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Keywords are the most important part of SEO. Since SEO optimization is done so that our site ranks in SERP and gets shown to the targeted users.
To target these users, we need to understand what their search intent is, what they must be searching for and their search pattern.
Once we understand all these, we need to understand keyword types to use them strategically.
Let’ break down each type of keyword.
The four main different types of keywords are:
Below we have discussed each in detail.
Words or phrases used when a user is looking for some information on the web are the searches considered informational keywords.
Informative keywords are usually ‘WH’ type questions. Meaning they start with what, who, where, when and how.
Pages ranking for informational keywords are less likely to convert the user as they are looking for knowledge, answer or information and not for some service or product to buy.
But these pages can attract huge amount of traffic if are properly optimized and contains helpful content.
Example of informational keywords:
Informational keywords have higher chances to be displayed as featured snippet if direct information is provided.
Eg. of informational intent keyword and featured snippet.
Search terms containing brand names, direct website or product names are navigational keywords.
Here the user intent is to navigate directly to a specific site or page rather than conducting broad research.
Navigational keywords are targeted when the brand, website or product is popular and targeting them helps user find your page easily if they already know the name.
Example of navigational keywords:
Note: Pages naturally rank higher for navigational keywords as they contain your brand name.
A user comparing two or more options or is on a buying journey looking for the best option is considered commercial intent.
Searches like “affordable fitness trackers” shows a user is searching with an intent to buy but haven’t decided from where to buy.
Pages ranking for commercial keywords are likely to convert the user as they are looking for best option, a good offer, or a valuable product or service.
Targeting commercial intent keywords are beneficial for websites selling a product or service. At the same time, it is highly competitive to rank for commercial keywords as they are directly linked with conversions and number of websites targeting for same.
High authority brands or established service provider often dominate these keywords making it harder to rank.
Tip: If your business is local go for local yet commercial keywords or use long-tail keywords to target specific type of customers.
Example of commercial keywords:
Here you might think the user searching for “best skincare brand” is just looking for best brand but there are high chances the reason they are looking for the best brand is because they are planning to buy something and is looking for a best option.
Suppose a user searches “best proverb about health” this isn’t commercial keyword but informational keyword which is quite simple to understand.
Here you have to be able to differentiate between types of intent with a little experience and common sense.
Below is an example of commercial intent results:
Here list of products is shown with more details to grab user attention and provide more details of the product to the user.
Terms used that indicates buying intention of the user are called transactional keywords. Transaction happens when a user is in their final step of downloading an app, buying a product or service, or completing any other desired conversion.
Here the main words generally are “buy”, “discount”, “purchase”, “download”, “order” or more indicating the user has decided of getting the service or product.
Targeting these keywords often lead to higher conversions as they are directly related to conversions.
Examples of transactional keywords are:
Since these keywords are high-intent and generates revenue “paid ads” dominate these types of keywords.
Here is an example:
If your page ranks organically for these types of keywords you will surely get good amount of traffic and conversion also based on the quality of the product.
Short tail keywords are also considered seed keyword. They are the search term consisting of 1 or 2 words such as “bottle”. They are the main search terms with an unclear search intent.
These keywords have higher search volumes as they are highly searched by users without a clear search intent such as if they are looking for information, buying, just surfing or anything else.
It is highly competitive to rank a website for short tail keyword as it attracts broad audience with different or unclear intents.
Examples of short-tail keywords are:
A user searching for “headphone” doesn’t explain their intent whether they want to buy a headphone, is looking for what a headphone is, wants headphone images or it can be anything.
Searches containing more than three or four words or phrases with complete query are considered long-tail keywords.
Targeting long-tail keywords are highly beneficial as they attract specific audience or customers whose search intention is very clear.
These pages can attract good amount of targeted traffic if properly optimized and contains helpful content.
Example of long-tail keywords:
“affordable leather jackets for men under 2000”
“how to make homemade pizza dough step by step”
or other intent based keywords.
LSI or Latent Semantic Index are those keywords that have similar meaning or related to the main keyword. It is good to target these type of keywords to save yourself from keyword stuffing.
For example: if the main keyword is “coffee” LSI keyword would be “brewing”, "espresso", "caffeine", "coffee beans", "French press", "cold brew", "latte”, some famous coffee shop or more coffee related terms.
People consider LSI keyword as a ranking factor for google search result, still do. But in 2019, Google’s representative John Mueller tweeted that LSI is nothing.
Keywords based on which you find other keywords to use in your content are considered seed keywords.
For a watch shop a seed keyword might be “wristwatch shop” or “watch shop” based on their selling product and target audience.
Now based on this seed keyword, other keywords will be found. If it is a single service one seed keyword will do the work in finding other keywords.
If there are multiple different product each will have different seed keywords same for blogs.
Short-tail keywords are also considered seed keywords as we have discussed in length-based keywords.
Keywords targeting near by users or customers are called local keywords. Such as “new café near me” or “free dental checkup Mumbai” are local targeting phrases.
Generally, we do not target the word “near me” in local keywords but optimize the GMB (Google My Business) profile now known as GBP (Google Business Profile) with proper locations to get it rank for that location in map results when user search for “near me”.
Read more about Google Business Profile and how businesses can get its benefits.
Search results for local keyword is shown as:
Search results for local keyword with location name is shown as:
Keywords containing a specific brand name. Targeting others brand keywords is of no use for your business unless you sell that brands item. Since that branded keyword will prioritise that original website first.
Examples: "Nike shoes," “Apple MacBook.”
Keywords relevant to a specific time of the year. It is highly beneficial to target these types of keywords at right time to attract customers.
Best example is of “black Friday sales” where almost every business comes up with discounts targeting black Friday to attract customers.
Other examples are "Christmas gift ideas," or “Summer travel destinations.”
Excluded keywords from a PPC campaign to refine targeting are considered negative keywords.
For main keyword "buy shoes" in PPC negative keyword could be “free.”
We have discussed main categories of keywords used in SEO in complete detail. It is important to strategically place these keywords in the content to properly optimize our pages as per the requirements and reach our targeted audience.
Also, we can further keep segregating keywords based on multiple factors such as branded, non-branded, product type, service type, review, market and more.
But above listed are main types of keywords in SEO everyone should know!
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