Quantcast
You are here: Home / Archives for Search Keywords

SEM Rush Review

November 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The guys over at SEM Rush reached out to us recently and asked if we would consider reviewing the professional version of their toolkit. We are pretty selective about the product reviews we do on Web Analytics World but I was keen to do this review for a few reasons. For one these are the guys behind the legendary seoquake toolbar for firefox (one of the best free seo tools around) but in addition to this I am also a semi regular user of the very useful free online SEM Rush tools so I was keen to see what the pro version had to offer.

As active online marketers we have a bunch of tools and services which we use to varying degrees,  some free and some we pay for.  Often the biggest problem we find with the tools available is the range of things they claim to do  and the amount of cross over functionality between toolkits, so we find ourselves constantly trying to evaluate what does the best job for specific purposes.

One of the things I really like about SEM Rush is that it has a very defined purpose and specialises in a key area of online marketing. In a nutshell SEM Rush is all about maximising Google traffic and as such its toolkit helps with Keyword Research, Google Adwords Research & Competitor Analysis in these areas. Of course every online marketing toolkit claims to help with keyword research (and I have had a go at using most of them) however what separates SEM Rush from the others for me is the way it relates all data to relative commercial value by putting Adword data side by side with Keyword reports, competitor Analysis etc

Organic Keyword Research
So a basic keyword research screenshot of  www.webanalyticsworld.net  site is shown below. The data here at a glance is pretty useful as I can immediately see the commercial values of some of the keywords our site ranks for. Expanding this report would then give me the chance to spot highly commercial keywords with good search volume that our site ranks for but perhaps is sitting on page 2 or 3 on a Google search. I could then make some decisions to focus on these keywords from a promotion/seo perspective

Obviously decisions  around keywords also need to be in line with business strategy however you can see how this can be a useful tactic. One thing that I didn’t understand was the total number of keywords showing on our site (1085) when I know from our Analytics that this number is much much higher. I queried this with the guys at SEM Rush and they say that they focus on keywords with commercial value which is reasonable enough & their entire database has 88 million keywords across 36 million domains.


The basic report as shown to the right also gives you some data on site-wide Google traffic , indicating the monthly traffic coming from Google Searches, the estimated cost of purchasing the same amount of traffic (indicator of commercial value of organic traffic)  and the traffic volume from ads and related spend on Adwords

Google Adwords Keyword Research
I found the tool particularly useful for Adwords Research. The screenshot below shows a snapshot of a section of the adwords report again using Amazon.com as an example. You can immediately see all of the keywords Amazon are buying from Google Adwords. The geographic split allows you to drill down and find out how and what, they are advertising in specific geographies and clicking on the Ad icon to the left will actually show you the ad copy of a specific ad in question. In term of easy competitor Adwords analysis it doesn’t get much better than this. Clicking on a specific keyword will then take you to another report which will give you even more data on the keyword in question such as traffic, trends, competition as a well as some suggestions on related keywords and key phrases & organic sites ranking for this particular keyword.

Competitor Analysis
I hear lots of talk of competitor Analysis but rarely see any reporting mechanism on competitors that lead to actionable recommendations and associated tasks. Fundamentally it’s important to ask yourself why you want to analyse competitors.

Sure it’s nice to benchmark your site and see how well you are performing against your main rivals online but useful  competitor research should be more about looking out for best practice & learning from it as well as pulling out data based on key metrics allowing you to understand why one site outperforms another and actually come up with an actionable plan to gain traction, rankings, traffic and improve on a competitors position.

