Article Updated: Feb. 2015
Keyword expectation is precisely what you’d think, which is kind of the point. It is the expectation a person searching online has based on the meaning of the keyword or keyword phrase they type in. The closer you are to meeting the expectations of these searchers, the higher than chance that they will visit your site, stay on your website, and convert.
While this is a simple concept, many businesses are often surprised to learn that they have been mistakenly trying to mislead users or often disappointing visitors. The result is a high website bounce rates and increased conversion costs.
A Keyword Expectation Example
A Daytona Beach Hotel creates web pages for Orlando hotel and Hotel near Disney, because these are popular search terms. They believe that these pages could be used to get people to then instead, book hotel rooms in Daytona Beach, which is over an hour away from Walt Disney World.
They utilize pay per click ads to drive traffic, and have the pages indexed in the major search engines. After two weeks, they have spent hundreds of dollars on the Orlando and Disney terms and had zero conversions. They are then disappointed.
The thing they don’t understand is that people searching for these terms and clicking on their pages, are never going to convert. These people are looking for hotels within 5 - 10 minutes of Walt Disney World, not in Daytona.
The Takeaway
They would have wasted their money, disappointed their website visitors, and possibly tarnished their reputation with those visitors. Instead, they should focus on terms like Daytona Beach hotels and Florida beach vacation, as well as work on creating content that integrates the idea of staying at the beach and taking a day trip to the park. This would appeal to visitors that enjoy nature, like to avoid crowds, want to relax and know that family fun does not have to cost a fortune.
By evaluating the keywords that you target and analyzing the users’ keyword expectation, you can create pages that appeal to that audience and turn visitors into customers. As the Internet continues to get more competitive, success is based on meeting your users’ keyword expectation and then fulfilling their wants and needs.
If you are looking to convert more visitors from your website, contact Sales & Marketing Technologies today. With our free consultation, we can help discover issues with your website or Digital marketing strategy that you might have missed.