Posted Tuesday, 19 October 2010 at 05:58 by Andrew Liu
Tagged: google | search engine marketing (sem) | search engine optimisation (seo) | search engines
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As an SEO provider, you have one main goal. Get your client’s website to show up in search results for specified keywords and all is good, right?
Well, sort of. But what about important details like targeting traffic, segmenting search customers, and otherwise addressing the behavior of different searchers? Specifically, I’m interested to know how many SEOs are walking through the various search patterns that may bring a client customers.
Searchers usually start by identifying a need. Then they move into the research phase where they look at the different ways they can fulfill that need. The research phase can be quite long and involved for complex B2B products and very simple and brief for consumer products (see below). Then a decision is made and purchase happens (or doesn’t).
I recently went on a mission to find and buy something online: I wanted to introduce my toddler to yoga. As I worked from this very broad “need”, I recorded my searches and thoughts along the way, interested to see how the normal search pattern would play out on the different websites I’d encounter.
Step 1: I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t have enough information to evaluate and buy a product yet. Would a book or activity cards suffice? Or maybe I’d need a video…
I Googled the broad term “yoga for toddlers”, figuring I’d learn a bit more about things I should know, approaches to take, things to avoid, etc.
Narrowing down what I needed
The first listing that caught my eye was a listing for a provider of yoga books, DVDs and classes for babies and kids. However, when I clicked through, the site was short on information and heavily focused on getting you to enroll in a class—and there were no classes in my area. I quickly ruled out books as an option, but I didn’t even see any DVDs in the two minutes I spent on the site.
Back to my search results, I saw an eHow article a couple listings down. Yay for eHow! This article contained some information on the subject and also mentioned a couple of products. After reading the article, I Googled the products and found both brand sites.
The first site had a couple products that seemed more about fantasy play than yoga. Plus their store was down so I couldn’t even read the full descriptions.
The second site was a bit more reassuring, though the products were geared more toward instructors. At first, I couldn’t find DVDs. It looked like they only carried four products in their store, until I realized all the categories were listed down the left side and the four I could see were simply their featured products.
Step 2: Evaluating the products I shortlisted
Okay, so despite the mishaps on the websites, Yoga Kids sounded like a promising product. Next, I Googled “reviews for Yoga Kids”, since this site didn’t include customer reviews. I wasn’t about to buy something like this without seeing what other parents thought!
There was trusty Amazon right at the top of the listings. With tons of customer reviews, good and bad—just what I wanted at this point.
After reading some reviews, I thought I would browse the other videos in this category, since Amazon provided a much wider selection than an individual brand store could. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing a better option somewhere.
Step 3: Moving into buying mode
Alright, Yoga Kids looked like the best option. Free shipping on Amazon sealed the deal. So I whipped out the Mastercard and ordered a package of 3 DVDs in a series (which I hadn’t even noticed existed on the YogaKids website itself.)
Points to take away
There are questions that can be addressed in the realm the SEO controls, like keyword research, optimization of page elements, etc.
And then there are questions the customer also needs to address, hopefully with the help of the SEO:
As always, this is just a starting point. I’d love to hear how you are taking into account the different behaviors and needs of searchers at various points in the purchase cycle. Do tell!
Posted Tuesday, 19 October 2010 at 05:58 by Andrew Liu
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