Does your PPC campaign include navigational search queries?

Posted on February 21st, 2007 in Search Marketing.

What is a navigational search query? For example someone typing a web address into the google search box rather than the address bar, it is called a navigational search query. The reason being that the person typing the search query has the intention of going to that particular site. For example a search for myspace, craigslist, mapquest is a navigational search query.

Why is this important? Hitwise released a report of the top search terms for 2006 and guess what navigational search queries are at the top of the pile. As much as we would like to believe that people will type website names only in an address bar, the contrary does happen and makes a significant contribution.

So how can you use this information in your search engine marketing or pay per click campaigns. Find the navigational search terms in your niche and start bidding on them. From the data that I have seen on ppc campaigns, navigational searches not only bring additional traffic, but some of them convert well too.

Typically affiliate marketers do bid on the name of the merchant site that they are promoting unless restricted by the merchant. There are other scenarios too where you will find opportunities to bid on navigational search queries. You can look at competitive intelligence data provided by sites like spyfu and gain insight into these search queries. And dont stop right there, go ahead and implement them in your campaigns and see for yourself.

Feel free to share your thoughts/experiences using navigational search queries. Talk Soon!!!