How People Search the Web
How people search the web
In order to take full advantage of search engine marketing you really need to know how people actually search on the web. OK, we all know you type a key word or phrase into Google and hit search but what is our thinking up to that point and throughout the search cycle?
Typically there are three types of search queries:
- Navigational queries where a user wants to go to specific website but might not know the exact URL, e.g. “John Lewis”
- Informational searches where the user wants to find a piece of information e.g. “American Pie lyrics”. As you can imagine these cover a wide range of daily search traffic
- Transactional searches where a user is trying to find products or services with the express intention of either making a purchase e.g. “cinema in Brighton”
Search Steps
Searching the web often consists of various steps which take place over a period of time, sometimes days. I’m a keen runner and almost always buy running shoes online now (it’s so much cheaper!). The process I go through is usually to bang the search phrase “running shoes” into Google which churns out millions of results. I’ll click one of the top links and go to the site. Once there I’ll see a range of shoes which might be described as neutral, support or control shoes. This could lead to another search e.g., “support running” to find out exactly what the phrase means. So now I know I want a support shoe so I go back to Google and type “support running shoe” and begin searching for specific types of shoe.
This process will go on until I find some suitable shoes but I might not buy them at that point. I may consider it for a day or two, then make the purchase. The point I’m making is that people will go through a range of searches, refining them as they do so.
In most cases people begin with a general, non-specific term such as “running shoes” and then be more distinct as they get more information. Once they have found the information or product that they want, they may seek to refine it even further to fit a more exact match, e.g. you may search for “country pub Stratford” and then further the search to “country pub Stratford on river”.
It’s also quite possible that users might get distracted or wander from their search patter if they don’t get the results they were hoping for.
The Significance for Search Engine marketing
So what does this mean for a search engine marketer? By understanding that users will go through various stages to reach an end goal you can focus on developing content for each of those stages. Going back to my running shoes example, when I search for the general term “running shoes” I see a result for abcsportshoes.com. Then I adapt my search to find out about support running shoes. If abcsportshoes.com has a page that explained the difference between neutral and support shoes then it’s likely to appear in that second set of results too.
If your website can feature in all the search stages then you will be seen as an authority on that particular subject, product or service and will greatly improve the chances of people then visiting your site and converting.
