The Buying Cycle

Who are you targetting?

Are your keywords bringing you any revenue? If not then you may be targetting the wrong searchers in the buying cycle.

So what is the buying cycle? Basically there are three types of searchers. There is a fourth aspect of the buying cycle but lets focus on the three types of searchers.

Searcher #1 - The researcher - The researcher is very early in the buying cycle. He may not even make a purchase or have the means to do so. He is looking for information on how his problem can be solved and would use very broad keywords.

For example if he might have heard about people making money on the internet using Google.

His searches may be "make money on the internet", "make money with Google", "google make money". With these searches, you may be getting clicks on your ads without him making a purchase because he is just looking for information.

You can take advantage of the researcher if you set up an opt in and offer a free 7 day course, a free sample, a free guide or newsletter or something of use to the researcher.

Searcher #2 - The Informed - Searcher #2 used to be a researcher and has found what he is looking for - the information he came online to get in the first place. The interest is now building up and he is now an informed searcher. He is getting closer to the end of the buying cycle but may not even buy (might be a cheapo).

His searches using the above example, would be keywords like "adwords guides", "best adwords ebook", "google adwords coupon" and so on.

Again it might be possible to get him to your website and turn him into searcher #3 but why not spend your money on searcher #3 instead.

Searcher #3 - The Buyer - The buyer's interest has been peaked and he has his credit card in hand or has logged into his paypal account already. He is looking for reasons to buy (or not to buy) something that could solve his problem. He definitely is going to spend money.

His searches using the above example are now very targetted. He has seen some adwords guides and has heard suggestions on 'best adwords ebooks' and has singled out one. He searches for "Beating Adwords review", "buy beating adwords", "beating adwords + bonus". If you advertised on "buyer type" keywords your conversions are going to be much higher.

Buyer type keywords contain words like 'review', 'buy', 'purchase', 'bonus', 'coupon' etc and the brand name.