Archive for October, 2011

Understand Buyer Intent to Improve Conversions

People arrive at a website with a specific intent. This could be to learn more about a problem or a product. Some come ready to take action and buy.

Start by answering the question, “Why are they coming?” What problem are they trying to solve? People do not come to learn about your company or even your products. They come to learn how to solve their specific problem. What you have is the answer to their problem.

Think about your website from their point of view. Once you understand their questions then you need to answer and address their needs. Just provide the answers they are searching for.

Different keyword phrases will indicate different levels of buyer intent. Use keywords to get insight into buying behavior. Understand how people think about your products. Learn what questions people are considering as they are preparing to buy.

You want to identify buyer keywords. These are phrases that show intent to take action. These are different than information seeking phrases. Simply focusing on attracting visitors that are motivated buyers will improve your website’s conversion rate.

These are phrases that are more specific and show intent to take action. These are different than information seeking phrases. Buyer phrases have more words, are more specific such as make and model and will frequently include city or other local terms.

Buyer intent is an important part of conversion rate optimization. Create your website and its content with your best buyer in mind.

Look at Your Competition When Selecting Keywords

Go to your competitor websites and see what keywords they are using. What phrases are they using that apply to what you sell? Look at the keywords they list in their Meta Tags. If you go to their web page and click on view source in your browser, you can look at the keywords they list in their META Tags.

You can also go to sites like keywordspy.com, spyfu.com or compete.com to uncover which phrases they are targeting. One of my favorite tools to use is SEO Digger

SEODigger is an excellent tool for doing competitor research. It will list out keywords that are in the top 20 results that their website is currently ranking for as well as their current search volumes. It also lists out other competitors as well as a keywords cloud.

Picking the right keywords is part art and part science. You need to understand the psychology of how and why people search. People search the web to find information, answers and a solution to a problem. Sometimes it is best to get the help of keyword research services to set the right foundation for your search engine optimization.