Search Terms – What does it represent and how does it impact you?

The number of unique search terms represents how many different keywords users typed into Google that made your website appear in any of Google’s search results. Each unique search term reflects a different way people are discovering your website in search. In this pool of search terms, you may notice certain patterns (style, number of words in the phrase, intent, etc). Over the years, marketers have grouped keywords into categories and subcategories. These patterns offer valuable insights into how users search online. Below are the key categories and sub-categories

Based on the number of words used in the search term

  • Short-tail keywords: broad terms like “pizza near me” or “pizza in Chicago.” There are very few search terms in this category, and they are highly competitive, making them the toughest type of search terms to rank for. These types of search terms typically take several months, if not years, to see any improvement in ranking.
  • Mid-tail keywords: Slightly longer phrases such as “best pizza place near me.” These search terms have moderate to high competition and offer a wider variety of search terms to target.
  • Long-tail keywords: Very specific searches like “gluten-free pepperoni pizza delivery,” which indicates the user is ready to take some action. Because these search terms are extremely specific, they have very low search volume; however, there are billions of these search terms and make a vast majority of your overall unique search term count. These are the search terms that have the least competition and are relatively easy (compared to short-tail keywords) to target and rank for on page one of Google, which is why the team at Ekwa routinely includes such search terms as its targeted keyword.

Based on user intents (what the search term indicates the user actually wants to do)

  • Commercial investigation: Search terms that indicate the user is interested but hasn’t made up their mind on a business or service provider they want to go with. (Top pizza restaurants in Chicago)
  • Informational intent: Search terms that indicate a user wants to learn something or obtain an answer to a question. (How is Neapolitan pizza made?)
  • Navigational intent: Search terms that indicate a user already knows where they want to go and is using search to get there. These search terms also represent users who want to learn more about what others are saying about a business/practice. (Joe’s Pizza contact number or Joe’s Pizza – expecting to see online reputation sites)
  • Transactional intent: Search terms that indicate the user is ready to take immediate action, such as booking a service/making an appointment, signing up, or placing an order. (Order authentic pizza now)

A detailed breakdown of the search terms is explained in your Monthly Keyword Insight Report. If you haven’t received your Monthly Keyword Insight report, please reach out to us, and we’ll be happy to share the most recent report with you.

So how do the search terms impact my practice? On the surface, as the number of search terms increases, it typically indicates that the website is becoming more visible and reaching a wider audience through organic search. This happens because Google is associating your website with more topics, more user intents, and a broader range of relevance, which is an encouraging sign of long-term SEO growth. It’s one of the fundamental building blocks of strong search visibility. Think of it like learning to walk before you can run. In this analogy, “learning to walk” is simply appearing in Google searches. Once that foundation is in place, our teams can then “run” by improving rankings through ongoing onsite and offsite optimization. The fact that your website is associated with hundreds of search terms is a positive sign. The teams at Ekwa analyze these search terms and then plan future content, videos, web stories, and other similar publishable content with the goal to make your website visible for a wider range of relevant search terms on page one of the Google search results page while creating other content that attracts potential leads from other channels (video search, voice search, image search, and answer engines).

Wait, I thought ranking in organic search and ranking are less important today (in the age of AI search and Google AI overviews), so why focus on search terms and ranking?

Yes, organic rankings are less important today than they were a few years back, but they’re not something that can be ignored.  The goal in this new era of online marketing is to be visible and discoverable in both search results and answer engine responses, rather than being hyper-focused on specific search terms and their ranking in Google.

What are other reasons we focus on organic rankings?

  • There are still users who would scroll past the Google AI Overview and prefer the traditional search experience, but they are few and far between.
  • AIOs are not appearing 100% of the time as yet, so there are some searches that still generate the traditional search result page we all love to see
  • Organic ranking remains a reliable indicator of whether we are adhering to the core principles of SEO. Some of these core principles are shared between AEO and GEO, which impact discoverability and visibility in answer engines.

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