Types of Search Query for SEO

SEO is about optimising your website so that you get listed higher for certain terms. It is important to understand the particular keywords and phrases you want to rank higher for and to have a good reason why you want to rank for these terms.

There are three different types of terms that users can search for and each of these has different reasons for being desirable to rank well.

• Navigational queries. This is the kind of search you do when you know the site you are looking for, but are not certain of the URL. For example, if you were to go to Google and search for ‘Amazon’.
• Informational queries. About 80% of searches fall into this category and it covers a very broad range. Searches that would categorise as informational would be queries like ‘Local weather forecast’ or ‘how to rank higher on Google’.
• Transactional queries. These are searches with the intention of a specific transaction being completed afterwards like ‘Oxfordshire web design company’ or ‘house music mp3 download’. The transaction doesn’t necessarily have to result in a money transfer as transaction refers to an action being completed rather than a financial transaction.

Each of these search queries have different opportunities associated with them. Transactional queries have a lot higher average value associated with them as people are normally actively looking to achieve an action.

When doing your keyword research it is important to identify which of the above types the term is. There are good reasons why you would want to optimise for each of these types and we will cover these in more depth in future articles.