User Search Intent: Where SEO Success Begins
The SEO tactics and Google algorithm keeps changing and evolving from time to time.
SEO needs much of your time, and even you're likely to find it hard to do it because you have to focus on backlinks, conversion rates, rankings, keywords, and search volumes.
However, every company and website needs to put much into SEO to achieve its goals.
As an SEO marketer or professional, you'll always set aside much of your time to keyword research and analyse and select the correct keywords.
You'll always do this to increase your chances of appearing on the first pages of search engines.
Typically, you'll target higher search volume keywords so that you can access many potential audiences using the relevant search queries.
However, you don't have to focus only on the things your potential audiences are searching for whenever thinking about SEO.
You have to know your potential audiences' search intent. Also, you have to know the primary task in your potential audiences' hands.
But, what's search intent, and why is it crucial for SEO? Worry no more! This revealing post will define search intent and explain why it's essential for SEO.
We'll also cover types of search intent and let you know how to determine search intent and optimise your content for user search intent.
Let's get started!
Table of Contents
What Is Search Intent?
Audience intent, user intent, or search intent remain the objective behind every user's query.
It's what makes a user search via a specific keyword. May the user if after product reviews, products, services, or some information.
Search intent is a topic that every marketer wants to understand profoundly and apply because every business aims to offer the kinds of services/products needed by the users.
With BERT, Google RankBrain, and Google Hummingbird algorithm changes, search engines can identify the users' search intents and show only relevant search results.
A search engine achieves this by using rich snippet results, such as Knowledge Panel and the Answer Box.
Besides this, keyword intent describes the keywords applied by target audiences and leads at different conversion funnel stages.
Generally, it's vital to understand and optimise content for user search intent because users search, process, and apply search results incongruously as per their ultimate objective.
Why Is User Search Intent Crucial For SEO?
1 – Access To More Users
Considering search intent should not be an option if you plan to run a company and build a successful/reliable content marketing strategy.
Here, it would help to let search intent drive the content you plan to write and how you write it.
If you create content that matches different search intents, you'll reach more users across different funnel stages.
You'll access the target audience who know nothing about your products/services and those who are ready to purchase your products/services.
As a result, with content that's more specific to different search intents, you'll enhance the chances of accessing your target audience.
2 – Improved Rankings
Because Google uses user satisfaction, authority, and relevance to rank a site or content, it's easy to attach all the dots and check how enhancing keyword targeting to match user search intents can boost your rankings.
Relevance
Relevance involves your user's behaviour. The users are less likely to go back to Google search results within a few seconds and go through them if your website has the information they need.
You'll note a difference in bounce rate, click-through rate, and other KPIs if you have content that's relevant to search intents.
Authority
A significant percentage of a website's authority is based on backlinks.
However, it's critical to create a robust internal linking strategy that sends a signal to Google, informing it to rank your content well because it meets all the requirements.
Besides this, you can enhance your visibility and brand authority by writing valuable content on topics relating to your brand. Also, ensure the content satisfies various user intents.
User Satisfaction
Ensure you create valuable content relevant to your potential audience.
3 – Google Considers It
One of Google's primary goals is to satisfy search intent. As a result, this makes user search intent the primary objective for SEO.
If users search for specific terms and get irrelevant search results, Google gets updated about this mismatched intent.
For example, when users search “the best tools for keyword research” and get search results about the best sites to help with keyword research, they will go back and try other searches without clicking anything.
If this happens, Google will receive a signal that the displayed results do not match the users' intent.
Types Of Search Intent
1 – Informational Search Intent
A significant percentage of searches happening through search engines occur because of informational reasons.
Mostly, people use the internet to look for specific information and facts.
For example, you'll find a regular person using the internet to check the outside weather or a student using the internet to look for study materials.
Users get answers to their queries from the informational search queries that appear on the search engine pages.
A significant percentage of these pages give more pieces of information to assist the users in understanding their topics better.
As a result, this explains why search engines display a vast range of content, including web pages, videos, and images.
2 – Navigational Intent
Navigation intent refers to the search queries from users who visit a specific website. Individuals for YouTube, Twitter, and more are excellent examples of navigation search queries.
If navigation search queries are giving you more visitors, it means your brand impacts your target audience.
However, don't optimise your pages for navigation search queries if you have started running a small business.
Don't follow this path because people have minimal chances to use such queries.
3 – Transactional Intent
If you run an e-store, your site should attract target audiences with buyer search intent.
Be assured that the users have decided to purchase a service/product if they type buyer intent queries in search engines.
A transactional searcher looks to purchase a subscription, service, or product. Besides this, the transactional searcher knows the product/service they want to purchase.
Examples of transactional intent queries include “buy Louis Vuitton bag,” “seamless coupon,” and more.
How To Determine Search Intent
Understanding what motivates the users while applying a search query is vital for the keyword research strategy.
After determining the keywords that match the brand or services/products you want to form, the next thing to do is choose a search intent.
Through this, it'll optimise/create content, meeting the search intent.
Examining the search results remains the way to determine/discern search intent.
You'll find it easy to determine/discern search intent in other cases. For example, it's easy to spot transactional and local search intent.
However, there are cases where you come across mixed search intent, mostly in broad queries.
If you check the tools, such as Ahrefs and SEMRush, you'll spot mixed search intent queries if the clicks are lower than the search volume of each month.
These figures indicate that users aren't getting what they want with that search query.
Besides this, a high instability in the keyword search rankings indicates a mixed search intent, and Google wants to find the intents of the people by modifying the rankings from time to time.
In this case, Google can use the users' past search behaviour to find the right intent.
To find the search intent that Google favours most, you must go the extra mile and analyse the ranking content.
Optimising Content For User Search Intent
1 – Understand User Personas
Every business aims to convert visitors into loyal customers. However, it's vital to note that all potential leads are not in the “purchase now” sales funnel's phase.
A web copy featuring a sales-focused message can only attract users with transactional intents and not users with information intents.
You need to know the multitude of personas visiting your site and adjust your web content to attract search queries.
2 – Optimise Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions refer to HTML elements featuring a short overview of the web content. If you optimise your meta descriptions properly, they will offer valuable clues to search engines and searchers.
Include your primary keywords in meta descriptions to enhance your SERP rankings. Also, use straightforward language to boost your click-through rate.
3 – Modify The Calls-To-Action Button
The calls-to-action tool guides the user on the desired next step to take on your site.
A user with transactional intents will agree to the “purchase now” call-to-action button because it streamlines their shopping process.
A user with informational intents will act well to a “subscribe now” call-to-action button because they want to get more pieces of information.
As a result, it's vital to determine the path followed by your user's search intentions and then fix your call-to-actions accordingly to enhance your conversions.
4 – Carry Out Content Gap Analysis
Content gap analysis entails identifying your potential consumer's questions, requirements, and goals. Also, compare these questions, requirements, and goals with your company's content to fill in all your website's ‘gaps.'
Make this possible by identifying your potential audience, consulting with the internal departments, conducting a content audit, and evaluating your results.
Conclusion
It's time to take stock of your existing site and identify the intent surrounding your current pages.
Here, you can use various tools, like the Keyword Magic Tool, to identify various user intents matching your specific keywords.
Hesitate no more! Start your keyword research right away and ensure that search intent matches your content.
Author Bio: Rithesh Raghavan is the Director at Acodez, a Digital Agency in India. Having a rich experience of 15+ years in Digital Marketing, Rithesh loves to write up his thoughts on the latest trends and developments in the world of IT and software development.
