The buying cycle for a luxury purchase is often much more protracted than it is for cheaper consumables, which gives SEO experts a great opportunity to get in front of potential customers via search.
Unlike other areas of marketing, SEO doesn’t have much data on demographics or interests. We work with search data – the search queries and terms that people use on Google (other search engines are available!)
At times, our role is a little like playing detective. We have to read between the lines to understand what the intent and behaviour of the searcher were.
Types of search
Now if someone is in the market to buy a relatively cheap product, they may well do one search, find what they need and hit the buy button. This is what’s known as a transactional search – searchers want to complete an action, such as making a purchase.
For a luxury product, there may well not be any opportunity to actually purchase. A conversion may be a brochure request or email or phone enquiry. That’s not to say that luxury searches won’t be undertaking transactional searches – the transaction, in this case, may be in handing over their contact details in order to receive a brochure or a callback. Key to this type of search is an action – perhaps with a verb such as ‘order’, ‘book’, ‘buy’ etc. and they will often be fairly detailed: ‘buy men’s blue Tommy Hilfiger watch’ for example.
When someone is in the mood to buy, you can respond to their desire by making the buying/ordering process as frictionless as possible. Obvious buy now / contact us buttons and limited scrolling will help satisfy the site visitor but consideration should also be given to any accreditations, reviews, awards, secure payment badges etc. that give the buyer peace of mind.
However, as alluded to above, a luxury product is often an expensive one, which means the majority of people will do a considerable amount of due diligence before purchasing. That’s when the other types of search phrases come into their own.
Informational searches
Informational searches are usually higher up the marketing funnel with people using this type of search term early on in their research journey. They often (but not always) take the form of a question – what, where, how etc. as the searcher is trying to learn something. They can also take the form of comparisons – ‘difference between X and Y’ or ‘which is better A or B’.
Examples include:
- Do I need planning permission for an extension?
- Is platinum more hard-wearing than gold?
- Key equipment for a home gym
Search engines often return results that include guides, articles and helpful videos, and increasingly featured snippets will show, as well as the more recent addition of AI overviews.
With a luxury purchase, the searcher will spend a long time at this stage, getting to understand all of the issues surrounding a possible product or service to ensure their investment is exactly what they hoped for. Therefore SEO should respond to as many possible queries and questions that someone at this stage may have. Particularly within information searches, you may find some long tail keywords which are super specific as the searcher gets to grips with the product or service and wants to know more detail.
To respond to these types of queries, a good place to start is by doing your own Google search to see what types of content Google likes/returns and then create similar but even more authoritative materials.
Commercial searches
Commercial searchers want to investigate brands, products or searches with the intent of some sort of commercial interaction in the future. Searches for discounts, reviews or very specific comparisons also fall into this category, as well as searches for ‘best’.
These types of searches are high-value from an SEO perspective as the user has a serious intent and could be in the market to become a customer at some point.
- Orangery vs. conservatory
- Diamond earrings sale
- Best elliptical cross trainer
The key to these searches is in providing content that helps the user make a buying deci