This is a common assumption that long tail keywords have low cost per click (CPC), but only few know that it is not always true. In an attempt to lower your keyword cost per clicks, you add additional terms to your seed keyword to convert them into long tail keywords.
A seed keyword is a one or two word phrase. Long tail keywords will include additional terms and are usually variations of the seed keyword. As an example, take a seed keyword “shoes”; “comfortable sport shoes” or “stylish party shoes” can be the possible long tail keywords.
A normal notion suggests that long tail keywords have less competition, consequently lowering down the cost per clicks. But when you actually form and implement long tail keywords in your campaigns, you realize that CPCs remain same or only slightly less expensive while the cost per conversion is unsustainable. As a result, your PPC campaign turns into a money eating monster rather than a lead generating source.
Competition with Other Long Tail Keywords
The main problem is that your selected long tail keywords are not only in competition with the exact keyword you are bidding on. The fact is that your competitors don’t need to actually target your exact long tail keyword. Broad match modifier makes it easy for your competitors to match for all of your long tail keyword searches.
For instance, you are holding up a design company and you take your seed keyword as “Design Company.” When you’ll start the campaign, you’ll find that the CPC is very high and so you go for long tail keywords based on your target market, which are as follows:
• Best Web Design Company
• Graphic Design Company Website
• Top Website Design Company
You figured that there is less or almost no competition for these keywords as they are so specific. However, you don’t realize the fact that other companies don’t need to bid on the exact long tail keyword to beat you in the auction.
Competitors can simply have the keyword “Design Company” in broad match modifier (+design +company) and they are able to match you for all the long tail keywords you formulated. Because so many companies bid on that keyword, the competition and CPC is always high.
How to lower down CPC?
From the above discussion, it is quite evident that forming long tail keywords in not a solution. Instead, you should try to find new seed keywords that your competitors might be missing. Lower competition directly results in lower cost per click. The exact steps are given below:
• Step One: Identify hot seed keywords and eliminate them from the campaign
Hot seed keywords are the keywords that have such a high competition that the resulting cost per conversion makes the campaign highly unsustainable. So, the first step is to find such seed keywords and pause them.
• Step Two: Create an all new list of seed keywords
Once you detect the hot seed keywords, the next step is to find the keywords that are not too obvious and have less competition in the PPC auction.
To find these non explicit seed keywords, you need to actually imagine yourself as your customer and think about all of the different perspectives you could search for a solution that your company provides. For example, a possible query of a customer to SEO Company can be, “How do I increase traffic to my website?” Resultantly, seed keyword, in broad match modifier, may include “+increase +traffic +website”.
Other ways to find seed keywords are to describe the symptoms of the problem and think about small informational searches.
• Step Three: Design your campaign according to the new keywords
The most important step is to design an ad and an offer that serves the purpose of keyword search. You just need to understand that customers should be provided with information and not services when they are looking for information. The happy customers will automatically turn to you for services. For example, if you create an ad campaign around the seed keyword +increase +traffic +website then the ad should address questions about increasing traffic of websites, and a landing page may include an offer for an eBook describing ways to increase website traffic.
Thus, finding non-explicit seed keywords is the way to go and not the long tail keywords, if you really want to lower the CPC and design a successful campaign.
