Understanding Search Term Identification: The Key to Driving Relevant Traffic

Identifying the right search terms is a fundamental step in attracting the right audience to your website.

However, the process is not as simple as picking a popular keyword and aiming for the top spot on Google.

Success in search engine rankings requires a strategic approach that considers search intent, competition, and the overall context of the search term.

In this article, we'll explore our method for search term identification, using various tools and strategies to help your website draw in the most relevant visitors.

We leverage a variety of tools to help us identify the best search terms for your business. These tools include:

• Google Ads Keyword Planner: Provides valuable data on keyword search volumes and competition, allowing us to pinpoint the most relevant terms.
• Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and Ubersuggest: These powerful SEO tools give us insights into keyword difficulty, search volume, and competitive analysis.
• Spyfu: This allows us to see what your competitors are using in more detail than the above.
• AnswerThePublic: Generates content ideas based on real user queries, helping us understand what your potential customers are searching for.
• Google Search Console: A must-have tool for analysing the performance of your website’s content and identifying which search terms are driving traffic.
• Google Trends: Offers insights into trending topics and search terms, helping us stay ahead of the curve.
• Our Keyword Suggestion Tool: This taps into Google and YouTube suggestions API to generate relevant keyword ideas tailored to your business needs.

Understanding search intent is crucial when selecting search terms. Search intent falls into three main categories:

1. Informational Intent: The user is looking for information. They may not be ready to make a purchase but are in the research phase.
2. Navigational Intent: The user is trying to find a specific website or page, often typing in brand names or exact URLs.
3. Transactional Intent: The user is ready to make a purchase or take a specific action, making this the most valuable type of search intent for lead generation.

Our goal is to identify search terms that match the intent of your target audience.

If your objective is lead generation, we focus on transactional intent, which means targeting users who are ready to buy your product or service.

While it might be tempting to go after the most popular search terms, these are often highly competitive and difficult to rank for, especially for a new website.

Instead, we focus on identifying "low-hanging fruit"—search terms that have a lower search volume but also lower competition.

These terms are easier to rank for and can start bringing in traffic more quickly.

As we begin to see your web pages appearing for these easier terms, we can gradually target more challenging search terms, particularly those related to your main topics or pillar pages.

One of the key features of our performance monitoring system is its ability to track which search terms your website pages are appearing for in search engine listings.

Even if your page appears on the eighth page of search results and no one clicks on it, we can still see the search term.

This information is incredibly valuable because it gives us insight into the types of searches leading users to your site, even if they’re not yet resulting in clicks.

By understanding this data, we can refine your content strategy, targeting search terms that will drive more qualified traffic to your site.

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