Search Query Doesn’t Need To Be Scary
If you look at the Google Search Query Report and shudder, do not be afraid. Or, if you are asking yourself, “What the heck is a Search Query Report?” this is the post for you.
The Google Search Query Report is like taking a tour inside the minds of the consumers who clicked your ads. You will see the actual terms users searched before clicking your ads. Why does this matter? It allows you to determine if you are neglecting opportunities because you are missing relevant keywords, and it allows you to see if you are attracting untargeted traffic, thus allowing you to see potential negative keywords. Still scared? Consider a few examples.
Let’s say you sell lawn and garden equipment. You have a broad match keyword Wasp Pest Control. Since broad match can trigger your ad if at least one of the words within the searched term matches your term, you may see that you received traffic from someone searching the term Pest Exterminators. Since you don’t offer extermination services, a good negative keyword would be Exterminator.
Allow me to illustrate one more example. If you sell a specific garden hose and are using the broad match keyword Flexogen Garden Hose, you may see from the Search Query Report that someone clicked your ad after searching the term Sale Flexogen Hose. As a result, you may want to add the term Sale Flexogen Hose to your account.
To easily manage the report, I recommend the following tips:
> Don’t run it for extremely wide dates ranges. It can end up generating too much data to evaluate at once. Try a few months at a time.
> Sort by match type, and don’t be concerned with the traffic obtained from exact match keywords. In those cases, you already had the precise term the user searched, so instead, focus on the traffic coming from your broad match and phrase match keywords.
> Use common sense. If you see your ads being triggered for a general, untargeted term such as Hose, don’t simply assume you should add the keyword to your account just because it is related to what you sell. In fact, I would recommend adding such a term as an negative exact keyword, as you really don’t want such unqualified traffic.
Confused by match types? Google and MSN have similar match types; Yahoo has its own version. Following are helpful links:
Still feeling intimidated? Contact me. I’m happy to help in any way that I can.
robyn.snyder
