What is a Navigational Search Query?

Navigational Search Query: For Seamless Navigation to Websites

Navigational queries are also called “GO” queries because they help us “go” to a specific website URL. By definition, a navigational search query is the query that user’s execute to find the URL of a specific website on the search engine. So, if you want to find the exact URL of FIFA website, you will type FIFA in the search bar and get FIFA.com as the first URL in the SERP. 

There is an interesting fact about navigational queries. Do you know what the two top searches on Google are. They are YouTube and Facebook; and both of them are navigational in nature. Well, to a large extent. As a matter of fact, Facebook and YouTube are somewhat broad queries which can have informational intent as well, as the user may be interested to find the share price of the companies or to read general news about them.

SEO Experts and Navigational Queries

Can you, as an SEO expert, utilize the navigational queries for your brand’s advantage? Well, the answer is; only if the brand you are promoting has a web site of its own. So how do you start? Simply enter the name of the brand in the search bar. The corresponding website should come up in the top of the organic results. If it does not, you need to optimize it so that it does. Here’s how:

Have essential details about the brand on the web site. These include updating sections listed below with accurate content:

• Brand name and logo
• About us
• Products & Services on offer
• Contact Us with Location

As in the transactional query, it’s also useful to run a PPC ad campaign based on the navigational query. This is because:

• A targeted PPC campaign complements the organic searches to ensure that the person looking for a website does so with ease.
• Secondly, ad campaigns drive more traffic as they have more visibility over organic results.
• As per various sources, Google has reduced the organic search results on the first page of a SERP to seven. So, it has become even more difficult for a brand to list on the first page with navigational search query. This has resulted in 5.5% reduction in overall organic first-page listing. An optimally funded PPC campaign will ensure that the site ranks on top of a navigational query SERP.

Conclusion

If you are a well-known brand in the market, with years of online and off-line presence, you can compete well with your competitors, organically as well. However, it may be a tough nut to crack, if you are a new brand. So, you can start with targeting a navigational query (or a Go query, as Google classifies it) for your site. Optimize your website well and have a PPC campaign going. Having free and/or paid listings on advertisement sites can certainly help as well.