Choose the right keyword set

Add keyword research tools, a thesaurus, and search queries to generate more root
terms that are unique. Search terms that are harder to find will have less competition.
AdWords’ tool and Wordtracker’s Keyword Universe can help you find new
terms to target. Refer to Chapter 1 for more details on Wordtracker. Perform
searches to find other keywords that competing sites target in their HTML titles and
body text. This technique may uncover new terms. Staying on top of industry news
and events can help you find new keywords to target. You should continually try to
think of new root terms to add to your campaigns.

In the course of your keyword research, you will probably find terms that you are not
sure you want to bid on or that you want to block with negative keywords. Instead of
doing nothing with these keywords, you should bid on them using a lower maximum
CPC than you used for more successful terms. If you do not bid on such a keyword
directly and if you do not block it, another broad-matched keyword will
probably display ads for it. The performance of the broad-matched keyword might
be made worse by the borderline keyword. You can always decide to block borderline
keywords later.

Keyword research is one of the more creative aspects of PPC. Typically, you will find
that only a small group of terms generates most of the traffic on a site as well as most
of the conversions. But discovering those lesser-known terms can benefit your site by
providing less expensive clicks.