Understanding Search Intent: The Key to Effective Keyword Targeting

Google’s latest algorithm changes have put more importance on this type of content driven or navigational query, as they are trying to demote the rankings of sites that offer little value. This is especially true since the introduction of the Google Panda and Farmer updates, which boosted the rankings of high quality sites, while lowering the rankings of low quality content sites.

Search intent is the objective a person has when typing a query into a search engine. They are looking to accomplish a task, and are expecting the search engine to understand and provide the best result for their task. This is usually done by sorting the search engine results page (SERP) to show the most relevant results first. Google defines four main types of search intent: informational, navigational, commercial investigation, and transactional. These are tied to the sales funnel, and roughly correlate to different stages which a potential buyer might go through when looking for a product or solution. Search intent can also apply to specific content within a certain page. A person may have a query for a tutorial, or the lyrics to a song. They expect the results to deliver what they asked for.

Keywords have always been a central element of any SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. Understanding the target audience and creating content around their needs is what makes a website popular and relevant. However, recent changes to the Google algorithm have made it more difficult for webmasters to predict which keyword will bring the right type of traffic to their site. It has increased the value of search intent.

Importance of Search Intent in SEO

The reason for the importance of search intent in SEO is very evident in the search results pages themselves. For example, have you ever searched for something and seen one site, but then another site’s title and description are so well written and seem to answer your query well that you end up clicking on that site instead? This would demonstrate how the second website has optimized its content to better answer the query that is entered. Knowing the various stages that a person goes through when looking for information is also very important. Usually, a person will start with a general search on a broad topic and then narrow it down as he finds more information on it. This is important to know, as you would want to start off targeting more broad keywords and then optimize some new content for more long tail, specific keywords at a later point. Understanding search intent will also help you to better assess the competition in the search results page, thereby allowing you to make a better decision on whether it is worth it to try and optimize a page for a specific query.

When you are able to understand why someone is searching for something, you are better equipped to provide the right kind of information to them. By understanding what search intent is, you can gain a lot of insight into how the entire search ecosystem works, which will then help you to be more efficient in finding information or in providing information. Recognizing and categorizing keywords into informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial investigation is a very important step in understanding search intent and is something that SEO service must do.

Benefits of Understanding Search Intent

First and foremost, understanding search intent is crucial for providing the right content, products, and services to internet users. This means breaking new ground is important. Whether a user is searching for a specific website, looking to purchase a product, or simply looking for information on a certain topic, it is essential to meet their needs. By understanding and meeting the needs of the user, you will increase the chances of achieving your online goal, whether it is to make a sale, gain a subscriber, or provide information. This will result in higher conversion rates and more return customers, readers, or followers. Another benefit of understanding search intent is achieving higher search engine rankings. Search engines are determined to provide the most relevant results to their users. By understanding what the user is really looking for and providing that content, you are working in line with search engines to provide relevant information to users. This coherence with search engines will result in an increase of organic traffic to your website and higher search engine rankings for keyword variations related to the content you have provided.

Types of Search Intent

Informational search intent is the intent to acquire some new information or to learn more about a specific topic. The user in this case may not have a specific website in mind and is often phrased as a question, for example, “how to make an omelette”. These types of queries can be more difficult to determine what the user is actually looking for and often require the search engine to determine the context of the question. Often, the result will be to find an answer to that question, which could be on a variety of websites rather than the specific website. Informational intent is often open to persuasion, and the user, over time, landing on an article will read this and have their intent changed to navigational or possibly transactional. This is a key point to remember as a webmaster, as intent can be changed, so it’s a good idea not to only target one type of intent. An example of how this intent can be changed would be the user may land on a page that explains how eggs are good for you. They then get the intent to buy eggs or some form of egg-related product, so they head to a supermarket site to fulfill this transaction.

Informational Search Intent

Users’ intent when searching is to obtain information about a certain topic, product, or event. The user may be focused on trying to find the answer to a question, trying to learn more about a certain research topic, or trying to find out how to do something. The user will not be focused on buying a product or service. Informational search queries can vary widely in terms of their specificity. For example, the query could be about a broad topic, such as “global warming,” or a very narrow one, such as “peanut allergies in children.” Often, the user will be trying to navigate to a specific site, or it may be that the user is looking for a specific set of information and using the search engine to organize that information. In general, the goal is almost always to locate specific information that can be accessed in a variety of ways. The user may have a simple goal to get directed to a specific page, or the user may want to compare a number of different sites containing the same information.

