Buyer intent: 5 keywords that increase online sales

Today we’re talking about buyer intent, which are basically keywords that increase online sales. E-commerce is huge and more and more people are starting online shops for their handmade goods, drop-shipping business, digital product downloads and more.

The good news is that whether you’re selling subscriptions or zero-waste soap, buyer intent keywords can hep with any online business because they’re super profitable, no matter the niche.

Buyer intent is exactly what it sounds like: the intention to buy. When potential customers are using a search engine, they enter certain keywords that suggest they’re hoping to make a purchase. That’s why it’s so important to target those types of keywords: it increases online sales because it attracts people who already want to buy.

Or looking at it another way, imagine that you’re in the eco-fashion niche and someone is trying really hard to find a place to buy a new pair of shoes. They know the model they want and you happen to sell it. Don’t you want your store to come up first in the results when they Google where to buy that model of shoes?

This is a list of words that show buyer intent, so that you can include them in your website copy and attract more sales from organic (search engine) traffic!

Where to buy

Where to buy is a very profitable buyer intent keyword. This phrase means that not only is the customer considering buying the item, they are actually selecting which person they’ll buy it from. You want your website to turn up first in this search! They will see your offerings and—assuming you have a good user experience—make a purchase. If you have an especially great online store, they will probably even buy a couple of extra items that look interesting!

With the where to buy keyword phrase, you’ll want to make sure that you’re specific with how you finish the sentence. “where to buy brown sugar” is not a good keyword, because everyone knows where to buy some type of brown sugar and they won’t Google that. But “where to buy fair trade brown sugar” or even “where to buy Camino [brand] brown sugar” is much better. This is the kind of thing that people might not know. Maybe they heard that fair trade is important, but they don’t know who sells brown sugar that is fair trade. Or maybe they have a friend who works for Camino and they want to support their community, but they don’t know where Camino is sold. That’s why you need to get really specific!

Price comparison

Price comparison means that your potential customer is getting ready to buy and wants the best price on the item. This can be a blessing or a curse. If you’re offering low-priced items, this is great because you can attract people to your website easily and likely make a sale. But if you’re selling high-quality or premium goods, this will make things a bit more complicated for you.

The way around it? Get specific again. Maybe the customer is looking for a specific brand of item, and if that’s your brand, you can still be competitively priced and win that sale. Instead of targeting “sneakers price comparison” and losing that sale because you’re selling ethical, vegan running shoes, try something like “vegan sneakers price comparison” or even better, “Etiko [brand] sneakers price comparison“.

Reviews

This one’s not as intuitive, but when people search for reviews, they’re trying to make sure they’ll be happy with their purchase. If you have lots of great reviews on your website, target this buyer intent keyword! As long as potential buyers see positive reviews, they will likely buy, because they’re just trying to calm their anxiety that it might be a bad product. When they see it’s well-liked, they’re very likely to feel comfortable buying it, and of course you want them to buy it from you!

Before targeting this keyword, though, ensure that you have lots of products that have positive reviews, so that the potential buyer will see that and feel comfortable making a purchase. Otherwise, they will click through to another site and buy it there instead.

Shop, store or online store

If people are looking for a shop, store or online store, that means they’re ready to buy. Buyer intent keywords like shop and store mean they’ve made the decision to make a purchase, and now they just need to decide who they’ll purchase it from.

This sounds like a no-brainer, but make sure that people know that you have a store! Use the terms shop, store and (if applicable) online store in your pages and headlines when possible. Don’t make your website feel like more of a marketing machine than a great user experience, of course, but making sure those words are somewhere is crucial in targeting people who have buyer intent.

Pricing

Pricing is especially helpful if you’re selling digital products, but it applies to physical products as well. Fun fact: this is actually my go-to keyword when I want to know how much a subscription to software or services is! (For example: MonsterInsights pricing for when I want to know how much it will be to upgrade my existing plan.)

Again, be specific with this keyword because the more specific you are, the more likely you’ll attract a customer to your exact product. This is especially true when people are comparing online services or downloads, where they have something specific in mind and want to be sure they get a fair price for it.

---

Now that you have these super profitable buyer intent keywords, be sure that you’re putting them in all the right places! You can download my Blog Post SEO Checklist for help with that (it’s totally free!).

Which keywords are the most profitable in your business? Let us know in the comments!

Pin this for later!