Keyword research is a crucial part of digital marketing.

SEO, PPC, content marketing, blogging – none of these campaigns would yield profitable results without a batch of well-targeted keywords. Unfortunately, new marketers often make the mistake of focusing too much on keyword metrics when conducting their research.

Let’s put things in perspective.

In every keyword research guide out there search volume and keyword competitiveness are always emphasized.

The average search volume measures the monthly number of people who use a particular keyword in search engines. Keyword competitiveness, on the other hand, pertains to the difficulty of targeting that keyword in your campaigns.

To find profitable keywords, a rule of thumb is to strike the balance between these two metrics.

Find keywords that garner an audience, but make sure it’s not too competitive.

Sounds easy, right?

Too bad these metrics don’t paint the whole picture.

Keep in mind, a keyword with a decent search volume and a reasonable competitiveness rating may look good on paper. But if it doesn’t have commercial intent, it may still have zero impact on conversions without commercial intent.

This is where buyer keywords come into play.

What are Buyer Keywords?

In this post, we’ll discuss how – with the right tools – anyone can generate a buyer keywords list that will help turn their marketing results into profits.

Put simply, a buyer keyword is something a customer will use in search engines with the intent to make a purchase. It contains action-based, commercial terms that relate to transacting, such as:

• Buy
• Order
• Hire
• Sale

Some examples are “buy Bluetooth headphones,” “gaming laptop price,” and “body butters for sale.” You can attach commercial terms to a head keyword on Google Search to quickly find buyer keyword variations:

Like what you see? Don’t get too excited.

Just because you found yourself a buyer keyword, doesn’t mean you should go with it right away. There are specific research methods you should use to find lucrative buyer keyword ideas for your campaign, but we’ll get to that later.

For now, you need to understand how to classify keywords when it comes to commercial intent.

Types of Keywords According to Commercial Intent

Remember that people use search engines for different purposes.

Some of them seek information purely for the sake of research. Other users, however, are in need of a solution to a problem that they currently face.

If they are part of the latter, they will use one of the four different commercial keyword categories that indicate how close they are to a purchase decision:

“Buy Now” Keywords

First of all, customers who are ready to take the next action will use ‘buy now’ keywords – or just buyer keywords – with a relative sense of urgency.

This keyword group perfectly matches a buyer keyword with commercial intent as described earlier.

Out of all the keyword groups, ‘buy now’ keywords have the highest potential for conversions. They may not always get the highest search volumes, but they’re definitely the most effective in terms of generating customers.

Product Keywords

Next up, product keywords are closely tied to navigational search queries wherein users already know exactly what they’re looking for. They may contain the exact name of a brand, product, or person, but they can also have terms that target a product or service category.

For example, a product keyword with your competitor’s brand name may be no good. But if the product keyword contains the term “best” or “comparison,” you can still use them to attract quality traffic.

Here are some examples of profitable product keywords:

• Best e-commerce platforms for dropshipping
• Cheap luxury apartments
• Top gaming laptops
• 3D printer review

Informational Keywords

Although they don’t convert as reliably and effectively as ‘buy now’ or product keywords, there should still be some room for informational keywords in your strategy.

Informational keywords are long-tail keywords that people use to look for actionable advice – whether or not the steps involve the use of a product. Real-life examples of informational keywords are:

• How to install a ceiling fan
• Ways to build a blog
• Where to find social media influencers

Tire-Kicker Keywords

Lastly, there are tire-kicker keywords that are used by people who have no intention of spending money to acquire something valuable. These are people who probably won’t convert into paying customers even if they badly need a product or service.

To identify tire-kicker keywords, all you need to do is to check if it has the word “free.” For example, the keyword “download antivirus” may appear harmless, but once you use the keyword “download antivirus free,” then you’re looking at a tire-kicker keyword.

On the flip side, quickly changing a few terms in tire-kicker keywords can potentially turn them into ‘buy now’ keywords. The keyword “download Friends episodes free,” for instance, can be easily turned to “buy Friends episodes online.”

Of course, you don’t have to rely on guesswork to generate ‘buy now’ keywords for your campaign. What you need to do is boot up a keyword research tool, like Long Tail Pro, and let the numbers show you the way.

Using Long Tail Pro to Find Buyer Keyword Ideas

To use Long Tail Pro to find buyer keywords, start with a seed keyword that’s relevant to your product or in your niche.

This will prompt the tool to generate a list of long-tail keyword variations based on the value of “Suggestions per keyword.” To have more chances of pulling in ‘buy now’ keywords, set this to the maximum amount or 400.

Once the results are in, click on the “Filter” option and create a filter with the following configuration:

In the “Value” field, add a ‘buy now’ term that makes sense for your niche. For example, if you’re trying to sell Bluetooth headphones, you want customers to “buy” your product:

After you click “Apply Filters,” Long Tail Pro will immediately refresh the results page and include only keywords with the term “buy.” You will then be able to identify the potential keyword ideas with commercial intent.

That’s it! To make sure you got the right keywords, inspect the average CPC bid for them and compare it with the rest of the suggestions – the most profitable keywords usually get the highest average bid in the bunch!

Key Takeaways

Now that you know how to look for keywords that potential customers are more likely to use, you’re en route to creating more profitable marketing campaigns in the future. Just don’t forget the following key takeaways as you apply what you’ve learned:

• Search volume and competitiveness aren’t the only factors that matter in keyword profitability.
• Commercial keywords are categorized as ‘buy now’ keywords, product keywords, informational keywords, and tire-kicker keywords.
• ‘Buy now’ keywords and product keywords have the highest potential for conversions.
• When looking for potential keyword targets, validate their profitability by inspecting the average CPC bid they get.

Start looking for buyer keywords today with your free trial of Long Tail Pro! Click here to find out more.