Navigational Search Intent

Navigational searches are targeted at finding a particular site or page that the searcher already has in mind. They are often a means to an end to obtain access to a particular website. The searcher has a specific destination in mind and wants to reach it quickly and easily. Navigational queries may at times occur singularly, but often they are but one step in a longer information seeking process that includes both exploratory and more specific search types. 80% of navigational searches resulted in a click on the first result (Jansen et al., 2008). Navigational searches are often branded searches. Brand loyalty is quickly becoming more prominent within the web and search is no exception. Users who are accustomed to a particular brand may bypass the URL bar and search for the brand in a search engine as a means to access the site. Brand or URL recall may be shaky or the user may be attempting to avoid typing a URL that they feel is too long or complicated. With search being the second most popular online activity among all internet users, brand bidding to gain positioning in search engine advertising may also influence the behavior of navigational searches. The success of paid search at achieving brand impact has led to research showing a causal link between an increase in brand searches and a corresponding lift in visits to brand websites. Brand searchers who are exposed to a company’s message through a search ad, as compared to those who were exposed through an organic listing, tend to have a greater site visitation rate (Johnson et al., 2009). High volume and high competition for navigational queries is also enticing to search marketers given the potential traffic gains even for non-brand-related queries.

Transactional Search Intent

This is the intent where the user wants to do something online or offline, having first done the research. For example, buy a product online or offline, visit a specific website. The user is wanting to find the website of a specific company so they can later visit that company. Subscription to a specific online or offline publication. In this case, the user is wanting to find a website so they can subscribe to an online magazine or a print publication. Lastly, transactional intent also occurs with customers who are looking to carry out an activity with an online organization. For example, the user wishes to do some online banking. This is also deemed as having possible transactional intent.

Strategies for Identifying Search Intent

This section consists of a series of simple strategies for obtaining a better understanding of what searchers are looking for when they type specific keywords into search boxes, which will help to produce more relevant keyword lists and better align SEO strategy with the engines’ ranking algorithms. This section can be considered the most important part of the entire paper in terms of SEO. The basic premise of the section is that we can cluster different keywords based on the similarity of the search results, since the similarity of the results would indicate similar search intent. For example, searches for ‘free stock photos’, ‘stock photography discounts’, and ‘how to take your own stock photo’, all have fairly similar search results, and thus it could be considered that the searchers for those queries have similar intent. Targeting all three of those search terms with pages having closely related content would be a good strategy. On the other hand, the search results for the queries ‘stock photography’ and ‘stock photo camera equipment’ are likely to be considerably different, despite the fact that the latter query is just a specific instance of the former query. By recognizing that the search intent is different between those two groups of queries, it may be best to target the broader term with one page and the second specific query with another different page. This approach can prevent keyword cannibalization and spread out a site’s content to cover a larger variety of search queries.

Analyzing Keyword Research

Look up a keyword in the dictionary and you will learn what the true meaning of that word is. What you really want to do is determine the true meaning of the keyword in the way it is being used in the search engine. For example, the word “free” is often used as a keyword, but searchers could be looking for free information, free trials, free shipping, etc. The best way to determine how a keyword is being used is by analyzing the search results for that keyword. If most of the sites that are returned are not relevant to what you are offering, then it is likely that the keyword is not a good match.

The first thing we need to do to understand what searchers are trying to find is analyze the keywords that we want to target. What we are looking for with our keywords is a strong indication of what searchers are trying to accomplish. Keywords with multiple definitions or those having a broad meaning and are too general will not lead us to understanding our searchers’ intent.

Studying User Behavior and Intent

As we strive to understand user intent and behavior, it is important to learn how to dissect user queries down to the root question or problem. In many cases, it is not so much what the user searched for, but rather what led them to that query. If a user has a problem or question and performs a search, you must think about what influenced that user to search and eventually how they ended up on your website. By learning the beginning-to-end process, we are better able to understand what brings users to search and how we can capture their attention as they continue forward. If we can capture the user at the starting line and successfully lead them to the answer to their query with information along the way, they are more likely to become engaged and possibly perform another search in the future to find more of our information. This is just one example, but once we have found the ignition point, we can learn how to create content specific to search queries to generate interest and capture our audience.

Utilizing Search Engine Features

Understanding search intent and motivating user behavior has useful implications for SEO. SEO is traditionally focused on achieving high rankings, but rankings alone do not guarantee traffic, and in turn, traffic does not guarantee conversions. If getting the right site content to the right users is the goal, the pages on a site must be matched to the various phases of the user intent. Brand new, exploratory queries in a popular category may denote a user with intent to obtain information on a broad topic. The user is uncertain of what they want, so the page must be geared to establish relevance and pull the user deeper into the site to more specific information. This type of user is best targeted with the popular method of creating a content-rich “gateway” page. High query popularity may also lead to users visiting a site during research for a popular task. Users with more defined intent are more likely to reach the targeted site via a search with specific keywords. For the site to be an effective match to their intent, there should be a well-matched page designed to fulfill the specific user task. This type of page will be most effective in achieving high conversion rates from search traffic.

