Understanding Keywords

A keyword or keyword phrase is a word or series of words typed into a search engine by someone
seeking something. Keywords are used to trigger the display of your PPC ads. You’ll “bid” on
keywords—for instance, you might bid, say, 55 cents for the term camping equipment. When
someone types camping equipment into their browser, the PPC system looks at all the bids for
that keyword phrase, and places the ads on the results page accordingly—most systems place the
highest bid at the top of the list, as in Figure 22-2, although Google uses other characteristics.
More importantly, ads that people click more frequently get a rank “boost” in the system.

As you can see, keywords are essential. In fact, you have to pick the right keywords, because
■ The right keywords bring the right people to your site; you don’t want to pay for people
who won’t buy!
■ Some keywords are more expensive than others. Some keywords might be several
dollars, while similar ones might be ten cents.
Here’s an example, taken from Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions (www.overture.com), for
top bids at the time of writing:

vioxx $11
vioxx attorney $38.06
vioxx attorney denver 10 cents
Keywords are critical! Before you can begin a PPC campaign, you must understand the
keywords.