If you have any preliminary SEO knowledge, you may already be aware of short-tail and long-tail keywords. The former, in this case, is generic keywords with one or two words, while the latter is much more specific.
While these are essential for SEO, there are four other important types of keywords you should know about that help classify intent. Each of them serves different purposes for SEO, allowing you to market your brand more effectively than otherwise. Here’s what you should know.
1. Informational Keywords
Informational keywords are for users searching for answers to a specific question. A few examples of this type of keyword are as follows:
- What does fuel economy mean
- How to clean wine stains on the carpet
Thus, you can incorporate these keywords in your content if you want to educate your readers and become an authority on a specific niche—for example, car detailing.
2. Navigational Keywords
Internet users may search for these keywords because they want to find a specific website or page within that website. Thus, these types of keywords typically include brand names. Here are a couple of an example:
- YouTube Music
- Google support
You should only use such keywords when your brand is established, and you expect users to search for your company.
3. Commercial Keywords
Users typically search for these types of keywords because they want to learn more about the products or services of a company. What this could mean is that the user is ready to make a purchase, but they simply want to educate themselves first.
Therefore, you can incorporate such keywords into your content by offering information on certain products. Product reviews are a great way to address users’ intent to buy and push them toward the next stage, i.e., making a purchase. In addition to that, comparison pieces of two similar products are also a good way to increase traffic to your website.
Here are some examples of commercial keywords:
- Dualsense controller vs. Xbox controller
- Sale on gaming products
4. Transactional Keywords
People search for transactional keywords when they are ready to complete an action (conversion), which in most cases is purchasing a product or service. Websites and online services often use these keywords in paid ads so that they have a better chance of reaching users who want to buy certain products or services.
These keywords are also used on pages on websites where users can take immediate action, such as requesting a free quote to a service, buying a subscription to an online service, or purchasing a product on a product page.
Some examples of transactional keywords are as follows:
- Buy squat-proof leggings
- Used cars for sale
Last Few Words
If you want to take full advantage of SEO and digital marketing, it’s crucial that you learn and use these four different types of keywords effectively. You can significantly help improve organic traffic, and it can also aid in paid advertising.