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Keyword Research
"People waste more time trying to rank on Google then generate revenue" - CCarter
Our focus is on profits - everything we are after is for profits aka the biggest bang for our efforts. Keyword research is the difference between you making 20 sales a day by ranking for 'womens shoes' (Google shopping's organic results values products at $24.95 to $85) - generating between $499 to $1700 in revenue a day, versus making 10 sales a day by ranking for 'red bottom heels with diamonds' which cost $795 to $995 per pair - generating you $7950 to $9950 in revenue per day.
One keyword might get you a lot of visitors and several small sales the other will generate you tons of profits. Like I stated we are going to concentrate on profits - and understanding users' intent is key. You can't do keyword research properly without understanding your potential user's intent.
OVERVIEW OF AIDA
The AIDA sales conversion funnel which was most recognizedly made famous by Alec Baldwin in the movie "Glengarry Glen Ross" shows how salesmen gauge a prospect's mindset, walks them through the process and get them to sign on the dotted line.
A – attention (awareness): attract the attention of the customer.
I – interest of the customer.
D – desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.
A – action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.
Using a system like this gives one a general understanding of how to target a market effectively. Moving from step to step, one loses some percent of prospects.
Sauce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)
I – interest of the customer.
D – desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.
A – action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.
Using a system like this gives one a general understanding of how to target a market effectively. Moving from step to step, one loses some percent of prospects.
Sauce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)
The difference between "Glengarry Glen Ross" and you is your "salesman" is your website, and the customer is the searcher arriving at your website with something in mind before hand. Like during the sales process the salesman (your website) is going to prospect, gauging what level of intent they are on when they arrive on your website on a particular landing page can mean the difference between a bounce and a sale. That means the landing page a user lands on needs to fall in-line with the mindset of the user visiting that page.
AIDA translates perfectly over to the internet realm and search engines specifically by understanding user's intent when they use "keywords" to search within search engines and platforms for solutions to their problem.
Penn State has an excellent white paper on user intent which you can take a look at here: https://faculty.ist.psu.edu/jjansen/academic/pubs/jansen_user_intent.pdf (Here forth known as the Sauce: Penn State whitepaper - I'll be using this for a majority of the rest of the post so I'll highlight the important parts for you.
They only have 3 levels, but we are going to expand upon it for our exercise:
Awareness = Informational
Interest = Navigational
Desire = Commercial
Action = Transactional
Interest = Navigational
Desire = Commercial
Action = Transactional
Let's start from the top of the funnel and work our way down.
Informational
Informational searching: The intent of informational searching is to locate content concerning a particular topic in order to address an information need of the searcher. The content can be in a variety of forms, including data, text, documents, and multimedia. The need can be along a spectrum from very precise to very vague. (Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
The whitepaper states about 80% of searches fall into this category. The remaining 20% seems to be evenly split between the last 3 (when adding commercial into the equation).
Now here is where the problem most website owners will fall prey to, they'll target keywords which are informational based and not closer to the sales/action funnel of the equation. A desired destination for informational searchers are websites like wikipedia which are purely for the "awareness" factor.
Your job as a website owner is to get people to buy your product or service (or fill out a lead form) OR click on an advertisement (for CPC or CPA offers for you), so the visitor can buy a product or service (or fill out a lead form).
So if you are starting to grasp the problem of the situation targeting keywords that are at the top of the funnel is LESS profitable than it can be for you. You want to target keywords which are closer to the action funnel with commercial intent and you'll see a direct correlation of an increase on their CPC (cost per click bids within Adwords).
Higher CPC (especially for MFA - made for adsense sites), means when people click your ads, you'll get paid higher for that click. Higher CPC also means it's more valuable so when people browse your site using one of these keywords they will be more likely to buy immediately and in the buying mood versus in the researching what the hell is going on using Wikipedia mood.
Quick Notes
-uses question words (i.e., ‘ways to’, ‘how to’, ‘what is’, etc.);
-queries with natural language terms;
-queries containing informational terms (e.g. list, playlist, etc.);
-queries where the searcher viewed multiple results pages;
-queries length (i.e., number of terms in a query) greater than 2; and
-queries that do not meet criteria for navigational or transactional (or commercial).
(Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
-uses question words (i.e., ‘ways to’, ‘how to’, ‘what is’, etc.);
-queries with natural language terms;
-queries containing informational terms (e.g. list, playlist, etc.);
-queries where the searcher viewed multiple results pages;
-queries length (i.e., number of terms in a query) greater than 2; and
-queries that do not meet criteria for navigational or transactional (or commercial).
(Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
Examples Keyword Search Queries:
Directions: 915 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139
Phone Number: (312) 867-5309
News: Bath Salts Miami Beach Homeless
DIYers Research: How to play Guitar
Research: Who is Natalie Dormer?
Research: Actress From Firefly?
Tips
-The user will need help determining which product/service is best. (Great for MFA clicks)
-Specialized articles, images, videos, infographics and other media are critical here. The content should educate, entertain, inform, and inspire - using a balance which is in-line with the rhythm of the keywords used.
-Users are looking for quick answers - phone numbers, news, sports scores, or recipes.
-Think along these lines: 'latest features', 'simple steps', 'voted the most', 'receive the latest', 'installs in minutes', 'why you should replace your outdated', 'more efficient', 'Learn how X improves', 'learn why', 'the facts about', 'why most mothers prefer', 'expert review', 'which actress in Game of Thrones marries the king'
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Navigational
Navigational searching: The intent of navigational searching is to locate a particular Website. The Website can be that of a person or organization. It can be a particular Web page, site or a hub site. The searcher may have a particular Website in mind, or the searcher may just ‘think’ a particular Website exists. (Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
The intent a user in this stage is to find something they BELIEVE exists already. This can be a brand, a specific website or domain, or a query that SHOULD return an entity that SHOULD exist (they may be confused on the actual end name). Company's brands terms are included in this, since users may simply do a search for your brand within search engines rather than inputting your domain directly into the address field.
This also can be a waste of time if you are simply trying to rank for a brand's name in order to gain affiliate sales without adding value to the sale (looking at you lazy affiliates). Smart brands are catching on to this and now utilizing a first visit cookie (tagging a customer on the first initial visit) instead of a last visit cookie (giving credit to affiliate even though the visitor has already been on the site before). But if you can successfully rank underneath a brand or a competitor's presence that can give you "leaked" SERP traffic that you can use to sell customers on or convince would-be buyers of your competition to buy your brand instead (comparison charts work best for this).
Quick Notes
-queries containing company/business/organization/people names;
-queries containing domains suffixes;
-queries with ‘Web’ as the source;
-queries length (i.e., number of terms in query) less than 3; and
-searcher viewing the first search engine results page.
(Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
-queries containing company/business/organization/people names;
-queries containing domains suffixes;
-queries with ‘Web’ as the source;
-queries length (i.e., number of terms in query) less than 3; and
-searcher viewing the first search engine results page.
(Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
Examples Keyword Search Queries:
Brand: SERPWoo, Builder Society
Domain Query: BuilderSociety.com
Specific Query: Builder Society Bootcamp
Specific Intent: Traffic Leak Bootcamp C Carter
Search Example: Alaska Airline flight #1234
Tips
- They are not sure exactly what they want or need.
- They are searching with keywords that are "Problem" focused rather then solution focused.
- The landing page they land on should present solutions to their problems. (noise canceling headphones)
- The landing page should also show HOW this problem can be solved.
- These are direct searches for a brand, company, website, or a person (ie. Apple, Coca-Cola, Facebook, etc.)
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Commercial
This one is added which is not included in the Penn State whitepaper. The user is relatively familiar with the product.
Examples of keywords used within the search query by categorization:
Category - Gender/Sex: womens, mens, kids,
Category - Variations: xtra small, small, medium, large, extra large, XXL, red, white, black, blue, purple
Category - Comparison: versus, best, price, pricing, reviews, deals
Category - Discovery: Expert For My Time Piece Seattle
Tips
- The user knows what they want, but not which one just yet.
