Keyword Relevancy

If you happen to use Google Adwords or any other pay per click service you hear it all the time. Keyword relevancy is stressed to the point of mass paranoia should you fail to make sure that 99 of your 99 keywords for your campaign are as relevant as possible. I am not suggesting that this is not important, but you can take anything too far. In this article, I’m going to discuss the topic of keyword relevancy, what it really is, and how to make the most of it. Hopefully, this will clear up any confusion that you might have.

So just what is keyword relevancy? Well, the best way to illustrate what keyword relevancy is, is with an example.
Let’s say that you’ve just written a book that is a natural cure for acne and you decide that you want to run an Adwords campaign to promote this book. In doing this you have to choose relevant keywords that you believe people will be using to look for that natural cure. So, you may pick keyword phrases such as “natural acne cure”, “natural acne treatment”, “natural cure for acne”, “natural treatment for acne” and so on. Of course if you go to Google, they’ll give you additional suggestions if you ask for them. These keywords are considered relevant because they are very closely tied to what you’re promoting. Thus, we get the term keyword relevancy.

But this is where we tend to go overboard, especially places like Google.

Let’s say you were running an Adwords campaign and decided to use a keyword like “acne.” Now, certainly that has to be a relevant keyword to what you’re selling. It may not have the word natural or cure or treatment, but you are selling a book on acne and acne is one of the keywords, right? Well, if you were to include this keyword in your Adwords campaign, you would find that you’d have to pay more for it than for your other keywords. Why? Because Google doesn’t consider the word acne to be relevant enough as it is too broad a term. Their thinking is that people looking up the word acne can be looking for just about anything to do with acne, such as what causes it, and not necessarily how to cure it.

Okay, you can certainly understand their thinking. But where do you draw the line? What if somebody were looking up acne using the keyword phrase “acne help” or something similar? Maybe they are looking for a cure. If they are looking for help, wouldn’t you think they’re having a problem with acne and are looking for a cure?
I guess what I am trying to say is, to me, an irrelevant keyword would be to use a word like “warts” which has absolutely nothing to do with acne. But again, that’s just my opinion.

In the grander scheme of things, you’ll know when one of your keywords is considered irrelevant to the site you’re promoting because Google will make you pay through the nose for it. I think keyword relevancy can be taken to extremes, but if you want to play this game and win it, keep your keywords as relevant as possible.