We recently wrote about how online marketing is so powerful because it is “marketing to the willing” on our SEO company blog and we received an excellent comment from Sean Hecking (another SEO consultant who certainly knows what he is talking about).

He pointed out that in regard to online marketing, there are two types of “the willing” - the curious and the converted.  The curious visitors are the ones that use broad keywords and are really just browsing; maybe your company is what they are looking for and they will return at a later date, or perhaps not.  The converted visitors, however, use more specific keywords, have done their research and are ready to purchase immediately or contact you for more information about your services and solutions.

The vast majority of the time, the purpose of SEO and online marketing is to drive these types of visitors to your website.  After all, users that are prepared to convert are the best possible kind, so if a site is optimized for this type of traffic it is most likely very successful. This means it appears on page one for specific targeted keywords, the brand is advertised on sites that are relevant and already popular with potential customers, and it is highly usable, thus making it simple for the ready-to-convert visitors to find what they came to your website for.

That said, sometimes you want to optimize for broader keywords, in order to build your brand equity and establish a presence on the web.  Since broader keywords tend to have a higher search volume, you will increase your overall traffic (and just because those users are merely curious, that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually convert - they might just be in the initial research stage) and your brand will gain the prestige that results from being on page #1 for popular queries.

Therefore, it is essential to consider the type of traffic you are driving to your website - are your users simply curious or are they already converted?