SEO Review – How People Interact with Search Engines

In this review we take a look at Chapter 2 in the Guide and how people use search engines to find what they are looking for.

Search Types

One takeaway is the types of search the guide identifies.

There are three types of queries being performed:

• The transactional query
• The Informational query
• The Navigational query

As the volume of search grows and people turn to the web in increasing numbers to look for information it is important to understand what the nature of their query is and where you can place information on the pages you create so you can maximize the results you are looking for.

For those who prefer the spoken/written word, read on. There’s a transcript of the video.

Hey, Claude Pelanne here, Affiliate Starting Line. Welcome. This is the

second video about the SEOmoz Beginners Guide to SEO, chapter two. In this
one they tell you how people interact with search engines. It’s an
interesting chapter. If you’re new, you should pay some attention here.
There’s a lot of interesting information.

If you’ve been around a while, you already know a lot of this, but let’s
take a look at it. On the right hand side here, there’s a sidebar that
explains the eight step process to searches. Someone experiences the need
for an answer or a solution to a problem, they formulate that need in step
two, in the form of a keyword.

They enter that keyword in step three into the search engine. Step four,
they browse through the results. In step five, they click on a result. In
step six, they look for a solution on the page they clicked. In step seven,
if they’re not satisfied, they go back to the search results and browse for
another link. Then, in step eight, they perform a new search with
refinements if they didn’t get all the information in the first link.

Then, they go on here to explain, on the left-hand side, that there are
three different types of queries. There’s a do query, a transactional
query. An action query is such as buying an airplane ticket or listening to
a song. In other words, there is an action that is taken, and it gets
completed with the search, like filling in a form or buying a product, etc.

The second type of search query is a know, an informational query. You’re a
little early in the sales cycle here. You’re looking for information, the
name of a band, the name of a restaurant, some basic information of a
product. You don’t know which one you want to buy yet, or a model, but
you’re looking to get informed about what to look for.

Then the third kind of search is the go, the navigational search. You know
where you want to go, search queries, like a particular online destination,
such as Facebook or the homepage of the NFL. I want to go to chocolate.com.
I just type it in here and I go. Those are the types of searches.

Then, the power of inbound marketing with SEO. This explains through a
series of searches, how Google and search in general has grown enormously
over time. Then it breaks down the statistics to show that Google is number
one, Yahoo is number two, Bing is number three. More Americans have
conducted 20 billion searches in one month in the U.S. Total searches
powered by Google properties were almost 70%, followed by Bing with 30%.

Billions of online marketing spent, $77 billion to be spent by 2016, and so
on. You can get the idea that more and more people are using search. Let me
see. A search engine by traffic, Google sends 90% of all traffic to a site,
4% for Yahoo, 3% or almost 4% for Bing, etc. You get the idea that the
momentum is building.

The more interesting thing here is this. They assigned us a study, and if
you want to see it just click on this, it’ll send you there, right here,
but that’s not what I want to do, that explains how little attention is
paid to results on the page versus those higher up. In other words, in this
heat map up here, you can see where all the attention is. It’s up on the
upper left-hand portion of the screen.

While search is very popular and it’s growing at 20% a year, higher
rankings and the few results are critical to visibility. Search results an
incredible amount of both online and offline economic activity. You really
want to be on the upper part of the page. That’s really, basically, what
the message is. That’s really the gist of chapter two.

Let’s take a look and see what they really mean. Let’s go over here. Let’s
do a search on walking shoes. All right? This is just our typical product.
I’m going to refresh here just to make sure that what I’m getting is, all
right. Let’s take a look at what we have. What we have here on walking
shoes is a page, where you’ve got navigation at the top, you’ve got the
search box, you’ve got some options on the left.

Then, on the very top, hot part of the screen, which is where all the eyes
go, paid advertising. You will also have paid advertising on the right.
Then, below here, you have more links related to the product, only of major
brands. Now, this is all going to be paid. Google announced that this was
all going to be paid.

What we have below it are the first organic search results. There’s only
one, and barely two, and this is a wide screen. In some screens, you won’t
even see that. You might be barely seeing one. Most of the information that
I’m looking at on this page is paid advertising. The subtext here is,
remember, Google is a search engine. It’s also an advertising agency. The
same holds for Yahoo, and the same holds for Bing.

While this chapter is very interesting, and the point that I would make
that you should pay attention to is really what’s brought out down here
with this heat map. Now, it’s interesting. The other thing that I want to
point out, this search here is what this called in broad. I just typed in
the keywords.

If I put in that very same keyword phrase in quotes, that is exact match,
the results are different. Gone is the hotspot ad at the top. There’s some
advertising on the right, but the hotspots now are in the organic. There
are actually more organic results down here in exact match. That’s giving
me a result in the exact order in which I typed in these words, which is
the way I do most of my searches.

It’s very interesting to pick this up. I think this is a very interesting
point about this chapter. That’s it. This is chapter two of the SEOmoz
Beginners Guide to SEO. You should read it with interest, and pick up the
basic concepts. I hope this video has been helpful. This is Claude Pelanne,
Affiliate Starting Line. Stay with it, stay well, and we’ll talk to you
soon.

Want a copy of the guide? Just click here

About Claude Pelanne

Claude Pelanne is an internet marketer and consultant who comes out of television broadcast. He works with start ups and small business to optimize their online business.