PPC Tools: Using SEMRush to Optimize Your PPC Campaigns

November 2, 2009 by Pablo Palatnik

Using web tools whether you’re working on SEO or PPC is just as important as a mechanic using the right tools to fix your car, or a dentist having the right tools to fix your mouth. At the beginning, I always used to work “blindly” and never relied much on tools but maybe some free keyword tools to get some ideas to build ppc campaigns on. As you get deeper into a project (campaign) or have a project you’ve been working on for a while, you’ll see how far tools can take you.

I was given a month free to use of SEMRush, a keyword tool that “…was designed by the developers of SeoDigger and SeoQuake to satisfy your needs in advanced SEM and keywords research. We analyze 40 million keywords for 20 million domains. 21 000 users registered.”

There is one thing that you’ll learn real quick as you get into building pay-per-click campaigns and that is observe and study the competition. While you’re there trying to figure out what words work best, how to write a compelling ad, what words to build on, your competition has been doing that for longer than you have! Remember, they have gone through the same process you are going through now and trying to figure out, what keywords to use for the best return on investment, what ads will get the best click-through-rate, which ads may have the best conversions, etc.

SEMRush is a tool that lets you do just that, study the competition and get an edge. My strategy is and was never to COPY the competition but build around keywords they use, get ideas, etc.

Some key features that will really help you optimize your campaign using SEMRush are:

* Identify Competitors – By searching for your keyword phrase on SEM Rush, you can pinpoint competing websites that are already ranking highly in Google for your intended keywords, and as a side benefit, you can identify other potentially profitable keywords of each of your potential competitors.

* Ad / Traffic Buyer Suggestions – When you research a website, SEM Rush will display related websites that are advertising via Google Adwords, which, this can give you an inroad to potential advertisers, who are proven buyers, for your website.

* Adwords Ad Overview – If a particular website that you are researching, namely, a competitor, is advertising via Google Adwords, SEM Rush will show you your competitors’ ads, and their landing pages within their simple-to-use interface.

* Side-By-Side Competitor Comparison – You can analyze your domain vs. your competitors’ domain name, alongside your common keywords, your rank in Google, their rank in Google, estimated monthly search volume for the keyword, number of competing pages for the keyword, and the estimated cost per click in Google Adwords.

* Data Exports – Like most keyword tools, SEM Rush offers a few choices when it comes to exporting your research data. However, because this service is so unique in the type of information it provides, we wanted to mention this as it is a major asset for you, regardless of whether you’re a paid or free user.

The way I used it best was always to look at my top competitors in the PPC space. From this, I can go one by one and look at keywords they are bidding, keywords they are ranking for organically, and looking at their ads. A GREAT strategy that I don’t have much search marketers talk about but is great for me is really digging into the websites organic rankings and building of that.

Google ranks many website for specific products and these are great, long-tail keywords, that may have a real chip bidding price and although may deliver very low volume traffic, can deliver a high conversion rate!

You can start a free SEMRush account by clicking on the following URL: http://www.semrush.com/users/register.html

**This review was written for an exchange of a trial period and for the education of a good search marketing product for all PalatnikFactor.com readers.

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