and I’m soon going to write one about using Yahoo’s Pixel to track keywords.  If your not sure how to track keywords at the keyword level you may want to check the post out as it gives you one good option.  There are several ways to do it.

Make Sure Your Split Testing Everything!

Another quick and easy way to increase your income is by split testing.  You should be split testing your Ads, Your Landing Pages, whether broad, phrase, or exact match works best, etc.  SPLIT TEST EVERYTHING!!!

Split testing allows you spend less yet make the same amount of money by increasing conversions, increasing your quality score which allows you to bid less for the same position, etc.  Make sure you doing this!

I wrote an article recently about split testing ads and how to do it!  You may want to check it out if your not sure how it works.

Conclusion:

I hope these tips well help you grow your affiliate business and give you a starting point when your not sure what to do.

If anyone has any other suggestions for affiliate marketers who are already making a little each month from affiliate marketing but want to grow their business please let us know in the comments.  I would love to hear your suggestions.

Instead, I would like to talk about Negative Keywords! These are keywords that if you are using they will increase your ROI significantly.

The problem with most keywords and keywords groups is that no matter how well you target your ad groups and weed out your so called bad keywords, your still running a campaign that most likely is using the broad option as the match type. What does running a broad match type mean?

Well, let me give you a little example. Let’s say that you run a site that sells Power Tools so in one of your ad groups you have the keyword Power Tools. Now with the broad match type your ad will actually show up for a lot more keywords then just Power Tools. Your ad will most likely show up for other keywords such as Buy Power Tools, Rent Power Tools, Repair Power Tools, etc.

So what doesn’t negative keywords have anything to do with this? Well, if your selling power tools and running a campaign using a keyword such as Power Tools, but you don’t rent or repair power tools, your spending money on keywords that just aren’t going to convert for you! That my friend is where negative keywords come to save the day!!!

In your negative keywords list you can place the keywords Rent and Repair for example and that will stop any keyword that contains those words from triggering your ads thus increasing your ROI (return on investment) in just a couple easy, quick, and painless steps!

Enjoy and don’t forget to subscribe to get more great PPC tips and tricks!

In the first part of this little series we mostly talked about some easy ways to increase your CTR and Quality Score by making sure your ad groups were very targeted, your ad URL was targeted, and also making sure you send users to the correct landing pages which is targeted.

Shall we get started?

Research Keywords That are Converting!

While this might sound simple enough, most people don’t take the time to do this easy step. Once you create your new campaign for lets say Dating you of course have your first set of keywords that you have researched and put together into some nicely targeted ad groups.

You shouldn’t stop there though! Once you start receiving data, you should be tracking keyword conversions, you will start to find out which keywords are giving you the most conversions and with the best ROI (return on investment). So let’s say that after a week of starting your new campaign you notice that the keyword Local Singles is converting really well for you.

As an example we’ll say that the keyword Local Singles is getting 8 leads a day at $4.00 dollars a lead and your spending $12.00 dollars a day to get those leads. 8 leads a day at $4.00 dollars a lead is $32.00 dollars. So you’re profiting $20.00 dollars a day with the keyword Local Singles.

The first thing I would do as soon as I realize this from my data is go back into my keyword research tool and punch in Local Singles to see what other types of keywords I may get from it. I would then put those keywords into ad groups and continue to do the above steps for all my keywords that I find are converting.

Again, fairly easy tip yet most affiliates don’t do this and they lose out on potential income and also they lose out on the ability to scale their business!

Research Keywords That are Converting!

As I said via the last post, please make sure you subscribe so that you get the next PPC Tip and you don’t miss out!

Also, by grouping your keywords into similar phrases it makes it easier to increase your ads CTR as you can then write your ads based on each keyword group.

So, how do you easily group your keywords using Wordtracker? This video explains and shows you how to group your keywords easily.

It’s not a 100% best way of doing it, but it is a great way to get you started.