Trying to Figure Out the Search Intent for Personalities. Need Some Guidance

[Nonbeardedman]

I've been going through the crash course, this time, creating a strategy alongside it. I've re-evaluated the niche, done some market research and made a list of my competitors. I have a huge file, layers upon layers, with details of my competitors, customer personas, and potential prospects for outreach. I also have a "battle plan" in place to take out the weak competitors in my niche - hopefully, my next Lab Report is going to be a bit more exciting.

Now, I'm coming from the Keyword Research day from the crash course and allthough I've understood the gist of it, there are some keywords in my niche that I want to go for (they're essential for taking out the weak competitors and part of my battle plan) that are filled with individual personalities.

Let me give an example from the Sports niche.

Let's say my seed keyword is "boxing." Now, I'll input that into Google Keyword Planner and extract the whole list it gives me into my keyword-research excel sheet. For the sake of this example, let's say I have an eBook written on some of the best boxing techniques you can learn from the pros which I plan to funnel down customers to.

Over here, I might come across a keyword: "Famous boxers" which has a high CPC and aligns well with my target audience as well as my niche. I'll analyze the SERP and label it as an "Awareness" keyword.

Then, there would be other keywords with names of the boxers such as Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, etc. These have super low competition, close to $0 PPC, and some 50-100 searches per month, probably a nightmare for all MFA sites. Now, writing about these boxers would align well with my intention with the blog. I can sensibly assume that I could funnel my customers like this:

1. The searcher, who loves to watch boxing and has even tried out some sparring sessions himself, wonders who the best boxers are to gain some inspiration from them. He searches for "famous boxers" and comes across my article [Awareness stage]
2. He scrolls through the list and comes across Muhammad Ali, who he's heard a lot about but never really knew what was so special about him. So, he clicks on my conviniently placed internal link to the page I've written about Muhammad Ali, his beginnings, achievements, and legacy, etc. [Interest stage]
3. Now, after reading through, the searcher is obsessed with Muhammad Ali and thinks he's the coolest boxer to ever live. He wishes he could learn something from him and is keen to learn more and, surprise, surprise he comes across another convinently placed link to a landing page that takes him to my eBook where I've stated how it helps them learn the best boxers' techniques including Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Muhammad Ali, and Floyd Mayweather. [Desire stage]
4. They click through to learn more about my eBook and its contents, scroll through testimonials, take a look at some previews of the book etc. and finally click "Buy" [Action stage]

Now this looks all fine and dandy on paper and is the exact process I've thought up in my head BUT, the confusion comes when I read this:

Navigational

Navigational searching: The intent of navigational searching is to locate a particular Website. The Website can be that of a person or organization. It can be a particular Web page, site or a hub site. The searcher may have a particular Website in mind, or the searcher may just ‘think’ a particular Website exists. (Sauce: Penn State whitepaper)
The intent a user in this stage is to find something they BELIEVE exists already. This can be a brand, a specific website or domain, or a query that SHOULD return an entity that SHOULD exist (they may be confused on the actual end name). Company's brands terms are included in this, since users may simply do a search for your brand within search engines rather than inputting your domain directly into the address field.

This also can be a waste of time if you are simply trying to rank for a brand's name in order to gain affiliate sales without adding value to the sale (looking at you lazy affiliates). Smart brands are catching on to this and now utilizing a first visit cookie (tagging a customer on the first initial visit) instead of a last visit cookie (giving credit to affiliate even though the visitor has already been on the site before). But if you can successfully rank underneath a brand or a competitor's presence that can give you "leaked" SERP traffic that you can use to sell customers on or convince would-be buyers of your competition to buy your brand instead (comparison charts work best for this).

Quick Notes
-queries containing company/business/organization/people names;
-queries containing domains suffixes;
-queries with ‘Web’ as the source;
-queries length (i.e., number of terms in query) less than 3; and
-searcher viewing the first search engine results page.

I don't want to waste time trying to rank for navigational queries. When I checked the SERPs, it's clear that readers are trying to gauge more info about the personalities I'm targeting, but at the same time I can't tell if I'm misjudging the actual intent as they could just be trying to figure out more about the person and stopping their journey there rather than going through the buying funnel.

I say this as within the search the actual official sites of some of the people also come up (for example if Mike Tyson has an official website where he announces his upcoming fights + merch people might be trying to search for that rather than learning more about Mike Tyson)

I want to get this part right, because when I manage to create this monster silo I can take out 2 birds with 1 stone, attract a ton of natural backlinks, and rank my site higher - making my would-be readers punch the air for not discovering me sooner.

