Informational Web Search Queries
Informational searches are utilised to educate the searcher, they're looking for answers or more details on a subject. For example a search on "Internet Marketing" will yield many results with a very broad approach to the keyword. These searches can be purely academic, where the searcher is looking for knowledge on a particular topic which will lead to no monetary exchange or they can be commercially based, where a prospective client would be looking for details on a particular product, who offers the product and what the options are.
These can be highly competitive and over and above this you often have to compete with academic sites – Wikipedia is a prime example. Start by paying attention to your long tail keywords, once you've captured these terms start moving your campaigns up the competitive ladder and target the broader, more popular, shorter tail terms.
Transactional Web Search Queries
Transactional web search queries are goal orientated searches where the searcher has the intent to perform an action. Say for instance the searcher is looking to employ an SEO company, he has done his research via a number of informational searches, but now he's after the service, they might search something like "Sign up for an internet marketing package".
These are important, yet often overlooked terms – this makes them a little less competitive and with a bit of careful on-site SEO you may capture these with ease. The search density is obviously not nearly as high as with informational searches, yet the visitors from transactional searches are further down the buying cycle and will yield great conversion ratios and return on investment.
With some careful planning a well-constructed page can easily target all three of these search types. Your brand or business name should appear in your domain name, plus score a number of mentions within the page content. Ensure your informational terms fall into your content, your title and your url. Utilise your content and page title to secure the transactional terms. If you're on-site SEO fails to deliver you might have to supplement various areas with a good off-site campaign as well.
