Keywords & the Search Time Continuum

When selecting keywords, too many times we just pick every related keyword in our topic and just dump them in an adgroup. You should first always try to place yourself in the searchers shoes … what would they be typing? how are they thinking? what problems do they need solved?

Searches are not done independent from everything else, there is a process going on in the searchers mind. I like to call this the search time continuum. Fancy huh? Actually, this is nothing new, and there is a lot of writing on it.

Basically, there are 3 distinct phases when someone is searching

1. Information gathering
2. Review and Compare
3. Ready for action: buy, signup, commit

For example, a young lady goes off to college and along with her new freedom begins to eat whatever she wants. It is not too long that she begins to gain weight. At first it is just a nuisance, and she checks online, dieting tips, eating healthy, and proper exercise. Here she is just gathering information.

After several months, with no improvement, its more of a problem now. She’s overweight and she knows it. She begins to notice advertisements for losing weight, fad diet foods at the grocery store, and even late night infomercials. She goes online and begins to look at reviews for different products. This is the review & compare phase.

Its the end of her first year and the freshman dance is coming up. No one asks her. She blames it on her weight. This is the tipping point. This problem needs to be solved. She remembers one TV commercial about losing 10lbs. in 1 month, zips straight there online and buys. This is the buy & commit phase.

I hope you can appreciate this little story I whipped up. This is not exactly how it works, but should give you an idea about how searchers are thinking. Do you think when she is ready to buy she will be searching for ‘dieting weight loss secrets’? Maybe but not likely.

Get into the head of your prospects and you will be much more successful. Stay tuned for my next post where we connect these keywords into writing magnetic ad copy.