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As Google releases more and more updates, the search engine becomes capable of understanding intent behind different search queries at an advanced level. This leads to an increased need for online marketers to review their SEO strategy to ensure it aligns with Google's constant updates.

The most important thing you can do right here and right now, however, is to master search intent yourself to target the right keywords, gain more traffic, and reel in more customers.

In this post, we'll go over the fine details of search intent and provide examples to help you identify and capitalize on more opportunities in your niche.

What is Search Intent?

Every search query has an intent behind it. Whether you're looking for information out of curiosity or want to buy something, there's an intent that drives you to search a specific query.

Google understands (and is constantly getting better) at understanding the intent behind a searcher's query. This allows the search engine to supply results best suited for the user, instead of just relying on signals like keywords and links.

To provide better results for our businesses and clients, it's extremely important to understanding the exact intent behind queries and keywords we'd like to target. Without this information, you may be left wondering why your bounce rates are high and people simply aren't converting. (Hint: Google wants to serve the best results, but if you're aren't matching the intent it won't be able to help you.)

Search intent boils down to the purpose of someone's search. If I look up someone's name, I'm likely looking for information about them. But if I add another word at the end of my search, such as "age," "twitter," "book," a deeper intent is revealed.

The two most important intents to distinguish are "informational" and "transactional." In business, these make a huge difference when trying to convert search traffic into leads or purchases because knowing the difference in intent allows you to make changes to your site that help you rank for and convert more traffic from transactional-based search queries.

Informational vs. Transactional Keywords

It might seem simple to distinguish between someone looking for information and someone trying to buy something, but keywords can sometimes be deceiving. Here's an example:

Let's say I'm in the market for a used car, but I don't know exactly which car I want. I turn to Google and search "Best Used Cars." I'm not looking to buy just yet, so landing on a list of cars for sale wouldn't do me much good. What I'm looking for is information on recommended used cars from a high-authority in the automotive industry.

So if you're a car dealer trying to focus on improving your search visibility for used cars, "Best Used Cars" is not the type of keyword to target. Again, this is because the search intent is not aligned with the content you're providing.

In this situation, it'd be more advantageous for you to target keywords like "Used Cars for Sale" or "Used Cars in [City, State]." These keywords show that the intent is to find cars for sale and cars in a specific city. Those users aren't looking for information; they're looking to buy.

Stop thinking about SEO and keyword targeting in these situations and put yourself in the mind of a search user. When you look at a keyword, think about what the results you'd like to see if you were performing that search. Is your site providing the right information, or are you just trying to optimize for more traffic?

Aligning Intent with Content

Now that you know the basics of search intent and how to identify keywords that fit your site and content, how do you go about creating new content with all of that in mind?

First off, you don't write a single word until you've completely identified the intent you want to target and have a list of keyword that match it. The next step is to outline your content from start to finish to ensure you stick to that intent without deviating.

This means that if your intent is to get someone to buy from you, don't regurgitate information found on your product information pages. You can briefly mention facts, but keep in mind that if someone made it to a product page or another type of lead-gen page, they've likely done their research. Now is the time to take off your "informing" hat and put on your "converting" hat.

And it's the exact same for informational content. If you're giving advice or providing facts, don't use that as a platform to try and sell. This is the biggest problem most businesses have when it comes to SEO content. If users search for information, that's what they want to find. By mixing in transactional content, you're taking value away from the information you've already provided.

You'll find that it's less likely Google will rank this content highly and that building links will be move difficult because the information isn't genuine. Google wants to provide people with genuine information that's not motivated by profit and people want to link to information that can be trusted.

"So what's the point in creating this content?" you're probably asking.

Well, not all SEO content is meant to convert customers. Informational content should link to transactional content, but it's typically the informational content that gets traffic, links, and helps boost the ranking of your transactional content.

You need to start thinking about the buying process in two different ways: research mode and purchase mode. Your informational content is targeted at prospective customers who are still in research mode. They're not ready to buy; they just want to see what's out there and get advice.

Once they enter purchase mode, however, they'll find their way to your transactional content and will be more likely to convert because you've properly separated the content.

Learning from Results or Lack of Results

At the end of the day, each of our situations are different; don't rely on what you see here as the only way to strategize. Instead, experiment as often as possible and learn from the results or lack of results you see.

You won't find a single person in SEO tell you that they haven't learned anything knew because they've seen it all. This field is constantly changing and evolving; the only way to see continuous progress is to take notes, make changes, and keep going.

Good luck!

Easy Steps To Increase Sales With Social Media

Knowing the difference between social media and social media advertising will save you thousands and help you sell more cars.

On this week’s Think Tank Tuesday, learn what you need to know about developing an effective and comprehensive social media marketing strategy. Start optimizing your ROI and stop wasting money.

