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Keyword Research

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Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Difference between PPC and SEO

During our account structure, we talked about where people might be sitting in the funnel and the different types of keywords you use.

You do research keywords differently for paid search than for organic search.

  • Organic: For organic search, you’re researching keywords around content and wider, generally top-of-funnel searches.
  • Paid: With paid search, it’s generally around the consideration and conversion piece. You may include some awareness stuff, but generally, we do find that the majority of paid search is down the bottom of funnel.

Google Keyword Planner

The Keyword Planner is a tool within Google Ads that we can use. It is very straightforward.

You can put your three top keywords, press Get Started, and it will suggest several ideas, search queries, and different things like that.

But for organic, because it can take longer, we use different methods. So, it’s important to separate the two and why exactly you’re doing your paid search versus your organic search, and this will influence your keyword research process.

After you’ve inputted those keywords within the Keyword Planner, we’re presented with some outputs here.

So the first is our graph. This shows our seasonality of the keyword lists that Google is suggesting. We’re then presented below that graph with the list of keywords that we can choose. There’s some data around the competition level of those keywords, and the search volumes they get on a monthly basis. And this is all market-specific because up at the top there, you can change your market and you can change your language to make it more specific to that particular location that you’re trying to target.

So search volumes and competition will differ from market to market. But it’s a very useful tool for just allowing you, again, going back to structuring by keywords that get lots of searches and keywords that don’t get as many searches. This is where you get that data. This allows you to structure. This is the first port of call for any build following on from optimizing your landing page.

When looking at the keywords, the Keyword Planner is the first place to start, and it is the most structured way to get our research options available to us in a sensible manner in that regard.

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Digital Marketing Resources:

Cathal Melinn

Cathal Melinn is a well-known digital marketing director, commercial analyst, and ecommerce specialist with over 15 years’ experience.

Cathal is a respected international conference speaker, course lecturer, and digital trainer. He specialises in driving complete understanding from students across a number of digital marketing disciplines including: paid and organic search (PPC and SEO), analytics, strategy and planning, social media, reporting, and optimisition.  Cathal works with digital professionals in over 80 countries and teaches at all levels of experience from beginner to advanced.

Alongside his training and course work, Cathal runs his own digital marketing agency and is considered an analytics and revenue generating guru - at enterprise level. He has extensive local and international experience working with top B2B and B2C brands across multiple industries.

Over his career, Cathal has worked client-Side, in digital marketing agencies and media owners with brands including HSBC, Amazon, Apple, Red Bull, Dell, Vodafone, Compare the Market, Aer Lingus, and Expedia.

He can be reached on LinkedIn here.

Data protection regulations affect almost all aspects of digital marketing. Therefore, DMI has produced a short course on GDPR for all of our students. If you wish to learn more about GDPR, you can do so here:

DMI Short Course: GDPR

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ABOUT THIS DIGITAL MARKETING MODULE

Paid Search
Cathal Melinn
Skills Expert

This module begins with the key concepts of paid search and demonstrates how to set up a Google Ads account and create a paid search campaign. It explains how to manage a paid search campaign budget effectively and outlines the different methods that can be used to optimize your paid search campaign. It also covers how to measure and report on the success of a paid search campaign.