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Keywords and the Order Cycle

By: Terry Cox, Wed Apr 5th, 2006 01:44:38 AM

If you sell goods or services online, have you stopped to think of where the potential customer is in the purchasing funnel, based on the keyword?

A lot of people don't think about this. Granted, it's really getting into things deeper then many marketers want to go. If you are spending a lot of money on Pay per Click and SEO however, it's something to consider.

Let's take a fictional company, ACME Corporation, that sells 36" High Definition Televisions, and use them as an example. Let's say that the average consideration time a potential customer spends contemplating whether to buy this model of product is roughly 1 year. The simplistic order process funnel might look something like this:

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---------------------------------------- Inspiration / ------------------------------------- Research / ---------------------------------- Compare & Decide / ------------------------------ Buy / ---------------------------- / Post-Purchase Feedback ------------------------------

When a potential customer is just starting to get into the process, they can be starting at any stage of that funnel. Effectively landing a customer on the page that best helps him or her make his way through the funnel can increase conversion rates and up your ROI.

Let's take someone that is in the Inspiration step. The keyword "Home Theater" or "Television Upgrade" or even just plain "television" are samples of keywords that might draw people who are in need of inspiration, or just starting to think about ways they can upgrade their television. Landing these folks on a page that talks about the importance of a good television in a home theater setup might benefit your campaigns in the long run.

If this person has moved into the research phase, then they now know that they want a television. Keywords like "HDTV" or "ACME Televisions" come to play here. Rather then sending this person right to the product detail page, why not land them on a page that talks about the different types of televisions, and why your model is something to consider.

The compare and decide phase is where the consumer has selected what type of product they want, but now they are either looking for the best deal, or the best value. Some keywords here might be "36'' Television Prices" or "36'' Television". This is where you need to make sure you show why your product is better then the others. Possibly landing them on a "Compare to...." page might be beneficial here.

Then there is the all important "Buy" stage. The customer knows the product and where he or she wants to buy it. Now you can certainly land them on the product details page. These keywords should be your best conversion words for sure. A lot of people concentrate solely on this group for PPC, and perform search engine optimization to make up for the others. Keywords in this stage may be the exact model number of the television, or "buy acme 36'' television".

This order cycle doesn't apply to all products, and is a creative example of how to get deeper into your pay per click efforts.

About the author: Terry Cox is an Orlando, FL based web developer and search engine marketing expert.