Keyword research is as old as SEO itself. Search
engines use keywords to provide a list of relevant results to the searcher, and
as this SEO market expanded, Google brought in an advertising platform that
gave businesses a chance to appear on search engine results pages for keywords.
From there, Google offered a tool
that enabled
businesses to see how many searches occurred for any keyword, eventually giving
way to keyword research. This tool is indispensable for business because it
came from Google itself and offers additional insights to gain leverage over
the competition.
As businesses began using more data for
marketing, however, it showed that keywords are useful, but may not always be
completely accurate. More software tools emerged to provide additional keyword
insights, giving marketers more opportunities than ever to use keywords to
their advantage.
Unfortunately, historical keyword research has a
few problems:
●SEO is focused on the decision stage of the buyer’s journey, and
not the whole process.
●SEO is focused on keywords alone, and not on categories or topics.
These two issues are being addressed as
marketers focus on topics more than keywords, but that’s only part of the whole
picture. Optimizing keywords to align with each stage of the buyer’s journey is
the key, which we’ll cover here.
What Is the Buyer’s Journey?
The buyer’s journey refers to a framework that
acknowledges the buyer’s progression through the research and decision process,
which ultimately ends in a purchase. This concept isn’t new, but it’s evolved
over the years with new technology and marketing insights.
There are three stages to the buyer’s journey:
●Awareness: The buyer is experiencing
and expressing a problem and conducting research to understand, frame, and name
the problem. This stage involves question-based searches that center around the
problem.
●Consideration: The buyer has
identified the problem and is investigating the available options to solve the
problem.
●Decision: The buyer has developed a
solution strategy and compiled a list of products or services to address the
problem. They are narrowing down the possibilities to come to an ultimate purchase
decision.
Most marketers focus only on the decision stage,
but there are opportunities at each stage of this process.
Buyer Personas
A map of your ideal buyer is vital, since it’s
the only way to truly understand your buyer’s journey. You should understand
their needs and problems, which will ultimately drive them toward your
solution.
This can be done a number of ways:
●Website and social media data: Your
analytics should give you key data points about your audience. You can find
everything from your audience’s demographics to the type of content they engage
with most.
●Surveys and feedback: The best way
to get insight into your ideal buyer is by speaking with them directly. This
can be done through polls, surveys, feedback requests, and other questions
regarding their buying behavior at each stage of the buying journey.
This information allows you to connect the dots
and create accurate buyer personas and mapping of the buyer’s journey.
Shifting From Keywords to Topics
Much of the SEO community has begun shifting
from keywords to topics already. This comes in the form of long-form content
that connects to other content across sections, providing a comprehensive
overview of the broad topic. This approach addresses the new way that search
engines are interpreting content.
For the purposes of this discussion, these
long-form content pages typically target the short-tail keywords that have a
higher search volume, ultimately addressing the awareness or consideration
stages. Key decision-stage pages are narrow content.
These can be further subcategorized into pillar,
target, and cluster pages:
●Pillar page: This page covers the
broad topic on a single page, with smaller cluster pages that link to it. This
is focused on the awareness or consideration stage.
●Target page: This page has a keyword
or phrase linked to a specific product or service page. This is focused on the
decision stage.
●Cluster page: This page gives more
detail about long-tail keywords related to the pillar page.
Putting It Together
The process to put all these pages together is
simple. It begins like any other keyword research task, which is based on the
keywords that a business is looking to rank for, and provides a starting point
for what a prospective customer will search.
From there, you can begin to consider keywords
outside of the obvious, such as synonyms and colloquial terms. This is the time
to use keyword research tools, such as Google Ads, or consult customers about
terms they may use to find a product.
Once this list is expanded, it can be narrowed
down for better targeting. Irrelevant keywords can be filtered out, then
relevant keywords can be sorted by topic and buying intent. For this part, be
sure to put yourself in the shoes of the customer and consider what they would
search to address a problem, as well as what keywords show intent to purchase.
This is when the stages of the buyer’s journey
come in. Keywords should be categorized to each stage, using your judgement
about what you believe the buyer is looking for. Categorizing is important,
because it provides you with framework for what type of content is appropriate
for certain phrases or keywords.
You’ll often distinguish patterns in the
keywords along the buyer’s journey. Words like “cost” or “price” are usually
found in the decision stage, whereas “how to” will be the awareness stage.
These patterns will help you streamline your content planning.
Here are some examples of keywords at the
awareness stage:
●Fix.
●Problem.
●Troubleshoot.
●Upgrade.
●Optimize.
●Prevent.
Here are some examples of keywords at the
consideration stage:
●Provider.
●Solution.
●Supplier.
●Vendor.
●Comparisons.
●Software.
●Features.
Here are some examples of keywords at the
decision stage:
●Pros and cons.
●Benchmarks.
●Reviews.
●Ratings.
●Pricing.
Once this is complete, you can group your
keywords into pillar page, target page, and cluster page. This gives you
insight into what type of content should be used, based on how competitive a
term is, what the search volume is, what stage the buyer is in, and how
profitable a keyword might be.
This information not only informs your current
content, but it also helps you fill gaps in existing content. Check that the
topics haven’t been covered before, and look for gaps resulting from keyword
searches that aren’t currently being targeted.
Moving Forward
Traditional keyword research isn’t successful
because most marketers only consider volume and competition. They tend to go
for the terms with the highest traffic, but traffic doesn’t necessarily
indicate buyers. In many cases, traffic indicates users looking for information
about their problem, but are still weeks or months away from searching for a
specific solution to that problem.
Because of this, current keyword research is a
nuanced process that considers the needs of the buyer above all else. Used
properly, keyword research can drive your content strategy to generate leads
and convert customers, provided you address their needs throughout each stage.