PubCon '06: Keyword Selection

Nov. 16th – Wednesday morning I was able to sleep in a bit (thanks to a very agreeable boss). My first session of the day was Keyword Selection: Top of Search, moderated by Joe Laratro. Each speaker had something to offer from a unique perspective. Noteworthy lessons include:

• Evaluating keywords by: Brand, Conversion, Relevancy, Competition and Query Volume
• The importance of determining your client’s measures of success.
• The value (and prohibitive cost) of high level competitive keyword data from Hitwise.
• Using PPC data as a reference for converting keywords.
• Looking at offline keyword influences.
• Using Google Trends to understand search activity

Mainly I walked away from this session with a few good ideas for in-house tools to develop, as well as a couple of new metrics to tinker with.