The buying funnel is a way of representing the stages a purchaser goes through on their way to buying a product or service. The goal is to move prospects through the funnel so they can become customers.

The buying funnel influences Pay-Per-Click, or PPC which is the way of using search engine advertising to generate clicks to your website. One way to reach a company’s goal with PPC is by the relevance and accuracy of the keywords. Understanding the use of the buying funnel will help position clients in the appropriate stage.

Understanding The Buying Funnel

The buying funnel has 5 stages to help place your clients when needing to reach a goal.

They are as follows:

• Awareness getting the customers to see your product and letting them know your product exist.
• Interest lets consumers think about your product and how it will make their lives better.
• Learn give more information so they have enough to make informed purchasing decisions.
• Shop the customer will compare similar products to each other to determine which would be the best fit for them.
• Buy consumers made up their mind on the actual product they are willing to purchase. The buying stage will show the benefits and features that would be useful for consumers.

Creating Keywords for PPC

Once the customer is in the shopping stage she or he is wanting to buy something. Every single keyword you choose will fall into at least one phrase of the buying funnel. After you decide which stage of the buying funnel you would like to do, then you would make a list of your keywords.

There are two major types of keywords:

Head Keywords which are short and sometimes tend to have a minimum of two words and are quite general. For example “Doggy DayCare” would be a head keyword.

Long-Tail Keywords tend to have 3+ words and used very often, where “Doggy DayCare near me” would be an example of a long-tail keyword. Head keywords have more competitors and they are all bidding for the word that will help boost their rankings. It gives that business a competitive advantage.

Long Tail keywords have fewer competitors bidding on them, so they tend to be less expensive. Making a keyword list will put you in the right place and coming up with words will put you ahead of your competitors.

The Buying Funnel and PPC Relationship

The buying funnel does not necessarily change how we perform PPC, but what does change is the goals and what stages of the buying funnel we give to different clients. One client might need help in the learning stage and another client might need help in the buying stage. In order to fulfill the need for each of them, you must know their goal and where they want to be. As soon as you know the keywords the greater your chances are with getting those rankings.

By: Solita Owens