- Keywords can include 'compare', 'best', 'recommended', 'review', 'comparison', 'rated', 'outperforms', 'quick comparison', 'features', 'in-depth comparison', 'case study', 'reveal the benefits', 'how it compares', 'Time piece watch fixer'
- The answer they are looking for on the landing page is for the question in their mind: "which ones is best suited for solving the problem".
- These keywords start focusing on the end stage of the buyer process when the emotion starts taking over a bit more. The users will start imagining themselves with the product/service, and utilizing it daily. Capturing email at this stage is going to be easy.
- These keywords lead up to the purchase and are prime for MFA sites.
- Commercial searches require more touch points and a good way to provide needed information is through surveys, polls, subscription newsletters and white papers.
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Transactional
Transactional searching: The intent of transactional searching is to locate a Website with the goal to obtain some other product, which may require executing some Web service on that Website. Examples include purchase of a product, execution of an online application, or downloading multimedia. (Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
This is the money shot. Users are ready with wallet in hand and the emotion has taken over. They are looking for the best deal or most convenient way of getting the product/service - which can include directions to a store nearest them and phone number to call to see if that location has the item in stock. This is where an MFA would have the call to action to get users to click on their advertisement and end the sales cycle on the other side (Amazon.com for example), or where an eCommerce platform's landing page should offer a discount or an incentive to get the close right then and there.
Quick Notes
-queries containing terms related to movies, songs, lyrics, recipes, images, humor, and porn;
-queries with ‘obtaining’ terms (e.g. lyrics, recipes, etc.);
-queries with ‘download’ terms (e.g. download, software, etc.);
-queries relating to image, audio, or video collections;
-queries with ‘audio’, ‘images’, or ‘video’ as the source;
-queries with ‘entertainment’ terms (pictures, games, etc.);
-queries with ‘interact’ terms (e.g. buy, chat, etc.); and
-queries with movies, songs, lyrics, images, and multimedia or compression file extensions (jpeg, zip, etc.).
(Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
-queries containing terms related to movies, songs, lyrics, recipes, images, humor, and porn;
-queries with ‘obtaining’ terms (e.g. lyrics, recipes, etc.);
-queries with ‘download’ terms (e.g. download, software, etc.);
-queries relating to image, audio, or video collections;
-queries with ‘audio’, ‘images’, or ‘video’ as the source;
-queries with ‘entertainment’ terms (pictures, games, etc.);
-queries with ‘interact’ terms (e.g. buy, chat, etc.); and
-queries with movies, songs, lyrics, images, and multimedia or compression file extensions (jpeg, zip, etc.).
(Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
Examples Keyword Search Queries:
Identify: Meat Restaurant Lincoln Road Miami Beach
Address: 915 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139
Experience: Free Shipping, Online, Sign Up
Supporting Keywords: Purchase, Sales, Buy, Discount, Coupon
Tips
- They know exactly what they want, and are looking for where to buy the product/service.
- keywords can include 'cheap', 'buy', 'discount', 'purchase', 'order', 'lowest price', 'low-price', 'refund policy', 'money-back guarantee', 'fast shipping', 'free shipping', 'trusted', 'great customer service', 'hassle-free', 'safe ordering', 'sale ends soon', 'reader's choice', 'sweat deals', 'Greek food near 60607'
- The landing pages should show clear benefits of the product and a way to order the product/service through this site (Amazon's job at this point, hence why weak sites shouldn't be targeting these keywords, you'll get high bounces).
- These keywords are the most valuable and competitive since they are at the end of the buyer funnel. Pages need to provide a simple and easy way to convert. Next Steps, clear instructions, and easy instructions are the keys for this landing page.
- Transaction searches require a landing page with some sort of conversion mechanism with a purchase, buy, or download button.
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Now if you were a little confused about the 4 stages, don't worry the next stage is going to tie it together for you.
We'll be using SERPWoo primarily for this guide, but you can literally use any other tool, but you'll have to input each top 10 url manually over and over to get the level of digging we display.
@MercenaryCarter