I'm confident this is a step in the right direction so I wanna be sure before I go all in. I know it might be a bit annoying to hear from me after every week asking for yet more feedback, so I really appreciate all the help I'm getting from you guys.

Oh and also, quick question: what do you label keywords that the user would put in just for gathering inspiration for something like "[keyword] ideas" or something to that effect which mostly outputs image packs or sites like Pinterest? (I'm just labelling them as Navigational as I make my keyword sheet)

(P.S. Big thanks to @Ryuzaki for the reply on the previous post, really helped me navigate how to create proper silos for the site)

 

[thisishatred]

So just because this is how I think, I had to map what you're typing.

"let's say I have an eBook written on some of the best boxing techniques you can learn from the pros which I plan to funnel down customers to.'

So the intent of your search then sounds like you're honing in on the "technique" of boxing itself as apposed to these celebrities as entities? Why not modify the page/entity page to your intent - ie. person technique.


"When I checked the SERPs, it's clear that readers are trying to gauge more info about the personalities I'm targeting"

I'd wager to say folks are doing both for a "person" type search though - they may both want to know about the person, who they were - I Wouldn't necessarily say that automatically makes them a boxing fan who wants to learn about boxing technique.

For instance:

Maybe someone heard the term "float like a butterfly and sting like bee" - they find out it was Muhammad Ali and then search for him to learn about him.

Does that mean you then end up converting them on an niche ebook for a general query? I doubt it.

VS

/boxing-technique/mike-tyson/

mike tyson technique - 200 searches
Further looking that up, he used a "peekaboo" style - 110 searches etc.

I'm willing to bet someone looking up a technique of a fighter is far more apt to be converted on an ebook that's discussing technique in what they're searching about.

---

IMO while a "celeb" page itself is likely useful from a "topical map" perspective, I'd look for ways truly match intent - In my opinion a "celeb" page like a wiki for the person on your site isn't targeted enough for what you're trying to do - at least from the sounds of it.

I mean you can equate that to say fantasy sports; Just because you have someone who is passionate about fantasy baseball, doesn't mean they're going to buy an ebook on hitting technique - where-as instead they might buy memorabilia.

 

[Nonbeardedman]

So just because this is how I think, I had to map what you're typing.

"let's say I have an eBook written on some of the best boxing techniques you can learn from the pros which I plan to funnel down customers to.'

So the intent of your search then sounds like you're honing in on the "technique" of boxing itself as apposed to these celebrities as entities? Why not modify the page/entity page to your intent - ie. person technique.


"When I checked the SERPs, it's clear that readers are trying to gauge more info about the personalities I'm targeting"

I'd wager to say folks are doing both for a "person" type search though - they may both want to know about the person, who they were - I Wouldn't necessarily say that automatically makes them a boxing fan who wants to learn about boxing technique.

For instance:

Maybe someone heard the term "float like a butterfly and sting like bee" - they find out it was Muhammad Ali and then search for him to learn about him.

Does that mean you then end up converting them on an niche ebook for a general query? I doubt it.

VS

/boxing-technique/mike-tyson/

mike tyson technique - 200 searches
Further looking that up, he used a "peekaboo" style - 110 searches etc.

I'm willing to bet someone looking up a technique of a fighter is far more apt to be converted on an ebook that's discussing technique in what they're searching about.

---

IMO while a "celeb" page itself is likely useful from a "topical map" perspective, I'd look for ways truly match intent - In my opinion a "celeb" page like a wiki for the person on your site isn't targeted enough for what you're trying to do - at least from the sounds of it.

I mean you can equate that to say fantasy sports; Just because you have someone who is passionate about fantasy baseball, doesn't mean they're going to buy an ebook on hitting technique - where-as instead they might buy memorabilia.

Yeah, okay I get what you're saying. Definitely makes things clearer. Thanks for the advice, I'll be planning accordingly

 

[Kakeshi]

While you prepare a strategy for Google, please keep in mind that Youtube is now the 2nd largest search engine and is full of videos on Celebrities as well as sports techniques. You may hit a wall trying selling an ebook in case your targeted customers find the option to watch and learn all about the celebrities & techniques on a Youtube channel. So, gauge the competition on that side also.