The SEMRush tools will allow you to do the basic competitor analysis but filter based on Search engine traffic (Google traffic), Traffic Price (commercial value of the traffic), number of ads running, ad traffic and ads traffic price. While this can paint a very interesting picture of competitors Google reach across the board some of the more useful interrogations of the SEMrush data would include:-

  • Identification of highly commercial keywords – Analyse keyword reports for competitors and look for new keywords with high CPC value and good search traffic.
  • Build out Keyword Lists- You could use related search analysis to analyse existing and new keywords to find variations, long tail versions etc which can be used on your web copy
  • Identify smart and relevant places to sell advertising -The Potential Ad Buyers Report will identify sites that buy Google Adwords keywords for terms that your site is naturally ranking for. This is a good indicator that they may be interested in your traffic and as a result may be willing to buy advertising space from your directly or through an ad network.
  • Identify smart and relevant places to advertise -This report will Analyse  what keywords you are bidding on and identify sites which naturally rank for those terms. This highlight the opportunities to contact site owners directly and either advertise directly with them or possibly even become a content contributor if you choose to go down the natural seo, link building route
  • View and analyse Adwords keywords, commercial value of keywords and ad copy -To be frank this allows you to spy on Adwords campaigns of your competitors, see where they are targeting geographically and what terms they are bidding on as well as the actually ad copy they are using in their campaigns
  • Find hidden related (and low-cost) keywords? -Focussing on high commercial value keyword and using the related keyword report you can often find low cost alternative keywords (low adwords cost) which are still very relevant and may convert just as well (related and long tail keywords)
  • Help to value a web property -The Traffic volume and relative valuation charts will help you when trying to assess the commercial value of any web property. There are many other factors to be considered here obviously but from a Search point of view this data is a big piece of the pie.
  • Other Fun Stuff – The feature ‘ups and downs’ shows a huge list of the top 1000 websites highlighting losses and gains in relation to Search Traffic, Cost of traffic, Number of Ads, Ad traffic, Cost of Ads. While this seems like a report that might not be directly relevant to your own online efforts the collation of this data makes for fascinating reading. You can see how this type of report can give some amazing insights into how Google is changing, the sites it favours and so.
Filed Under: internet marketing, Search Keywords, SEO, Uncategorized

Keyword Zoom from ClickEquations

July 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
This is a guest post from Alex Cohen, Senior Marketing Manager at ClickEquations.

People tend to think of paid search through the lens of keywords: You pick keywords, bid on keywords and figure out which keywords are good and bad.

Searchers, the people you’re trying to reach, don’t type in keywords. They type in search queries. The keywords you purchase and match types you choose, along with your bids and Quality Score, determine how many search queries you get exposed to. The relevance of your text ad determines how many click.


That relationship between search queries, keywords and text ads is one of the truths of paid search. But, analyzing that relationship is actually very cumbersome with most paid search tools. There’s one report for keywords, another for search queries and yet another for text ads. You, the analyst or paid search manager, are left to do the heavy lifting to stitch the pieces together in order to target the right queries with the right message.

Connecting these pieces is a technology problem and one that we at ClickEquations have solved with our latest feature, Keyword Zoom.

Keyword Zoom makes it possible look inside the performance of any keyword and directly manipulate the queries that have driven up cost or lifted revenue and tune the relationship between those queries and specific ad copy.


Keyword Zoom allows you to see:

  • The search queries that the keyword attracted and how each performed
  • The ad copy that was shown to the people who entered these queries
  • Complete performance statistics and metrics for that keyword

You can easily:

  • Turn a search query into a new negative keyword so don’t waste money on irrelevant search queries
  • Add a search query as a new keyword of any match type to attract more searches like that, boosting sales
  • Edit existing ad copy or create new ads or variations to improve the alignment of queries to text ads

“Paid search advertisers bid on keywords but money is actually spent and earned on search queries.” said Craig Danuloff, President. “Keyword management is no longer enough. Only by looking inside the performance of any keyword, and mining search queries to stop ineffective clicks and increase targeting can accounts truly be optimized in today’s competitive and expensive PPC marketplace. Keyword Zoom is the first and only tool that brings keywords, search queries, text ads and detailed analytics data into one screen with editing tools. It’s the best way to target the best prospects with the most relevant message.”

Keyword Zoom is integrated directly into the ClickEquations paid search platform, which enables full reporting, editing, optimization and automation of PPC campaigns.

Watch this video to see Keyword Zoom in action:

Filed Under: paid, Paid Search Strategy, ppc, Search Keywords, SEM

Embed Keyword Research Tools on Your Website

June 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Visitors to your website now can perform the same keyword research and keyword organization and discover the same keywords that the WordStream keyword tools provide, but they don’t have to leave your site to get them.

