How to Know Your PPC Competitor Keywords and Keyword Research Strategy?

March 23, 2008

Sometimes you have a competitor who is doing very well in your niche and you want to know which keywords they are using right? This method is for free and Google makes us a favor to make it free and public. This method also helps you to make a good Keyword research and give you thousands of long-tails ideas. Let’s start.

Let’s make an example; We are in a niche of Dating. The only keyword that you know is “Dating” (yeah let’s make it the worst case).

Step 1:

We to Google and check up the Google ads that Dating niche has. There are many advertisers using this general keyword, it means there is HIGH Competition on this keyword. But let’s continue. You should know which competitor is doing well in their campaigns. For this reason, you have to check daily for the same keyword (2x-3 times) and take notes which AD and site are still there. After a week or two, you take the ones that are there for long time.

Let’s say:

First Ad of Dating Keyword Research

Step 2:

Now we have a competitor which have been using the same AD and the same Link (SinglesNet dot com) for 2 weeks. It means that this company is doing very well and is converting with those keywords.

Before starting to spy on this competitor I would like to point out that having a Great Quality Score, you can read my free e-book: The Adwords Quality Guide - Free E-Book. You need:

Good CTR
Top Keywords in your landing page
Good Adwords History: In my tests this was not applied, but anyways, in case this is true and was coincidence that my new adwords account were I made the case study in my free e-book was great quality score

Now this advertiser that is at the top for sure he has good ctr and great quality score. It means that the keywords that this guy is advertising is inside their Landing page.

Step 3:

Go to Google Keyword Tool and choose “Website content”. Check “Include other pages on my site linked from this URL”:

Keywords research ppc

Step 4:

Add on the “Website Content” our competitor in this example SinglesNet Dot Com:

singles dot com keyword research

Step 5:

Push the button “Get Keyword Ideas” and wait…Now Google will show the keywords that are on this Landing and whole site. It means that they are using those keywords to make their PPC campaigns. Let’s take a look first result is for: contract law; which we don’t need it. Then find in the list keywords that are related to “Dating” let’s see:

Keywords related to seeking - sorted by relevance

seeking (That will be a good keyword but is too general, save it)
seeking woman (That is a good keyword for dating companies that are welcome men)
woman seeking man (That is a good keyword for a woman searching for a dating site)
woman seeking marriage (A woman that is searching for a husband and she can find in your dating company)
men seeking (A man who is searching for Woman, friendship, gays)
man seeking man (A man who is searching for gays, check if the program that you are advertising have gays dates)
single woman seeking man (perfect match)

So we have 7 keywords that can be used with dating niche, save them to use it in the future in this guide.

And the keyword: women

women (Too general skip this)
women seeking husbands (Good keyword for dating, is logic no?)
gift women (Unrelated keyword for dating)
women large (Unrelated keyword for dating)
women watches (Unrelated keyword for dating)
christmas gifts women (Unrelated keyword for dating)
women gift idea (Unrelated keyword for dating)
women gift ideas (Unrelated keyword for dating)
shirt for women (Unrelated keyword for dating)

Just one keyword that is related to dating niche, save it as well.

Keywords related to chat - sorted by relevance

women chatting (Related to Dating niche)

One result from this site with “Chat”, save it.

Keywords related to men - sorted by relevance

married men (Woman searching for married man, there are bad girls out there save it)
golf men (Unrelated to the niche)

So singlesnet dot com have those keywords related to the Dating niche and you have save them. Now the next step will be more interesting.

Step 6:

Go now to the Google Keyword Tool again but this time, we will choose “Descriptive words or phrases” and we will add our first saved keyword: seeking

seeking keyword research

Now push the Button “Get Keywords Ideas”.

Step 7:

Now you will get the results that Google gaves us with the word: “Seeking” related to Dating Niche:

In the right side of each keyword there is an option to “Add” to your list. Add all your related dating keywords and then Download it in text, .csv (for excel), or .csv (Available by Google Keyword Tool).

Step 8:

Do this with all the saved keywords that we have talking from the start. When you finish you will have hundred if not thousands of Dating niche keywords.

Step 9:

Remember the first keywords that you save it? Singlesnet.com are using those keywords in dating as well as those related keywords that you have taking from step 7 & 8. There are keywords that singlenet dot com is not using at the moment for different reasons: many competition, poor quality because they may use match type broad or those keywords are not converting.

Now do this for every competitor that you have (at least in the first page of Google results), after this you will have a HUGE list of dating related niche keywords.

Step 10:

Look at your huge list of keywords and start brainstorming to add more long-tails, here is an example. For each keyword add a city, state, country, pronoun, verb or anything else. You will multiply your keywords by 10 and for sure you will have Millions keywords right now.

Step 11:

Start testing your keywords and see which one converts and which one you have to delete. You can also check which ones has a lot of competition and delete them and use the low competition. Use on each adgroup your main top keywords in this example: “Seeking” which can have “Woman Seeking Man”…. You are free to orginized it as you want, but read my free e-book to have a great quality score and be ready to compete and win!

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Category Posted in Affiliate Marketing / PPC

3 Responses to “How to Know Your PPC Competitor Keywords and Keyword Research Strategy?”

Vista Sidebar Gadgets said:

March 23rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Well, snooping on your competitors is a smart thing to do, especially when starting in a hot/competitive niche. One of the biggest hurdles experienced by novice affiliates, is the loss incurred when first starting in a niche, where you can’t turn a profit right away, and you need a sizable sample to optimize your campaign.
GoogleLady said:

March 23rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm

That’s true, but using this method can give you some keywords and some ideas to brainstorm some longtail keywords that usually cost much less. I will give you an example of “make money online” niche, you can check the sites that are promoting on that niche and you will see longtail keywords like “making Money $xxx” or “making money online in x months (days or weeks)” and many others.

From those keywords you can brainstorm more long-tail keywords like “Make money $xxx with sites (or blogs)” and you can promote any product or even promote a list of affiliate programs to get some referals.
Expert Earning said:

March 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 pm

Thanks for the step by step. Keywords are extremely important for PPC. It is also very important to determine what keywords are best related to your site and try to come up with many combinations.