Quick Google Adwords Question

[TrimarkProperties]

Hey guys!

We haven't been using Google Adwords thus far, mostly because our organic rankings seem pretty good-- but we are about to start.

Someone on here mentioned in a thread (that I now can't seem to find) that there is a way to run a report to find the actual quantity of searches for a list of keywords, within Google Adwords, if you spend $5 or more per month.

The only report I see shows number of impressions for your ad, not a number of searches for a keyword phrase...

How do you get a report using Google Adwords for the actual number of searches for a keyword phrase?

Thanks for the help!

[webmaster]

moved to PPC forum

[AustinSEO]

Trimark-

Go into your reports tab and click "create report now" find the "search Query Report" and customize as you wish. It will show you impressions and clicks. It will NOT show you which EXACT keyword phrase was searched for if you use broad and phrase match keywords. You can however find out these exact phrases if you install a nifty little analytics script addition I have been using. Here is a link to the article

[TrimarkProperties]

AustinSEO- thanks for the reply.

Impressions is the number of times that my ad displayed, correct? That isn't quite the same as the number of searches for a keyword.

Let's say my term is 'city real estate' and it is searched for 50 times per day. Let's say my bid is $0.10 and my max budget per day is $0.50. After 5 clicks, my ad is going to stop displaying, and then then I will have no more impressions, even if the term is searched another 50 times, right?

I thought that it was too good to be true, for Google Adwords to tell me the exact number of searches for a term... which is why I am asking, since I don't see it in the reports...

[AustinSEO]

That's right, google will not tell you the exact number of times a keyword phrase is used in a day or month. And yes, impressions are the # of times your ad is shown. And yes after you use your budget, no more impressions for the day. You can however use many tools to find the approximate # of searches for a keyword phrase. Most of them use Overture databases to approximate, but still good figures. Here is one of my favorites . You can also look at Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery, just search for them on google

[RonnieG]

After trying several of the keyword search estimators, and examining actual results from multiple client PPC campaigns for over three years, I have stopped using any of them. The results are never accurate, for many reasons.

1) Some searches are so very neighborhood and/or niche specific that the number of actual searches, especially over a 30 day period, is never statistically significant. This is particularly true of "long tail" keyword phrases.
2) Estimates are not seasonally adjusted, and our business is often very seasonal, as well as subject to random and local market conditions.
3) As mentioned in another reply, broad match and phrase match keyword phrases will catch many variations of a community specific phrase that you might never even think of, and even misspellings, and neither would any of the estimators, which use an exact and literal version of the phrase you are testing for.
4) A large number of impressions for any particular keyword phrase is no indication of how well those impressions and clicks would convert to registered leads, and the real measure of effectiveness of a PPC campaign is cost per conversion.

As a result, I have found it better, cheaper and more productive use of my time and efforts in setting up and managing PPC campaigns, to focus keyword lists on a very small number of broad match keywords, plus a larger pool of proven phrase match keyword phrases, that seem to catch 99% of all the real estate search phrase variations I have ever been able to think of for a particular community. As long as we get sufficient impressions and a reasonable CPC from those keywords, and a decent click-through rate from the applicable ads, which is a whole other topic, we are happy.

In the long term, the focus of a PPC campaign is less about impressions, which is often the easiest part, and more about optimizing the "call-to action" in the ad text for best CTR, and optimizing the landing pages and website for best conversion of visitors to leads, subjects that are explored extensively in past threads of the PPC sub-forum here.

[sellinggalveston]

try www.seobook.com

you can see how many searches for any of the keywords you want... best tool out there (by the way its under tools on the home page)

[AustinSEO]

I completely agree with what Ronnie said in his post. It is very important to find out what works in YOUR market and tailor it with targeted ads and landing pages. However, I still believe it is a good idea to look at various keyword search estimators to get general ideas of what to bid on IF YOU ARE NEW TO PPC. It sounded like you were very new to ppc Trimark, so that is why I suggested it.

[sellinggalveston]

I still think seobook is very useful in seeing what google yahoo and MSN have on a montly basis. We use their suggestion tool http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
and it gives us new ideas to focus on... for example... and city might have large numbers for city, state or city, abbriviated st... and without knowing the difference can be to the tune of 20,000 searches a month!

[chiefik]

Thanks, not bad resource!