Keyword Tool: Detecting Commercial Intention

Since keywords are so fundamental to Internet marketing, an online marketer is required to determine which keywords are the most relevant to one’s products or services.

However, such research often results in a long list of related keywords. If you are trying to sell a product or service, which keywords should you focus on?

Certainly “Testing” the response rates for specific keywords via PPC advertising is the best way, but what if you knew certain keywords reflected a higher probability for a sale than others, wouldn’t that be valuable?

Microsoft has a free online tool for “Detecting Online Commercial Intention” that helps to sort that out.

Here is how Microsoft describes this Commercial Intention tool:

“Web page searches display two levels of commercial intent: informational and transactional. This tool can detect customer intent to acquire information or to purchase products based on their search queries or recently visited URLs.”

This is a very simple and easy to use tool. However, it is not altogether accurate, which is problematic for any mathematical and rules-based search query (think of your own Google searches, which are sometimes immediately fruitful, and other times require more work). I have found this tool to rate some keywords incorrectly, relative to their observable commercial intent.

For example:

1) “Motorcycle” is rated at .98
2) “Harley Davidson” is rated at .87
3) “Harley Davidson Road King” is rated at .95
4) “Harley Davidson XR1200″ is rated at .63

First of all, let’s just ignore what each of the numbers represent by themselves. They are only useful as comparative references to each other.

Of course a narrower (more specific) search term reflects a higher intent to purchase, since the user is drilling down to a particular product or service, which is the standard pattern for a searcher looking for more specific information on their path to making a purchase.

In this case, a more refined keyword, such as example 3, indicates a higher commercial intent (.95) than example 2 (.87). So the tool is correct.

However, example 4 is observably reflective of a higher commercial intent (a specific motorcycle) than example 2, but the tool indicates a lower intent (.63). In other words, the tool is wrong for example #4.

Even more telling is example #1 which observably represents the lowest commercial intent in this group of search terms, since it is the broadest keyword, but the tool gives it the highest ranking (.98). This is a dramatic failure for the tool!

However, I have used this tool for other searches where the indications were correct. I chose these 4 examples to illustrate that it can be wrong, so it is best used with experience and a fundamental understanding of how keywords work.

NOTE: Since the tool also displays a yes/no user feedback poll, it is likely this tool will continue to become more accurate over time and therefore more valuable.

Further, it should be used with other tools to help determine traffic volume as well (see link below for other keyword tools).

If you have a keyword that shows a high commercial intent with very low search volume, you may want to consider another keyword with high commercial intent and higher volume.

Ideally, you would find some balance between traffic and intent.

In simple terms, if you can optimize your content and/or your online advertising to generate high traffic using keywords that have high commercial intent, you are setting yourself up for more visitors and more sales.

Click the following link for Detecting Online Commercial Intention.

Also, click the following link for more Search Engine Optimization tools.

Example of Keyword Research and Site Structure

There’s much written about keyword research on the web and on this site. And yet, because keyword research and the application of keywords represent the bedrock of pay per click advertising and search engine optimization, it behooves any search marketer to hone his or her skills in this area.

With that in mind, I’m continually interested in specific examples of managing keywords to maximize a website’s presence on the Internet and I particularly enjoy simple presentations that convey such. Eric Enge, at Search Engine Watch, has done just that with his post How Keywords Help Determine Site Architecture.

How Well Do You Know Your Keywords?

Although keywords are fundamental to a successful website that takes advantage of natural search engine traffic, it’s easy to overlook the value and scope of their importance.

I say “easy” because it’s not unusual to consider that one knows the core keywords for their industry or market so well, that it doesn’t deserve much inspection.

And it is probably true that most marketing executives or small business owners are quite cognizant of the core keywords of their market segment.

Which Keywords Drive Your Traffic?

But when you consider that the majority of a website’s “buying” traffic usually comes from secondary keywords and especially tertiary keywords, it’s quite possible that even an expert in a given field will not be aware of all the pertinent queries that searchers use to find products, services and information that might be on your own site. In other words, your site may be missing the benefit of perfectly suitable visitors who are buying products that you have, because search engines have not identified such keywords on your site.

Keyword Examples

For example, if you are selling cameras, you would probably have keyword rich pages for “cameras,” “digital cameras,” “camera reviews” and “camera accessories.”

And you would most certainly have the main camera brands as secondary keyword-rich pages, including “Canon cameras,” “Nikon cameras” and even “used cameras.”

However, what if you didn’t have online pages that provided keyword-specific content for users searching for the following? “Digital cameras under 200 dollars,” or “best camera for a teenager,” or “inexpensive underwater camera housing” or “fast shipping for Canon Rebel.”

Even an experienced marketing manager for a camera chain may not be aware of all the less used search terms. But in case it was not obvious in those last examples, those search terms are also indicative of someone getting ready to buy. Whereas someone searching for “digital cameras” is more than likely simply looking for general information, which means they are early in their research process as opposed to ready to spend money.

Keyword Research

The point is that no matter how knowledgeable one may be about their products or services, keyword research is a worthy endeavor for anyone looking to raise their website pages in the rankings of search engines.

Don’t be surprised that by researching keywords related to your business that you find some high-value search queries that would be specifically targeted for your business, if only you would include some pertinent content and engage in additional aspects of search engine optimization.

The bottom line is that good keyword research results in more sales and profit for your business.

Click here for some free keyword research tools and see what you find out about your products or services.

More About Keywords: How to Rank Fast!