Content development is likely the most necessary step in keeping a website relevant to search engine algorithms and users. This need will only increase in years to come. Companies should focus on having adaptable content marketing strategies to ensure they are available when customers are searching for them.

While PPC search engine advertising can certainly do a decent job of getting interested customers to a website, content is what ultimately gets people there without having to pay for each visit. The more original content appears on a site that benefits people in a way that they find what they are looking for, the more the site should eventually rank for the keywords involved in that content.

Thus, determining keywords and creating useful content based around them can ultimately help both customers and company owners alike. Also, content marketing helps with social media as good, current and relevant content is easier to share and more likely to be passed along.

Companies should definitely have some form of content marketing enabled now, and should maintain a strategy that is ongoing and flexible enough to handle widespread changes in search engine optimization or social media. What are some ways you are all using content marketing to drive business?

What Is Your Game Plan? 

You spend a lot of time in meetings and discussing your strategies. On this week's Hard Facts, Samantha teaches you how to make sure everyone works together to reach your goals and ensure everyone is accountable.

While marketing messages may fluctuate, most websites stay fairly static in terms of their offerings. Different things may go on sale and different promotions may be featured on a site's home page or specials page, but rarely are those messages tuned for specific visitors. However, it can pay to create custom onsite content intended specifically for each potential customer.

Personalising onsite content amounts to having a site's images and copy change dynamically based on a user's cookies and browser history. If a user has been searching for "cheap" items, showing a special discount to them might be more helpful, while someone that's been to a site already might want to be shown the last thing they were looking at. Right now, this can be achieved with software. In marketing, personalized content can be indirectly achieved via SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and directly via SEM (Search Engine Marketing/Pay Per Click).

If a site isn't set up effectively to allow installing additional software to track and personalise the onsite content, the next best idea would be to work diligently on SEO, creating optimized pages that rank in search for specific types of needs. These same pages could double as landing pages for SEM campaigns that are geared towards certain types of searches, or other awareness campaigns that are targeted towards certain types of users on their respective platforms. Thus, users arriving on a website are likely to at least be seeing extremely relevant material, if not completely personalised.

Truly personalised onsite content can help deliver the right message to the right user at the right time to encourage a sale. What are some ways you are all creating custom experiences for your potential car buyers?

Last time, we discussed not selling cars like they are “power tools” in your advertising. You know, “the best this, the best that”— it is so cliché and it doesn’t resonate with women. Here are four recommendations to ensure that your sales approach doesn’t fall into the “power tool sales” category, but rather, speaks to women about what’s important to them:

Sell more than cars in your advertising. Women look at car ads, read dealer reviews and use social media to help make a car buying decision. Do your ads only talk about price? If so, spend more time conveying your reputation for excellent service and trustworthy business. Be the dealership that attracts women buyers because they can get a great car from a trusted, respectful sales advisor AND great service for the next five to eight years.

Show that your customers matter before, during and after the sale. Include reviews by women on your website and social media. Provide stories about happy customers. Show women that your service center is professional, fast, trustworthy and provides amenities that matter to women.

Did You Know?

Nearly 40% of women out earn their husbands. And when researching for a car, women rely on car reviews about 50% more than men.

Understand and respect women’s emotions. Be sure your sales advisors understand woman aren’t “ just shopping". Understanding body language will teach you if your customer is engaged in the process. (e.g., folded arms, stiff body and short responses probably mean the conversation is not going well). Be sure to listen – distinct from hearing.

Be ready to answer tough questions. For women, a car is much more than a way to get from point A to point B. Women will do plenty of research before visiting. Be ready to listen to a woman’s needs and have truthful, knowledgeable answers ready. If you don’t have those answers, the dealership down the road will.

Sell your dealership, too. Let women shoppers know what is exceptional about your service business Is it free car washes? Courtesy vehicles? Do you have extended service hours or exercise rooms? How about quiet spaces to conduct business? What is exceptional about your dealership? Let women know this when they are shopping for a car!

Ultimately, the most important thing to remember when selling to women is: don’t assume anything. The world of women’s car buying is changing continuously.

Don't Let Your Leisure Activities Become Your Motivation

We all love to take time to relax, eat chicken wings, and drink beer, but is that your motivation? Your goal? Your highlight? This week on Think Tank Tuesday, learn what you need to focus on to become a more successful individual, and it’s not eating chicken wings and drinking beer.

The value of a comment, tweet or other social media response typically depends on the size of a business' network. A larger network means more impact and value can be gained from posts and tweets. A highly engaged network can help combat the effects of small network size by amplifying a message. Engaging content can help magnify the impact of a social media profile.

Engagement is typically earned when a company's posts either solve a problem or entertain while simultaneously respecting their followers. When a post earns a share or retweet, it becomes de-commercialized and increases in social value. If that repost happens to come from someone who is already influential in social media, the amplification of engagement only increases.

