Duplicate Keywords: A Performance Hit

Plugging in lots of high-value keywords, but not getting anywhere with your ad campaigns? You might be making a very common, yet costly mistake.

Using duplicate keywords in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is easy to do, but if you don’t address the issue, you’re going to be spinning your wheels and going nowhere.

In this article, we’ll explain the issue, and tell you how to stay clear of it so that your ads are set up for greater success.

There is a difference between a webpage keyword and landing-page keyword. Typically a landing-page is an orphan page, which means there is no link to it from the website. You can only land on it by clicking the ad.

Therefore, a search engine crawler cannot reach a landing-page and thus cannot index it. As a result, an orphan landing-page will not show up in SERP. Of course a landing-page can be the homepage or any other page of a website.

You might think that the more often you use a keyword, the better your rankings will be. Having more pages targeting the same keyword will drive your pages to the top position sooner, right?

Wrong.

It’s a common misconception among rookie digital marketers. Many people make the mistake of thinking it’s a good idea to bid on the same keyword several times, believing it will boost their chances of success

However, duplicate keywords in your ad campaigns are not the expressway to better results.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Any success with this strategy will be short-lived, and ultimately, you’ll soon see just why the folly of duplicate keywords.

To understand just why it’s a bad idea to target the same keyword in multiple ads, let’s take a look at how the same tactic impacts search engine optimization (SEO).

You could have three pages ranking for the same keyword, in positions #6, #8 and #9 in organic search results. Alternatively, you could consolidate the three into one comprehensive page, which then ranks in position #1.

If you create several separate pages that all focus on the same keyword term, you end up battling against yourself. All your pages may rank for that keyword, but they will be competing with each other. This results in lower clickthrough rate (CTR), lower page authority and a poorer conversion rate for each page.

In SEO, this faux-pas is known as keyword cannibalization.

Just as it is harmful to your content marketing, the practice of duplicating keywords in advertising campaigns is a scourge for many companies.

Duplicate keywords in PPC advertising happen when you use identical search terms that share the same match type, and also target the same audience.

This is not a smart idea, as it will lead to a few issues, such as:

• Competition against your own ads, reducing your performance in auctions
• An increase in wasted spend
• Negative impact on the quality score of your account

It isn’t always a disaster to have duplicate keywords in your PPC ads. If you segment your campaigns by geographical location, then you can use the same keywords, with different targeting locations.

For example, if you want to target the keyword “women’s sports shoes” in multiple locations, you can adjust the location targeting at the campaign level to “New York” and “Toronto” to avoid duplicate keywords.

This strategy is quite common, and ensures your ads aren’t competing against each other with the same keyword. However, it’s important to know that this can only be done at the campaign level.

Another easy way to dodge the bullet of duplicate keywords is by adjusting the match type. You can still bid on keywords with the same search terms, and then experiment with different match types.

For example, let’s say you have the following:

• [women’s silver necklace] – exact match
• “women’s silver necklace” – phrase match
• women’s silver necklace – broad match
• +women’s +silver +necklace – modified broad match

By using different match types, the keywords won’t compete against each other. You can then track key metrics, such as the number of impressions, click-through rate (CTR), and cost-per-click (CPC) on each match type. This is a clever strategy to discover the optimal match type for your keywords.

If you’re only finding out about duplicate keywords now, you may be concerned that you have a monumental task ahead of you to address potential problems in your existing ad campaigns.
But fear not, for this is much easier than you think. Here’s how to find duplicate keywords in your ads, and how to remove them:

The first thing you need is Google Ads Editor. If you’re serious about PPC advertising, then you’ll probably already have it. If you don’t, then download it. It’s free and can be used offline, making it a no-brainer!

With the Editor on board, navigate to the ‘Tools’ drop-down menu in your account, then select the option, ‘Find duplicate keywords’.

Remember how we mentioned that duplicate keywords can be differentiated by factors such as match types or location? Well, here you can choose the specific duplicates you want. It’s also a wise move to filter out any keywords that are in paused or deleted campaigns. Try to keep the clutter to a minimum.

And that’s it — told you it was easy!

You can review your list of flagged keywords, and decide whether to scrap them completely or to make some minor adjustments. Perhaps you can adjust the location or match type to see how it fares against the original keyword settings.

Now you know how to weed out duplicate keywords from your ad campaigns. But how do you avoid falling into the trap again in future campaigns?

Here are some tips to make sure you don’t unwittingly end up cannibalizing your own campaigns.

• Keep a close eye on your search terms reports. You can determine which keywords trigger your ads, and see if any action is needed.
• Add exact match keywords as negative keywords. This is good practice when you have already grouped the basic match type keywords for your ad groups.
• Review your match types for each keyword. If all the impressions and clicks are been driven by exact match type, then it’s best to remove the keyword from other match types. Not only will this eliminate duplicate content, it will also boost ad relevance for that keyword.
• Avoid adding misspellings and plurals as separate keywords. Google matches close variants of your keywords, so by adding these separately, you run the risk of cannibalization.

Duplicate keywords can be a spanner in the works for many marketers. The long-term effects on the return on investment (ROI) of your content marketing and advertising should not be ignored.

When it comes to duplicate keywords in PPC advertising, it’s best to find and remove them sooner rather than later, so that you aren’t wasting money.

In doing so, you’ll give your campaigns much greater chance of success, as the quality score will improve and your ads will be much more focused. This ensures the right ad can reach the right segment of your audience, which in turn, delivers better results.