Search marketers introduce “Keywords” as the most fundamental element of using pay-per-click advertising and/or search engine optimization to get an online message out. Indeed, keywords are at the core of the Triangle of Search Engine Optimization video. But how much can you learn and know about keywords? At first blush, it sure seems like a simple subject!

On a conceptual level, keywords are simple: keywords are the terms used by you and I to get search engines to find the information we are looking for on the Internet.

Because of that, from a search marketer’s perspective, it’s absolutely vital to ensure that online content is presented in a way to make it easy for search engines to find it.

Hence, search marketer’s can become obsessed with keywords and keyword research tools in the quest of gaining additional search engine advantage.

However, there are more factors, than just keywords, that equate to high rankings and trying to determine how long it might take to achieve that.  One of those factors has to do with how competitive the market is for any given keyword.

If you really want to rank high and rank fast, the easiest way to accomplish that is to select markets with less competition.

For example, if you target 2- or 3-word keyword phrases (maximum 4 or 5 words), which have less than 100k search volume (based on a search limited by quotation marks), it will be much easier to rank very highly and very quickly.

Furthermore, the target keyword should be easy to incorporate into sentences (for inclusion within content), and ideally the target keyword phrase would be based upon a product or a service (presuming the keyword has commercial intent).

And speaking of commercial intention, when selling a product or service, it would be useful to include pertinent “buying keywords” such as “buy,” “buying,” “order,” “ordering,” “promo,” “coupon,” “promotion,” “free shipping,” “purchase,” “sale,” etc., so that anyone searching for the phrase “Buy [keyword]” will have an opportunity to find your page.

None of this should constitute a reason to shy away from more competitive keywords and markets, just don’t expect to get to the top of those rankings overnight!

Market Research vs. Keyword Research

How much market research do you engage in?

Researching and discovering what people need and want and/or the terms they use to talk about or describe your products or services help determine how to market your product/service.

Traditionally, a business would hire a market research firm to do telephone or in-person surveys as a basis of understanding a market better (including all the points noted below).

However, I’ve observed a shift among some clients who consider all that is needed nowadays is keyword research (even from clients who don’t do much keyword research).

Keyword research is invaluable and should be a component of any market research and campaign planning.

However, additional points of market research would include:

♦ How is your market segmented? (Are there divergent types of buyers? More men? More women? Specific demographics?)

♦ Competitive Research, including pricing, specification, qualitative, and positioning differences. (How is your product/service positioned? If it is positioned as a boutique, personal service, is that true? If it is positioned as a low-price leader, is that accurate?)

♦ What are the existing trends? In addition to more readily observable seasonal trends, what are the longer-term trends? (For example, if you’re a technology company, you would want to monitor the horizon to be aware of anything new that may render your entire business model obsolete.)

♦ Of course using analytics to measure the effectiveness of your past and current marketing endeavors is arguably the most important market research in terms of what is effecting your bottom line today. This comprises the continual testing, comparing and refining of your promotional efficacy.

In short, market research is about gaining useful information about your target market, your customers, your competitor, your products, your competitor’s products and other related products/services and an accurate and ongoing measurement of your own marketing effectiveness.

Market research certainly includes and encompasses keyword research, but keyword research is only one piece of the larger pie.

The Merits of Keyword Density (or Not)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) used to be much easier. Prior to November of 2003 (when Google made an important change to their search engine), a workable solution to getting higher rankings was to add more keywords to your pages, even if a repetitive string of keywords appeared nonsensical to a human reader.

Google needed to make that change in 2003 or else all the top ranking pages would end up being written only for machines and would be valueless to actual visitors.

However, even nowadays, you’ll still find some SEO consultants and SEO training courses that advocate the importance of “High Keyword Density” in your copy.

Of course you want to include keywords in your content, but even more important are off-page factors such as links pointing to your web pages, and how those links describe your pages.

In other words, if some links to your website are described as “Click Here,” they’re not describing your site very well. However, if they link to your site using keywords descriptions of your site and/or specific pages, then that is a very important signal to Google as to what your website is about.

More to the point of this article, counting keywords or measuring densities is not the most fruitful way to increase your search performance: at least not in this day and age. (Furthermore, you could be providing your actual visitors with a poor reading experience if you have too many repetitive words).

Applying Keyword Research for More Website Traffic

In an ideal world, the very creation of your website would be founded upon keyword research, which indicates the types of information your visitors are most interested in.

However, the reality is that for many businesses, their website was developed without considering keyword research in any great length.

If you are interested in search engine optimization and developing more traffic naturally, then doing keyword research now is always better than doing it later. (Even though it’s a good idea to do it later, as well, to take advantage of any new trends that may surface).

Depending upon how large your site is, optimizing it for the best keywords to help search engines drive more quality traffic to your site could be more work, or, it could be a LOT more work.

Your website content should be organized in a keyword relevant hierarchy so that search engines can understand how the site is organized, and how the information is related to each other, typically going down from more general keywords to more specific keywords. The general keyword levels will help orient the search engines to the more specific keyword pages.

As an over-simplified example, if you had a website about motorcycles, you could set up this type of hierarchy with the home page being right at the top, and categories of motorcycles comprising the next lower level and then brands of motorcycles pertinent to the categories following next.  What is not illustrated is that one could then go down to specific models of motorcycles as well:

To draw a further distinction here, if you were to use category names such as “My Favorites,” or “The Best,” or “New” or any non-specific keywords, you are not helping the search engines. Those kinds of non-keyword descriptions won’t help the search engines because “My Favorites” or “The Best” or “New” could be relevant to anything, not just “Motorcycles.” Those non-keyword categories could be just as relevant to “19th Century European Artists” or “Cookie Recipes” or “Movies.”