The Four Types of Keywords (and Why They Matter)

These keywords carry less intent to take real action compared to transactional or commercial keywords.

However, they can be valuable in building brand awareness by targeting them with informational content and educating your audience.

By targeting these terms, your website could become an authority in your niche and trusted by those searching for help or common questions.

When someone types in a company or brand name into a search engine, they perform a navigational search.

People behind these searches already know the company or product and want to find the correct website or physical location to get to their products.

Such keywords can be helpful sources of organic traffic when the brand or the site are well-known and popular.

Commercial keywords reveal a searcher’s interest in specific products/services.

These searches can occur when a person wants to know more about a particular product/service — they may want to support their idea of purchasing, compare the product to similar products or look for free offers/tests/discounts.

You can target these keywords with comparison articles, listicles, reviews, or how-to articles depending on the specific keyword.

These keywords can be valuable opportunities to reach an audience that could be converted into future customers.

The keywords with the strongest intent to buy or take imminent action are transactional keywords. 

These keywords can be targeted with paid ads and highly optimized purchase pages or pages where users can take immediate action on a site. 

These searches can happen after someone has already searched for information, made a decision, and is determined to now take a specific action or make a purchase. 

Such keywords often feature words like “buy,” “subscribe,” “for sale.” Therefore, the SERP of a transactional keyword often has Google Shopping ads.

Transactional keywords can also be referred to as buyer keywords because they are most likely to be used by a person at the bottom of the buying funnel. Therefore, these keywords are highly valuable when making keyword research and planning an SEO or PPC strategy.

As a rule, these keywords could be more specific as well, describing a product or service more precisely.