To create custom versions of the WordStream keyword tools that you can embed on your own website, go to: http://www.wordstream.com/free-tool-widget-generator/ and follow the four-step process to obtain your embed code.

Just select the tool you want to embed, style your tool and choose a size, decide if you want the tool to include analytics, and read WordStream’s terms of service. Then click “Get Your Code” and copy the resulting code for use on your website.

Filed Under: Search Keywords

Googles Keyword Tool in One Minute

December 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Google’s search based keyword tool helps you find additional keywords that are relevant to the products and services you advertise on your website. The 1 minute guide below shows you how the tool works, as well as how it helped one AdWords advertiser to increase sales.

Filed Under: Search Keywords

Illustrating the Relationship Between Data Sets and Paid Search Keywords

September 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment

In recent weeks the export function of massive data sets has been my best friend and worst enemy. Seemingly endless mounds of exact match keyword bliss has been pouring into my ODBC and then through to AdWords Editor (as well as uploads into Yahoo! SM and MSN), nearly seamlessly. Little snips and CONCATENATE functions here and there, and, within a few hours a beast is unleashed on the market capable of tremendously valuable insights and high ROI potential.

The Problem

Struggling to come up with good keyword fodder is nearly impossible. No migraine is so great as the one which bubbles up from trying to bend phrases around a niche websites primary traffic solution until SEO decides to chime in. And so, here is this problem: When a website has no traffic and no diversity, how and where do you get enough keywords to start building insights and crafting strategy. Well, I’ll tell you, its in the business.

Data Courtship

Somewhere in that business, and I don’t care what it is, you can find some data set. Be it a product list, a list of cities you plan to market to, types of what you sell, directories or any number of other odd variables too obscure to find mentionhere; somewhere some once glimmering light of organized information found its way into a list, datasource, directory, database, table or output. Find it.

Now that you have your prize, begin playing with it. Squeeze it. Pet it. Take it for walks into the meadows ripe with the scent of mountain laurel and introduce it to SQL statements. Feed it good commands and teach it to obey and do your bidding and be loyal to your will. Within a few hours, even the most lilliputian list can dominate a campaign through initial commands like ‘DISTINCT’ and then ‘APPEND’. Make sure you apply its ‘match type’ as exact. This will produce, in itself, insights which can guide your relationship with that data for weeks and months to come.

The Commitment

Obviously not all keywords are created equal. Just ask iPod. But they can march and subdue like ants on lollipops if you let them. The faithful minions of the marketer bring back information on their appeal (impressions/clicks) and ultimately tale of the bounty which exists beyond the sea of user appraisal. Its is by this test of endurance that these exact match phrases and word pairings have proven themselves worthy of endorsement. By the time you’ve finished ceremoniously inviting hundreds of new quality keywords to spend their years with you beyond the ocean of poorly accounted marketing budget expenditure, their rewards will have begun aggregating and the equasion of lifetime value will begin taking on new meaning.

Why then, you say, worst enemy?

True it is that this data which I mention is of a very high value. Where, then, does the issue come in which creates opposition to this ideal? It can be paralyzing. To be struck by massive data sets can be both a blessing and a burden.

Slicing down to the useful and unique parts of a major data set is, at least sometimes, more than a typical configuration of MS Office Access can handle. This creates a migration logistics issue which can easily be overcome by moving and slicing data from MySQL sources. Honestly, this can probably be done clean in Excel too, with some modifications. But, the truly sweet stuff comes in massive blocks, and, that requires something geared more toward sophisticated data tools meant for exactly this.

Another Small Warning

Using data set uploads and editors never comes with this warning so its important that you understand it completely: Any data which is sent up as active is active and, in saying that, should be thoroughly checked by applying alerts and filters, and visual inspection if necessary, to ensure bid prices and configurations are as you want them to be. A slight slip in the decimal placement can be a costly error on many fronts. You don’t want to get caught spending $100 per click on something which should be $1.

This post was provided by Daniel Shields, Chief Analyst from Wicked Business Sciences.

Filed Under: Data Sources, Paid Search Strategy, Search Keywords, SEM Management