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12 April 2010
Posted in
Atlantic Technology -
The Blog
Good marketers know what their audience are searching for. This is crucial knowledge to have for you to build your online marketing strategy. If you know how your target audience searches for your products, then you will be more more effective in reaching and keeping those users.
There 3 types of searches:
- Informational - These queries involve people searching for weather maps, directions, celebrity news, how large the moon is. These have middling opportunity but are very good for branding and getting links to your site.
- Navigational - For users looking to directly surf to a particular website e.g. a search for British Airways or Ryanair.
These offer opportunities to poach users away from their intended destination but the chances of cashing in on these queries are quite low.
- Transactional - These are the high value queries for your business product or service. These queries are users looking for the nearest restaurant, or paying a fine, or signing up a new account in facebook. All these queries present the best opportunity for achieving a transaction fro your business.
80% of searches are informational in nature and only about 10% of searches are navigational or transactional.
When you are building keyword research charts for clients or on your own sites, it can be incredibly valuable to determine the intent of each of your primary keywords. Here are some examples:
| Term | Queries | Intent | €€ Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dublin Airport | 4590 | Nav | low |
| Hotels in Dublin | 3273 | info | Mid |
| Package Tour of Dublin | 2833 | Trans | High |
A common problem is that when most searchers print their search query they provide limited data to the search engine, perhaps in just one to three words.
As most people would not have have a keen understanding the workings of search engines, often they provide a query that is far too general or in a way that does not provide the search engine (or the marketer) with what it needs to determine their intent.
Although the informational queries may not be of high value, it may not be the best strategy to ignore them straight away. These terms are good for building a brand for your site and may prove valuable later on.
As an example, I you sold cameras you might lose market share but not targeting in your PPC campaign terms like 'digital cameras'. People who buy cameras usually start with general terms and move onto more specific terms like "Canon IXUS 330" later. The company that optimised for the term "digital camera" has the opportunity to direct the user to a more specific camera ia a later search.