How Keywords Work: Markets
Market words are how we convert website visitors.
SEO is changing and delivering fewer clicks. Paying for every click is a real possibility in future, and so maximising the potential of every click is how to make up for it.
Building out content around visitors is the only way, it is also the best way.
Three types of words will help us. Of the three types of words within keyword phrases, market words are the most important.
- They tell us what visitors are most interested in, they set the agenda.
- It clarifies what content to produce.
- Without a market word the phrase is worth nothing at all.
Lack of Targeted Content
Our websites are not built around market words, which explains why conversion rates are so low and bounce rates so high.
By some quirk, market words have not been defined in general use. This leaves all our websites shallower and lacking in content that is organised to help meet people where they are.
Our content needs higher definition.
The structure of market words, their organisation, takes visitors from low levels of interest through to conversion. It adds a depth not catered for in traditional navigation.
It is the skeleton for a website.
There are three levels of market word interest:
- Subject, Topic and Types.
Subject, Topic and Type Examples:
- Mathematics → Algebra → Quadratic equations –
- Orthodontics → Teeth straightening → Clear braces
The levels of market interest are a mini journey towards doing something. Each level has a different objective, different decisions, and different content required. Different levels of market intent.
Visitors need to see the depth of your expertise and leadership in your field, but based on their interests. Websites are built inside out.
Lack of Completeness
Retail and e-commerce are used to managing hierarchy and categories, and the value of completeness, but the rest of us are not.
On most sites,
- many market words lack any content at all.
- Many have incomplete levels of interest.
- Most sites are not organised around markets.
Every single market-based keyword is a pathway to every other word in that market.
The least defined clicks have the most potential paths. And the paths are not there, just inserting links is not enough.
Grouping complete content around the visitor’s primary interest, in hubs, makes obvious sense, but doesn’t happen. The value of words is not recognised.
Individual keywords for individual pages is a terrible way to plan content; it is ‘covering the market interest’ that converts. Blogs are the biggest giveaway that we need to change.
Structured Navigation Makes the Most Difference
More than copy or design, if people can’t pursue their interests, it doesn’t matter what you say.
People are so impatient.
One of the reasons that people find it hard to build out their websites is a lack of structure, that feeling of talking about themselves into the void.
Paying attention to market words, mapping them out in advance, gives you structure. It gives you visibility. You can sprint the content.
Once the market word structure is right, the other two types of word come into play, the audience and the buyers journey.
The Art and Science of Being Bothered
If you are thinking this requires way more content than you might hope, correctly aligned for the right stage of the journey, you’d be right.
All successful projects have had more content than others.
That is how people have always won, the art and science of being bothered and writing more. Only before, it was easier.
Thankfully, AI is arriving at just the right time. Structure is hard, the individual pages are easy, once you know what the point is.
