We now know that the majority of search queries consist of more than words. These are usually made up of the principal theme of the search, often a product or type of content and one or more ‘keyphrase qualifiers’.
We recommend you select keyphrases and assess performance based on the generic search phrase and 8 common search term qualifiers:
In the example below, the theme or generic search phrase is bike insurance:
1. Adjective (price/product qualifiers)
‘Cheap bike insurance’ – quality is often poor for these phrases, so the decision may be taken not to target them depending on the brand.
2. Comparison/quality
‘compare bike insurance’ – this phrase may be more difficult to convert on.
3. Intended use (application)
‘high mileage bike insurance.’
4. Product type
‘multi-bike insurance’ – typically low volume.
5. Product specification or feature
‘no claims bonus bike insurance’.
6. Brand
‘ACKO bike insurance’ – The combination of brand plus product is a very common search and it is important to be able to use this knowledge to target prospects searching on your brand name and also competitor brand names.
7. Location
‘Bike insurance india’ – this usage is surprisingly common so you should be sure to bid on phrases including a country or part of a country.
8. Action request
‘buy bike insurance’ – these show high intent and are often more competitive.
Are you talking the same language as your target market?
Once you put these qualifiers and all their variants together for many different products you are likely to generate a lot of keyphrases. It can be argued that qualifiers aren’t important since we can just upload a whole raft of phrases to a PPC programme and see which perform best.
But analysis of the relative importance of qualifiers is useful to assess whether your proposition and messaging on the page is consistent with the way your potential customers’ users are thinking.
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