Search engines continue to evolve, but SEO strategies have not been able to keep up.
For years, we’ve relied on keyword research to choose specific searches to target. However, keyword research often prioritizes the wrong targets.
Done well, keyword research helps you craft a balanced keyword strategy for your target market and people. Prioritize keywords that attract traffic that converts to customers.
Done poorly, keyword research focuses on high-volume, low-intent searches instead of purchase-intent searches that are more likely to convert.
Conversion-focused SEO campaigns aren’t right for every situation. But conversion should be the primary goal for e-commerce, service businesses, lead generation, and any other SEO campaign that aims to impact key business metrics.
The keyword research trap
Too often, marketers chase keywords with high search volume, resulting in a list of keywords that are only relevant but not converting.
This is the keyword research trap: chasing relevant keywords with volume without considering the intent behind the search.
Years ago, I worked for a company that specialized in corporate team building events. They ran a show called “Write a Country Song Like Taylor Swift.” The page for this service attracted a lot of organic traffic. However, most organic visitors wanted information about Swift’s music, not corporate team building.
Swifties visiting the site would never book a corporate team building event. They are precisely the wrong audience for corporate team building events.
The disconnect between the public and the offer is obvious. However, the disconnect is often less obvious or even ignored by marketers.
The keyword research trap will only become more dangerous as consumers adopt generative search engines such as Google AI Overviews and Perplexity.ai.
Keyword research is overrated
Early search engines simply searched web pages for keywords, returning a list of pages that mention the keywords.
Modern search engines are much more sophisticated. They understand the relationships between the searcher’s intent and the pages that best satisfy that intent.
It’s time to modernize SEO methods, including keyword research, developed for the first generation of search engines.
For example, we advised a bank that offers donor-advised fund (DAF) accounts. DAFs allow wealthy donors to accelerate tax deductions for charitable contributions.
After keyword research, the bank wanted to target the keyword “donor-advised fund.”
This keyword is relevant in a broad sense. But who is searching for this keyword? And, above all, what are they looking for?
We’ve done some research. Turns out they’re looking for:
General information about DAFs. A CPA who understands DAFs. How to file your DIY return with a DAF. A donor advised fund account.
The bank should target seekers looking to open a donor advised fund account. People looking to open a DAF account search for these keywords. In contrast, the vast majority of searches the bank wanted to target had no intention of opening an account.
There are better keywords, such as “open a donor advised fund account,” that are more likely to generate high-value traffic. However, they have much less search volume than “donor advised fund” and higher competition.
Dig Deeper: Beyond Search Volume: Future-Proof Keyword Research for SEO
Replacing relevance with intent
Many marketers don’t understand the relationship between relevance and intent.
Relevance and intent are important, but prioritizing intent is crucial to attracting qualified traffic more likely to convert to customers.
Keywords are both relevant i intention. Search intent is related to relevance, but is a completely different concept.
Relevance is the similarity between your keywords and the content or products you offer. Intent is the impetus that will take the searcher to the next step in their journey.
Intent describes the trajectory of the search. Capture what the searcher wants to achieve with the search.
The drive behind a quest is both a blessing and a curse. If your content fulfills the intent, the impulse will drive the visitor to the next step of the purchase process. If your content doesn’t meet the intent, the momentum will make it difficult to change the searcher’s direction.
Search intent captures what post-search results are possible.
Understanding the possible results of a search is critical. For example, Taylor Swift fans are unlikely to book corporate team building events. They are more likely to buy a concert ticket.
Keyword research and analysis tools help you choose relevant keywords. However, they offer less guidance on selecting keywords with the right intent.
Get the daily search newsletter marketers trust.
How keyword research fails
Like most marketers, you probably start your SEO campaigns with keyword research. Build a comprehensive list of relevant terms and prioritize them based on search volume and competition.
Let’s be clear. While it’s important to consider keyword relevance, volume, and competition, this approach can mislead you and reduce the targeting of your SEO campaign.
How Keyword Research Selection Criteria Can Mislead You:
membership: Your best customers may not be searching for relevant keywords with intent to buy. They can only be relevant. For example, the keyword “ski” is relevant to an e-commerce site that sells skis and a ski resort.
Search volume: Often, many different intents generate high-volume keywords. The actual search volume for the intent you’re targeting is sometimes a small fraction of a keyword’s total volume.
competition: Competitive keywords are difficult to rank for. But competitive keywords are competitive precisely because they convert well. Conversely, low-competition keywords typically don’t convert well.
Keyword research is more difficult than most marketers think. These metrics can lead you astray if not applied correctly.
You need to skillfully balance the trade-offs between relevance, volume and competition to avoid the keyword research trap. Otherwise, you could spend significant resources optimizing your SEO content for keywords that drive traffic but fail to convert.
Fix keyword research with intent
Many SEO campaigns are doomed from the start, especially when marketers choose keywords BEFORE they identify the search intents most likely to convert.
Don’t start your SEO campaign with keyword research.
Start with customer research.
Before selecting keywords, you need to understand the search intents of your best customers and which of those intents are most likely to convert.
The order of operations is essential: identify your search intents, then select your keywords.
Use search intent as a filter. Select intent keywords that align with your target search intents.
Once you understand your customers’ search intent, you can choose keywords and create content that matches your customers’ search intent. You must choose intents that you can satisfy with content or product.
Start your SEO campaign by gathering customer insights from customer conversations, sales calls or social media to understand:
The customer journey The questions your customers ask The information your customers need What drives them to convert
These insights will help you understand what information your customers are looking for when making a purchase decision. These are the search intents you should be targeting.
Here’s a better approach to keyword research:
Start with customer research Map the customer journey Identify search intents Compile relevant keywords Filter your keyword list based on intent Develop content for each intent
Prioritizing search intent over keywords leads to more effective content that directly addresses your audience’s needs and increases conversion rates.
Dig Deeper: How to optimize search intent: 19 practical tips
Conversion Focused SEO
Traditional keyword research involves optimizing for metrics that can mislead you.
Well-targeted SEO campaigns deliver branded content and messaging to potential customers who are actively researching a purchase. Precise campaign targeting improves conversion.
Focusing on intent has benefits beyond increasing rankings and traffic:
Higher conversion rates: Targeting high-intent keywords improves organic conversion rates by providing visitors with content that satisfies their query.
Marketing efficiency: Focusing your attention on searchers who are actively searching for your products reduces resources spent on broadly targeted content.
Multichannel statistics: Search intent analysis provides valuable insights into customer behavior that can be applied to all of your marketing channels, not just SEO.
High-impact SEO campaigns optimize conversions and sales, not just rankings and traffic. They look beyond keyword relevance, volume and competition, targeting search intent first and keywords second.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
[ad_2]
Source link
