3 Major Types of Search Queries & Tips to Target Them

Planning to rank higher? Then one aspect that you should focus on would be search queries and its types.

Before we look into the major types of queries let us see what is a query.

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What are Search Queries?

Search queries are nothing but the phrases or the words that are types by the search users in a search engine’s search box.

This ultimately helps to pull out a list of all suitable results.

Commonly, there are three different types of search queries.

These include:

• Transactional
• Navigational
• Informational

In the world of search marketing, we often tend to discuss more about the impact of good keywords rather than the importance of the search queries.

Today, we will be discussing exclusively about the queries.

Now, let us examine in detail, what exactly are these three different types of search queries.

We will also look into some of the important tips to precisely target these search queries using your website content.

1. Transactional Search Queries

Transactional queries are a type of the Google search queries, which specify some sort of intent to finish a particular transaction – like making a purchase.

These types of search queries often include the exact product or the brand names, such as “fresh and ground” coffee maker or “iPhone 8Plus”.

The search query might also include words like “order”, “buy” or “purchase”.

In all the examples we discussed so far, you can easily figure out that the search user is planning to make or complete a purchase very soon, unless they have already kept their credit card ready.

Simply put, the users here are the ones who have already reached the business end of your conversion funnel.

Searches such as California beer shop also fall into this category.

Vertical shares can also be regarded as a subset of transactional queries and represent a section of the people who will make transactions in a particular industry.

These might involve hotel searches, flight searches, restaurant searches, local searches etc.

Targeting Transactional Search Queries

We recommend you to go ahead with two different types of approaches for this.

Try targeting these search queries organic content such as optimized product pages coupled with a few SEO strategies.

However, you should leverage PPC for targeting the search phrases.

This is because:

• These are the kind of search queries that generally deliver ROI when it comes to paid search.
• When people are specifically looking out for a particular product to purchase, a sponsored search behaves just like organic results and present the users with what they are looking for.
• Sponsored results end up consuming most of the space on search result pages for these search queries. So, if you are looking for better visibility for the transactional keywords, then you can try considering PPC.
• Google places a huge weightage on the product listings and sponsored ads. For instance, you can also include the picture of that product. However, the options are less controllable and highly limited in organic results.
• Search users with higher commercial intent prefer and click on the paid results when compared to organic results.
• This mainly because the sponsored results are known to consume most of the space as the current ad formats are easily clickable. Also, most of the search users cannot even differentiate between non-ads and the ads.

2. Navigational Search Queries

These search queries are always keyed in with the intent to identify a specific web page or a website.

For instance, a search user might type “facebook” into the search bar of the Google to Find FaceBook rather than typing a URL in the navigation bar of their browser and also refrain from using a Bookmark.

Targeting Navigational Search Queries

Unfortunately, you will not be able to get a good chance to target navigational queries unless you own the website that a search user is looking for.

This is because, navigational queries will often have a very clear intent.

The search users here will have a particular website in mind, so if that is not your website then you will not be relevant to their requirements.

Google has classified this as – go query – and has put in efforts to reduce the number of search results per page to mere seven.

This accounts to overall 5.5% reduction in the organic listings on the first page.

Important Tip

Try to own the navigational query for your brand.

This will ensure that your website will appear as the top sponsored results as well as at the top most organic spot in the search for the name of your company or your brand.

Also, it is a great idea to buy keywords even when you organically rank for it because this is known to increase your total profits.

3. Information Search Queries

This type of search queries are the ones that include a wide variety of topics for which there will be thousands of results that are relevant.

When search users key in their informational search queries in the search box of the search engines, they look for information.

They might not be actually looking for a particular answer or a specific website because they do not want to make any transaction or anything specific.

They might just be seeking answer to a question or would just want to learn something.

Targeting Informational Search Queries

These queries are difficult to monetize.

Google knows this very well and hence it pushes the knowledge graph to address such queries.

The only way to target these queries is to use good quality SEO content.

This genuinely offers great information that is relevant to user’s queries.

Wikipedia is one such website that presents good basic information with reliable info on broad spectrum of topics.

So, they rank on the first page for most of the informational search queries

Following are some of the tips to target informational search queries:

• Writing blog posts filled with tips
• Creating “how-to” videos and blogs
• Writing step-by-step detailed comprehensive guides
• Designing infographics with a lot of information

There are several ways to target these search queries.

The best approach is to get creative and positioning yourself as an authoritative and a trustworthy source of information.

But this should be done without cramming your offerings down the throat of the search users.

Besides, you can also look at it like an opportunity to increase your brand awareness.

If you still have any questions about the three major types of search queries or what each of it means to different marketers, then do not forget to comment in the comment box below.