Content that’s interesting, funny, and/or emotionally charged can help drive this engagement - considering that only 20% of posts should be used as promotion, with the other 80% existing purely to provide value or entertainment. If someone does engage with a business' content, the business should be quick to respond and engage back. That should help to encourage further spreading of the company's message in the long run.

Social media can be tough to figure out, and often ROI isn't seen until a social media network becomes large enough. However, creating content that results in high engagement from users can help shortcut this path to ROI. How are you all trying to maximize engagement?

Meet Jeff Cormier, the "6 Million Dollar Car Salesman". Jeff is a Car Salesman at Liberty Ford in Ohio and just recently lost his 6 year old son, Xander. I found out about his situation on Facebook. I was rocked by his story and donated to his GoFundMe account (The original one) but I couldn't get him out of my head. My heart just broke for this man and his family and I wanted to do something more... So, I reached out to Jeff and started to mention him, guild him, train him in Car Sales. I know for the rest of his life he is going to have to deal with the reality of life without his son. That is hard enough, money should NOT be a concern. I didn't want him to struggle or worry about money. I wanted to teach him how to be a massive success in Car Sales. I wanted to teach him how he can build his own business from scratch and really make being a Car Salesman like he is running his own business! 

So, I enlisted some of my friends in the industry that happen to be publicly traded companies, 100 million dollar companies and even billion dollar companies. These vendors were AMAZING! They provided products and services to Jeff that are going to help take his business to the next level! 

Jeff is being set up with MORE products and services than the average dealership! This is truly amazing to watch. Take a look at the full list of vendors that are going above and beyond! 

http://internetsales20group.com/going-above-and-beyond.html 

Register for the Internet Sales 20 group 8 #IS20G #New Orleans to meet the "6 Million Dollar Car Salesman" 

www.internetsales20group.com 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/internet-sales-20-group-8-new-orleans-new-years-evolution-tickets-18075649755?aff=erelexporg

Here is the link to the DealerElite post that I did earlier... 

http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/help-one-of-our-own-internet-sales-consultant-jeff-cormier

Utilize your brand advocates

Why spend money on acquiring new customers when the cost is so much higher than the retention rate? What you should be talking about in your dealership is data mining. On this week’s Hard Facts, Samantha covers how to get down and dirty when it comes mining your database.

According to the results of a study done by simplicityindex.com, most customers will actually pay more for a simplistic experience when interacting with a brand. What this means is that businesses need to begin with the customer and figure out the way that makes it simple for them to purchase.

For example, the automotive industry often presents an online experience filled with multiple buttons, flashing images, widgets, video, etc. A typical car dealership's website is often complicated to browse, with odd methods of sorting vehicles, cluttered product pages and multiple questionable and/or confusing calls to action on each page.

A dealer would do well to first address many car buyer's potential pain points: trust, price, time and convenience. If the same website were to quickly establish trust, present a fair and competitive price and convey that getting a vehicle is a simple, easy and quick experience, they would likely see the amount of interested buyers increase.

This methodology of making things simplistic for a buyer can be used in any business model. For example, many customers check to see if a company has a social media profile when voicing a complaint, in hopes that the business will respond on the platform they are most comfortable using. If an organization has profiles established to field customer comments and feedback, they are making things more simplistic by meeting the customer on his own terms.

Working backwards from a customer perspective is key to keeping things simplistic enough to provide the appropriate shopping experience. What are some ways you all are simplifying the car buying experience for customers?

With so many social media networks to advertise on, businesses may feel a little bit bewildered as to which will gain them the most awareness for their brand. While sites like Facebook and Twitter might boast more users, they are not the most visited platforms. YouTube is by far the most visited and searched "social media" site that exists today! Businesses can no longer ignore the benefits of video marketing on this well-traveled platform.

While not everyone is a member of Facebook, Tumblr or Instagram, many are visiting YouTube daily. Where a user might post a status update a few times a month on another social media platform, many check YouTube multiple times weekly. A business would do well by their video marketing and branding to ensure that they are searchable and have content available on YouTube.

Even those without a YouTube account still browse the network. It has become a go-to for research and information, and companies should adapt their video marketing to include some representation on the platform. Seeing as Google and YouTube are intertwined, it is quite possible that posted YouTube content may result in an SEO boost as well, depending on competition and optimization of the video description, title and keywords.

Overall, a business can't afford to not have a presence on YouTube for its video marketing, for the simple reason that it is the most visited and utilized social media platform today! What are some ways you're able to use YouTube to promote your dealership?

I'm Going to Tell You What S.O.S. Means for Your Business

S.O.S: for dealers, it doesn't mean what you think it does! This week on Think Tank Tuesday find out how much S.O.S is costing your business and what you can do to avoid it!