Guest contributor Nick Eubanks shows you how to increase conversions by optimizing for keywords that show strong commercial intent.
With Google already supporting machine-learning to assist with conversions on your every query, you too need to get smarter about how you’re targeting your audience.
Search intent allows you to get into the minds of your target audience, figure out what they want, and even what stage of the conversion funnel they are currently in.
Segmenting search intent to uncover needs
In a post from almost five years ago, SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin segments search queries into four buckets to uncover potential searcher intent: navigational, informational, commercial investigation, transactional. While this post is a fossil in the internet marketing world, the approach and information is still valid.
As Fishkin explains, we as search engine users showcase our intentions through the words we choose to query. Our semantics show what we want, and to some extent, what we expect. He goes into some detail about how he categorizes these four segments:
- Navigational search is when a searcher is looking for a pre-determined destination. Think of the people, most likely your parents, who still type a domain name into the search box.
- Informational search probably covers the largest bucket of keywords, and is generally representative of users looking for a quick answer. These are people looking for a phone number, directions, or even a piece of recent news, such as a sports score or headline.
- Commercial Investigation is, as Fishkin notes, “straddling the line between research and commercial intent.” These are queries where the searcher is looking to gain information to help them inform a buying decision, even if they do not convert; this is the gathering of information that has the potential to later lead to a sale.
- Transactional is the obvious one: these are queries where the searcher is looking to make a purchase, find a place to make a purchase, or complete a task. These can range from queries looking to make a purchase online, to looking up the address of a store, to signing up for a service.
To take this one step further, Fishkin assesses the potential value of each intent segment, exploring the average opportunity value of each type in relation to conversions, with navigational being the lowest and transactional being the highest.
Inferring searcher intent
To dive into the nuts and bolts a bit more, Eugene Agichtein conducted an in-depth study in 2010 on developing computational models of searcher behavior, interests, and actions that could potentially indicate what the searcher is hoping to accomplish.
In the presentation of his study, Eugene looks at four core challenges for web search:
- Query Interpretation, to infer intent
- Ranking, which has high dimensionality
- Evaluation, for system improvement
- Result Presentation, the visualization of the information
He uses this approach to formulate the information retrieval process: moving from query formulation, to search, to source selections, to examination, and finally delivery, with a loop often occurring between source selection and query formulation.
He then compiles this process into an “information seeking funnel” that pretty much matches up to the classic AIDA marketing formula for conversion—attention, interest, desire, action—but instead using the terms wandering, exploring, seeking, and asking.
Taking this funnel a step further
In an article on Search Engine Land earlier this year, Ted Ives dives into designing keyword funnels to understand search intent.
I spoke to this example in my recent post on using keywords to identify vertical markets, but essentially what Ives is getting at is this: by analyzing the semantics of the keywords, you can place them into intent buckets based on which stage of the conversion funnel you believe the searcher to be in.
Ives is a data guy and, from what I can tell, enjoys getting granular with his analysis. He breaks up keywords into 10 funnel stages. He acknowledges this may seem like too many, but he explains the reasons for doing so:
- It forces you to really try to understand searcher intent.
- It gives you a sense of where the holes in your keyword research are from a funnel perspective.
- It resonates with clients or management and is a great way to discuss and understand a business.
He also goes on to break down all of his 10 funnel stages and what they represent, providing an actionable look into which stages you should target, and some general pain points to address for searchers at each stage. If you have not read the post, I highly recommend it.
Avoid low-intent keywords
Larry Kim makes the point in his page on keyword intent that it’s a waste of money to target low-intent keywords, or those where intent is too ambiguous to identify. (While Larry’s page is more of a squeeze page than an informational reference, this point stands.)
What he is getting at is the importance of reigning in your keywords that are going to cost a lot of money, either to bid on or to aggressively optimize for organically. Not to say don’t use them or collect metrics for them at all, but juts to make sure they are not your core focus, as they have the potential to cost a lot of time and money with little promise of reward.
Low-intent keywords are those that Fishkin would refer to as informational, providing little to no potential for conversion. These are phrases that include one to three words and are so general that you cannot discern with any confidence the expectations of the searcher.
Head terms are a perfect example of a low-intent keyword. For example, let’s say you own a used-car dealership that sells Jeeps. It would be wonderful to rank for the term Jeep, but this has no indication of intent: the searcher could be looking for a spec for the car they already own, for an accessory, for a repair shop, or for something as off-base as a toy for their nephew.
The truth is, you don’t know and you never will.
What makes far more sense for you would be to rank well for “used jeeps for sale.” I realize this seems very obvious, but think about the different strategies you would need to employ to attack this long-tail phrases versus the head:
- You can rank for this term without the signals usually required for head terms such as an EMD or links from high-authority, keyword-rich domains.
- You can compete locally, focusing on your service geography which seriously narrows your market focus and reduces your costs.
- You can focus solely on the secondary market (used cars) and avoid competing, to some extent, with the bigger brands.
Simply put, focus on what you know. It’s much easier to meet searcher expectations when they tell you what they are, and what they want.
The characteristics of search queries
In yet another old but great post, Bill Slawski explores the characteristics of both search queries and search sessions.
Slawski references a very interesting study that was conducted by looking at over a million queries submitted by several hundred thousand searchers. The findings provide a great deal of visibility into common intentions and preferred use of search engines.
Slawski observes that “the findings indicated that approximately 80 percent of the queries classified were informational, with the remaining being split almost equally between navigational and transactional.”
My favorite part about the study (and Bill’s post) is that they look at some of the specific characteristics of the informational queries:
- They use question words like “ways to,” “how to,” “what is,” etc.
- They contain informational terms like “list,” “playlist,” “top,” etc.
- The searcher tends to view multiple results pages.
What’s more, the study compared its results to another piece of research where they studied queries of “non-meta search engines,” and found the largest session sizes were actually for searchers running one and three queries, at 53.9% and 29.4% respectively, versus users who ran two queries, making up only 16.6% of the sample.
Bringing this all together
So what does all of this mean for people who want to make sure they are getting in front of their target audience at the most opportune time?
I would recommend the following:
- Expand your list
Take your existing keyword list and expand it. Use a keyword discovery engine and expand your list three-fold of its current size. - Tag low-intent keywords
Identify low-intent or ambiguous-intent keywords. - Segment the rest of your keywords
Segment your list into the four intent-based buckets mentioned in the beginning of this post. - Map intent to your conversion funnel
Create a set of conversion funnel stages relevant to your business (or use Ives’) and then group your intent-based segments into these funnel stages. - Get search volumes
Run the Google Keyword Tool or a related keyword tool to get approximate search volumes. - Find the high-value keywords
Identify the highest-volume (and therefore highest-value) keywords within your commercial and transactional intent segments. - Analyze the competition
Conduct a competitive SEO analysis for these keywords. - Start optimizing
Once you have identified your highest-volume, intention-focused, conversion-likely keywords, start with the longest tail term you have and work backwards toward the head.
You will begin to notice higher-quality traffic and most likely more conversions, especially if you take the time to craft your landing page pitch in such a way that you are meeting your visitor’s expectations and addressing the pain points you are now aware of through analysis of their query intentions.
