14. Segmenting Intent
• Awareness – Short, non-specific
• “Ventilator”
• Consideration – Branded, not model specific
• “Medtronic Ventilator”
• Sale – Model Specific
• “Medtronic HT70 Ventilator”
• Retention – Resource/use specific
• “HT70 User Manual”
@yoTodd
15. Examples
Queries Category
ventilator Awareness
mechanical ventilation Awareness
types of ventilator Consideration
mechanical ventilator Awareness
types of ventilators Consideration
high pressure alarm on mechanical ventilation Support
types of mechanical ventilation Awareness
ventilator settings Support
ventilators Awareness
what is mechanical ventilation Awareness
ventilator modes Support
type of ventilator Awareness
home ventilator Awareness
what is ventilator Awareness
medical ventilator Awareness
volume cycled ventilator Consideration
use of ventilator Support
how does a ventilator work Awareness
22. Outcome
• Improved Content Quality
• Themes assist in Ranking
• Context improves Conversion
• Multi-purpose Content
• Integration and use in other campaigns
• More Content!
• Needs identified with clear business purpose
@yoTodd
All the focus on the front end. Nothing to help throughout the funnel. So SEO’s often accomplish their goal while failing their mission.
This is what’s missing. SEO should support each of these steps.
Instead of the SEO funnel, let’s rename these steps to a basic sales funnel
Here’s what a large multi-channel campaign might look like. Where does SEO fit?
Match the sales steps to our SEO opportunity. Worth noting that different stages have different volumes of search traffic. In traditional “keyword research” we often ignore the value to the sales stage, and instead look at the value as a function of volume and general relevance.
So how should we research? Not just “think about what a user will type” but also “what will they type at each stage and what kinds of content will they need at that stage.
Recommendation: Go beyond your “target keywords” and try to get actual search terms. Not always possible with low traffic or new pages.
Consider how your buyers and buying cycles match up. Keywords may also include “Reviews” (consideration stage) or “support” (retention stage).
Create your segments
Intent matching isn’t always accurate with short tail keywords, or different personas use the same search term but at different stages. So we won’t always be right. But the point of “sales path” is that they can move forward or back, rather than reaching an ultimate destination on the first step. So there’s some web and content strategy that needs to support this as well.
How you know you’re hitting your audience right – we’ve targeted well enough that B2B buyers who search during the week find what they want, but have managed to segment out very similar consumer-focused buyers who would be looking for something completely different but who use very similar search queries.
Metrics to evaluate performance at the “theme” level
What Google Webmaster Tools (Search Console) gives
Performance is also relevant to the stage. Would you pay for all these keywords in an Adwords campaign? Look at what these can do for you.
Again, the purpose of keyword themes is not necessarily to drive more organic traffic (although it does that too), but to direct organic traffic to the right content based on their needs. It helps us focus on what we’re writing about with a direct connection to how people search based on their needs.