Presented by Sean Malseed at SMX London at Chelsea Football Club, London, UK. Use tools and competitive analysis to eliminate trial and error from your PPC campaign strategies.

1. Sean Malseed
Strategic Development

2. www.semrush.com
@seanmalseed @smx
Introduction
• Why is SEMrush qualified to talk about eliminating trial and error?
• Simple: it's the basis of the software we make.
• We track 95 million keywords and 40+ million domains, and use
mathematical models to find incredibly detailed information on domains
and companies in general.
• This gives us a very unique insight into exactly this topic. We know what
companies spend and where, which of their products are profitable, what
ads they buy on Adwords, Adsense, and much more.
Introduction

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@seanmalseed @smx
Stop, look, listen and think

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Jumping in

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Trial
Error

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So, where do we start?

Start by thinking differently. We need to figure
out a real approach.

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@seanmalseed @smx
Confidence is the feeling you haveConfidence is the feeling you have
before you fully understand the situationbefore you fully understand the situation

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Do reconnaissance
1.Identify your real competitors
2.Check what they are doing before you build
your list
3.Avoid their mistakes, find holes in their
advertising, build from their successes

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@seanmalseed @smx
Identify the competition
Great tools to do this:

Your brain. You or your client is in the industry you're marketing to.

SimilarSites.com – great metrics on websites that share common
factors and common visitors, ranked by Similarity Score.

Competitive analysis tools – KeywordSpy, WordTracker, SEMrush,
SpyFu, etc.

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Identify the competition
Grouped by
similarity score

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Identify the competition
Ranked by number
of shared visitors

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Identify the REAL competition
Transactional vs. Informational Competitors

Organic is tough – a blog about skateboarding does not
compete with a website selling skateboards.

Transactional keyword – looking to buy something. “pro
skateboards”

Informational keyword – looking to learn about something. “pro
skateboarders”

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You don't compete with Amazon.com.
Amazon.com “competes” with everybody.

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Identify the landscape
Now that you know who to look at, you need to
know what to look at.
We'll identify the PPC landscape, and see how we
will fit in effectively.
There's a few simple things you can do.

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@seanmalseed @smx
Pro Tip #1
If several competitors bid on a keyword, and you don't –
you're missing something.
If a keyword seems
really good to you, but
none of your
competitors bid on it...
there's a reason.

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Building a keyword list
Start from a proven foundation

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Combining competitors' experience
These three sites have 520 paid
keywords in common.

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Scooters are lame

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Cut out irrelevant information
233 shared AND relevant paid
keywords.

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Pro Tip #2
If a competitor bids on a keyword each month, it converts.
They did the trial and error. You just look for their successes.

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Expanding the list
Take the top terms from the previous step, and toss it
into Google Trends, limited to Product Search.

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Expanding the list

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Pro Tip #3
Exact match matters! Do all of your research with
exact match keywords.
Singular and plural keywords should be treated as
separate keywords.

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Why exact match?
In this presentation, I've focused on PPC. For
example, we find that “buy pro skateboards”
converts more than “buy a pro skateboard”
If it looks like plural converts way more than non
plural, make sure you're bidding on plural.

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Why exact match?
Because Google Keyword Tool is a salesman.

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Why exact match?
Setting Google Keyword Tool for Exact match is simple.

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Why exact match?
You need to accurately compare keywords
against each other, without overlapping volume.
How to compare
apples to oranges?
Use exact match...
they share broad
match volume.

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Mergewords.com

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KeywordEye.co.uk

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KeywordToolDominator.com

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Check everything in GKT

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Recap – the Idea
Know your competitors
Steal your competitors' experience
Use tools to build smart keyword lists
Transactional vs. Informational keywords

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@seanmalseed @smx
Recap – the Idea
Always use [Exact] match.
Whatever you're planning, someone has done
something comparable.
Don't always trust Google. Remember, they want you
to bid on as many keywords as possible.

34. www.semrush.com
@seanmalseed @smx
Recap – The Tools
Use your competitors' experience! Here are the tools I
covered:
SimilarSites.com – Find out who your real transactional
competitors are by shared visitors.
SEMrush.com – Find out what PPC keywords are successful
for your competitors, and use them.
MergeWords.com – Quickly get combinations of keywords,
great for localizing.

35. www.semrush.com
@seanmalseed @smx
Recap – The Tools
Use your competitors' experience! Here are the tools I
covered:
KeywordToolDominator.com – Find purely transactional
keyword using Amazon, eBay and Google Product Search
suggestions.
KeywordEye.co.uk – Find out what PPC keywords are
successful for your competitors, and use them.
Google Keyword Tool – Of course, check everything in GKT!
Don't trust any one third-party tool 100%

36. Thank you!
Sean Malseed
@semrush
@seanmalseed
pr.semrush.com/london
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