Search engine features are powerful tools for gauging search intent based on context. Google Suggest and the “searches related to” function are invaluable resources for identifying the most common user queries. Validating these search terms in Google AdWords Traffic Estimator and Keyword Tool provides an indication of keyword popularity and an estimate of its competitiveness. This information is useful to gauge how popular the intent to find the answer to the query is. If the query is rarely searched, there may be very little demand for the answer. If a user is trying to accomplish something through a search, understanding how popular the task is can indicate if there is an established answer users are looking for. If the task is uncommon, the user may have trouble finding the answer to their query. This information can be used to match the popularity of a search query with the popularity of the page on the site relating to that query, to determine if an answer page on the given topic is likely to be successful in meeting user intent.

Implementing Search Intent in Keyword Targeting

On the other hand, if the page is a product comparison or a product review, the aim is to target people who are at the end of the buying cycle and are looking for the specific product. This is usually the best time to use brand keywords but can depend on the product.

For example, if a page is selling a product which serves as an aid to a problem, the aim is to convince the visitor that the product is right for them. For this type of page, it is best to target a keyword that shows a specific problem that people will be looking to solve. This is because the people using this kind of search term would be in the early stages of the buying cycle, and the aim is to convince visitors who are looking for this kind of solution that the product on offer is the correct one.

Another aspect of search intent to consider is the kind of content that your page provides. Content can come in many forms including articles, product pages, downloads, lists, video, and audio. Depending on the type of content that your page holds, it will greatly alter the type of keyword that you would want to target. Also, this is something that is often overlooked and can undermine a keyword strategy for a web page.

Creating Relevant and Engaging Content

Effective content is not just a requirement for a good website, but also a requirement for implementing an effective keyword strategy. When searchers run into websites which have little relevance or few engaging qualities, they usually will run the other direction. They will not link, share, or use the content in any way, which is extremely counterproductive in a keyword strategy. Linkers are more likely to link to content that is authoritative, and an authority is difficult to gain with content that is unengaging or irrelevant. The more engaging, relevant, and optimized a website’s content is, the more likely it will be linked to, shared, and its resources used. When trying to get a new page ranked, it is important to closely look at the top 10 results and ask yourself “How can I create something better?” If you cannot, then you should seriously consider if it is worth it to create a new resource on that particular topic. On the other hand, if you can create a resource that is much more engaging, relevant, and better optimized than what already exists, then you have a winning strategy for ranking well. This will also help in accomplishing the goal of the keyword strategy by bringing the most and the right traffic to a particular website. A concept can also be applied to creating content for category or product pages. In these cases you should compare the page content to the top 10 results and ask yourself the same question. If the current page does not stand a chance at being a better resource than what already exists, it will be very difficult to get the page ranked with any level of search traffic. In cases such as these, where it is not worth it to continue to promote an inferior resource, it may be best to change the keyword strategy and find a different topic to create content for.

Optimizing Meta Data and Headings

Following that, meta keywords are still somewhat of a contentious issue in the SEO industry. Google claims that they are not a ranking factor, and it’s true that they aren’t. However, they can be a factor that determines a page’s theme. A well-optimized meta keyword tag can be a useful benchmark to measure a page’s relevancy to the target keywords. It can also be useful when targeting multiple keywords with multiple landing pages. Although Google says they are not a factor and Bing has continued to endorse them, they should be used sparingly. There’s no need to pump hundreds of keywords into it. Likely, just a selection of 2-3 keywords from the meta keyword tag will be used to determine theme with relevance.

Keywords are a crucial item to consider when optimizing meta data and headings. It’s vital to include the target keyword in the URL, preferably as close to the root as possible, and if feasible the URL should also be directly relevant to the page it is pointing to. The meta description should accurately describe the content of the page, persuasively enough that a user will want to click through to it from the search engine results page, while also containing a variation of the target keyword.

Optimizing your meta data and headings should define the web page and make the page relevant for a specific search phrase. An often overlooked and immensely important part of search marketing, this conversion engine optimization exercise helps a web page communicate and deliver on the search query that brought a user to the page, and done right it can be the factor that decides whether or not a user stays to read your content.

Monitoring and Adjusting Keyword Strategy

By setting a keyword strategy to align with search intent, one of the most crucial components revolves around the ability to monitor and adjust. Given that user search trends can change as consumers continue through the buying cycle, it is important to recognize how your audience’s search behavior may change in relation to strong or weak urgency of need. By understanding the behavior of search trends for your specified keywords, you will be able to recognize when to increase intensity towards capturing traffic, and when to scale back efforts with decreasing search volume for the specified term. Always keep in mind that the real goal here is to understand the relative volume of search traffic that is available with current search trends, and the corresponding potential to capture that traffic with an aligned search intent and keyword strategy. This assessment of potential can be directly translated to a ROI projection for capture of organic or paid search traffic, and is important to the overall marketing effort. Never lose sight of the reasons for allocating a certain level of marketing resource for specific terms, as search trends may change and you will need to consciously reassess the potential.

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