Choosing Keywords for your PPC

Using a “shotgun” approach when choosing keywords can be a huge mistake. You’ve got to fight the urge to pick dozens of keywords for your ad. Unlike some other forms of advertising you want your raffle PPC ad’s to show up only to those people who are looking to buy a raffle ticket or are likely to buy, not to everyone.

The Pay Per Click Handbook

We’ll jump right in. Using the sample keywords from our last post lets take a look…car, corvette, raffle, car raffle, charity raffle, corvette car, corvette raffle, 1965 corvette raffle, free corvette, raffle tickets, fundraising, your organization name. This list is probably to broad for effectively selling raffle tickets. Let’s start with the keyword “car.”

When you put the word “car” into Google you’ll see that over 1,180,000,000 results are returned. What are people looking for when they search for the word “car”? Who knows? Parts or new or old or pictures or any number of things. Too generic, too broad. If you were to use this keyword and someone clicks it, they are probably just curious and not really a “hot” potential customer. You’re paying for each click. To get a good ROI (return on investment) you don’t want random folks and bored websurfers clicking on your ads. They might buy a ticket, but most likely not.

Look at “corvette” as a key word. This one’s a bit better. You know people who search for the word corvette are at least interested in corvettes. Good start. But just because they may like corvettes does not mean they are interested in buying a raffle ticket for a corvette. Maybe possible but not a good chance.

Now “1965 corvette” is a good keyword as it is a specific thing. The person searching for this is actively interested in specifically the 1965 corvette. They may already own one, want one or whatever but you are sure they have an interest in your specific raffle prize. Obviously the number of times your ad will show for this keyword is far less than that of “car” or “corvette” but that’s not the point. You want you ads to be seen by those folks actively looking for either car raffle tickets or your specific raffle prize.

Now “corvette raffle” is getting right to the point. Someone who types in corvette raffle is actively looking for a corvette raffle. Now we’re on to something. The chance that, when and if they click on your ad, they will buy a ticket is much higher than for the words “car” and “corvette.”

If I were to choose the actual keywords for our sample 1965 corvette raffle I’d do these, “car raffle, car raffles, corvette raffle, 1965 corvette, 1965 corvette raffle” and thats it, for the start. These are all specific, the person searching for these keywords are “hot” prospects and you will not get too many unnecessary ad impressions (showings).

Remember, your goal is that everyone who clicks your ad buys a ticket. Not going to happen of course but by controlling where and when your ad’s show up by keyword you are zeroing your marketing dollar in on those that are “warm” or “hot” to your ticket sales page.