The word or phrase a person enters into a search engine or another search interface to find information.
The user’s actual language, which may differ from the keyword a marketer is targeting.
Short and sweet:
The word or phrase a person enters into a search engine or another search interface to find information.
The user’s actual language, which may differ from the keyword a marketer is targeting.
See also: Search Query, Keyword, Search Intent
A query is the general term for any input someone submits to a search engine or database to retrieve information, encompassing both the search query typed by a website visitor and the technical query a system runs internally to fetch stored data, like an order history from a customer database. In a marketing context, it most often refers to the former, and analyzing which queries actually bring people to a site can reveal demand and phrasing a keyword research tool alone might not fully capture. Reviewing this raw query data regularly helps teams catch shifts in how their audience talks about a topic before those shifts show up in more polished keyword reports.
A marketer might target the keyword “running shoes,” but the actual query a shopper types could be as specific as “best running shoes for flat feet under $100.”
An internal site search bar on a retailer like Target’s website logs every phrase a shopper types, giving the merchandising team direct insight into what people are hunting for but not finding easily.
Voice search has changed the shape of a typical request like this, since people ask Siri full questions like “where’s the nearest coffee shop that’s still open” instead of typing a few bare keywords.
