Any successful search engine marketing program must include a thorough understanding of who the potential customer is and what are they searching for. Why is the searcher online typing in keywords to a search engine and looking for answers? What type of answers is the searcher looking for, information, entertainment, a site to purchase a desired product?

Knowing why your potential customer is searching will provide structure, strategy and perhaps provide a road map for developing your search marketing program.

Search Behavior Models

The behavior of the searcher can be looked at as satisfying either:

Primary Demand: fits the general problem/solution model, for example, “should I use organic pest control or chemical pest control and what are the pros and cons?”.

Or

Selective Demand: a model where the searcher already has a solution in mind and is looking for the best way to make it happen for example, “I want a good chemical pesticide”.

Search Intent Types

What does the searcher really want when he enters keywords into a search engine and presses enter? The following segmentation of searcher intent can be quite useful

1. navigational
2. informational
3. transactional.

Navigational
Quite often a searcher is looking for a web site that they already know or have heard about. But, instead of typing the URL directly into the browser window they type to website name into a search engine to find the website they’re looking for. For example, the searcher may be looking for www.Amazon.com and find it like typing the key word Amazon into the search engine. Their results page will= probably show them an interesting mixture of the famous e-commerce web site and the famous female warriors called the amazons.

It’s important to cover your bases by preparing a portion of your search engine marketing program to deal with navigation searches. To make sure you capture this kind of searcher you should:
a) get your site indexed with the major search engines
b) include good descriptions on your home page – this can be as simple as including your company name or company URL in the title of your page. You should also include your company name or URL in the body copy found on your home page (make sure to write this sentence containing your company name with strong click appeal)

Informational

A searcher who is looking for answers for solutions to their problem is very often in the mode of wanting to learn more about a subject. This person is not yet ready to commit to buying a particular product, or service. As mentioned earlier this is the sort of person who is asking the question with a primary demand, for example, "should I use organic pest control or chemical pest control and what are the pros and cons?”.

To attract the informational searcher you should provide clear “learn about” information written with an eye toward demonstrating a solution to the problem that can be provided by your product or service.  But, you should take care to ensure you provide plenty of information so the searcher feels like a have enough information to make an informed decision. You can manage them in your direction but be careful not to push too hard.

Transactional

The transactional searcher has already explored the problem solution questions, has decided on the solution and is now looking for a site that will provide them with a product options they need. The transactional searcher is ready to act, byproduct, download a file, or access a particular database.

Preparing your website pages for this kind of searcher can be very tricky because it usually involves accessing information directly from the database. To optimize for transactional searchers who are looking for particular products for example KillemDead Pesticide you will need to pay particular attention to the written description copy you have for this product. You will want to incorporate your target keywords into the description, into the title of the page and into the URL if possible.

Getting To The Click

If you have managed to get a decent page rank so that your page is listed in the search engine results then you must consider why the searcher chooses to click on one link instead of another?

Top page rank in a search engine doesn’t guarantee clicks.  If the searcher does not see the information they are looking for clearly, concisely, and stated in a compelling manner they very often go back a step to refine or revise their search keywords. Studies have shown that when people see the page of search results they focus on the following elements:

• Title receives 30% of their attention
• The accompanying snippet receives 43% of their attention
• The URL receives 21% of their attention
• Also, searchers favor organic links over paid links 60% of the time

When writing for effective clickable links you should think of the title, the snippet, and the URL as a single unit with the single purpose very much like you would write for a banner ad for a paid search ad.

You only have about five seconds for your link to get its point across before the searcher moves on. So, It is important to focus on what you say in your title, in your snippet, and even in your URL. A few key points to consider are:

• Searchers are more likely to click when this snippet and title contain an exact match of the keywords the used in their search
• Including such time honored tactics as promise of low price, or offering a discount will enhance quick through.

Learn more about writing snippets.

Searcher Follow-Through Once They Hit Your Page

What is your purpose in getting the searcher to visit your site? To get the searcher to purchase a product or service, to persuade or change their opinion, to entertain?

In most cases that could involves getting this new visitor to your site to click further and to explore your web site more deeply. To encourage that exploration here are some key elements you can build into the pages your visitors find when they click on those search engine links.

• Searchers are more likely to stay on the page and click deeper if they find the exact query words they used for their search prominently displayed on the landing page either in the heading or some other highly visible location.
• Including a picture of your product or of your service in action improves visitor follow through
• Offering a wide selection of products, additional information, or other event options will improve follow-through especially for visitors who are at the information seeking stage
• Be sure to include pricing features and value proposition on your landing page especially for pages geared towards transactional searchers such as product pages. Don’t waste people’s time by burying the details if you make it too hard to figure out what’s going on people will go elsewhere.
• The speed of your pages when loading is not as much of an issue as it once was now that most people are online with some form of high speed connection.  However, your page can still appear to be slow or sluggish to visitors if database queries take too long. Data load continues to be a concern but for different reasons than it was in the past.

Creating A Behavior Model That Works For You 

Very often you are interacting with different searchers who are at different stages in the sequence of events take place from the initial primary demand mentioned above to secondary demand.  You’re likely providing some searchers with information they can use to inform their decision (hopefully in your direction), and at the same time providing other searchers with specific solutions, products, and services.

A behavior model that moves from the start to the finish would look like this:

1. Learning – the searcher with the general problem, question, trying to figure out what is the right solution
2. Shopping – the searcher who has already done a bit of research and the sided on the preferred solution to the problem and is now looking for a specific product
3. Purchasing – the searcher who has already decided the products they want and is now shopping around comparing prices and other options from a variety of vendors
4. Using – the searcher who was already purchased a particular product and is looking for additional back and customer service, information, manuals, downloads, etc.

Each stage of this behavioral model will find searchers using search engines in different ways with different expectations.  You should consider developing search engine marketing strategies to capture searchers at every step.