Search Intent

I'm here to share with you the SEO knowledge , hints and tips I've built up over the years . Today , I'm going to talk about search intent . We'll often hear the term search intent used when SEOs are talking about keywords and questions that people ask Google .

Now , search intent , or sort of also known as user intent , is a way of encapsulating what type of question people are asking at any one time , because people go through a journey when they're searching on a topic and

they'll start with very different questions to where they end up once they've met everything they're trying to achieve . So let's look at the different intents . First of all . There are four main intents that SEOs talk about . The first one is informational , and those are the kind of keywords where people are very high up in their search journey on a subject .

For example , if you are someone that's just bought a house and you've got a lawn for the first time you've got to look after a lawn . So you might start searching keywords like how to look after my lawn , and here you're seeking informational content . You want to learn about how to look after a lawn .

Now you're going to be finding in this section you're going to be finding in broad sort of guide content . So the kind of content that you will be presented and expect to see will be really quite high level information about how to look after a lawn lawn . Now .

After you've read through that , you'll then think , right , well , obviously I'm going to have to keep this lawn cut . I need to buy a lawn mower . Now this is where you move into a sort of more commercial type of intent and this is where you'll be searching for the sort of types of lawn mower that are exist .

What's the right one for the size of lawn you've got , for the type of lawn you've got ? And then you might narrow it down even further and you might decide actually , I think I need a cordless lawn mower .

And then you'll be looking at guides that's focused specifically on cordless lawn mowers , and looking for reviews of cordless lawn mowers , of various numbers of cordless lawn mowers , and you'll be getting a real kind of idea at this point what product exactly is going to meet your need .

And then this is where you go down to the next level , which is the transactional intent , and this is where you've narrowed down the actual product you want to buy . So , for example , it's a Bosch universal rototick 37 550 lawn mower and you are now searching on the actual product and you're looking for somewhere to buy .

You're in a transactional mode and at this point you're going to be expecting to see search results where you actually see that product available to buy . Maybe some alternatives might might be there as well , but generally you're looking for places where you can buy that exact product because you're in the transactional mode . And then the fourth one is navigational .

Now , this is one where you know where you want to get to . You're just looking for a signpost to get there . So say , you've bought your Bosch lawn mower , you've got an issue with it when it's arrived and you want to get in touch with Bosch Bosch customer services you search that and you want to see a link to the Bosch customer services website .

So a very navigational type of result and intent . So just to recap , four types . We have informational , which is where people are searching for information on a topic to try and get an answer , and they tend to be broader at that point . Secondly , we have commercial .

Now this is where people are looking to research something they're thinking of buying sort of in the near future . So they are starting to narrow down the commercial intent they have to buy . So they're getting those commercial questions answered .

Then we're down to the transactional type of intent , and that is where people know what they want to buy and they're just looking for where to buy it .

And our fourth one is navigational , which is primarily where people know where they want to get to , the other website or the part of the website they want to get to , and they're just using Google to help navigate quickly to where they want to get to .

Now , before we explore further on it , I just want to make it clear that with all of these intent types , they are like a spectrum rather than a definitive , so they can actually bleed into each other . So informational keywords can also be commercial keywords . They can bleed into being commercial and commercial can bleed into being transactional .

So there is a range where a keyword can be more than one . But if you think in the broad terms , you can see where they tend to be more than one or the other . Some are very clearly just one and some are different levels of each one .

So , just to be aware that you don't have to pigeonhole every bit of content into just one of them , you can cross borders between them . Okay , so we now know the different types of intent are . Now , why is this important to know as an SEO ?

Well , it's because it's going to determine what kind of content you need to produce to answer a keyword , very depending upon its intent . So , as we said , informational , they tend to be quite broad in many respects . So you are going to be bringing people on in a topic that you're sort of targeting people who are a beginner level .

So you've got to pitch the information right and you've got to have the right mix of information on there , and this is going to be . Yet this is where you're building someone up and building them , bringing them into a topic .

So , for example , when we had broadband at Cut it UK , we had like a broadband beginners guide and that was a really informational piece of content for people who knew very little about broadband and the idea was to , you know , bring their knowledge on so that they could then go and make more informed decisions later on .

Now , if we want to start targeting people with commercial intent , this is where they know what kind of product they want to buy , but they are unsure exactly which product to buy now or what the exact solution to their problem is going to be .

So this could be where , I say , with Broadband at Cut it UK , someone has now decided that they want to get satellite broadband because they've learned that . So they live in a really rural area . They know that their options are limited and satellite broadband is going to be the best one for them .

So then now you might have a satellite broadband guide and you might start talking about certain products , certain providers that can give them that satellite broadband where they live and the pros and cons of each one , so they can start to make that commercial decision on who the actual provider they should be going with is .

And then that then moves you down to transactional , and here this is where we might have content on specific satellite providers and specific deals that those satellite providers offer . So this is where someone is now getting to the point of making that purchase decision and it's transactional . Now , in the case of Affiliate .

Here obviously our content would be on a particular provider and then linking off to that provider for the customer to make the purchase . But if you're the actual provider yourself , you're selling satellite broadband , then obviously that would be your product page where you'll be actually selling to the client . And then finally , yet with Navigation .

Now this is an interesting one because on your actual site , as long as you've got your site indexed fine and you've got no issues like that , then if people are doing navigational searches looking for your brand and pages on your brand's website , google pretty much will get it sorted and signpost people in the right way .

But the issue you have is there's obviously other search results on that page that Google is going to give . Now you really want to own these if possible , because otherwise what will happen is people will start piggybacking off your brand . What I mean by that is people will start doing alternatives to your brand pages .

So examples of this are people doing review pages or comparison pages between their similar product to your brand , to yours and your brand . And , yes , this is where people are trying to piggyback off your brand . So there are strategies that you can look to mitigate this by trying to do your own versions of those pages .

If there's review pages coming up , you want to have pages of your own reviews on your site . So if people search for your brand's reviews , you're not just going to get trust part as a first and so you can get your own pages in there and push all these others down . But it's not really a big one to worry about in the first instance .

It's only becomes a bigger issue if you become such a well-known brand . You get lots of people searching for your brand . So for many websites it's probably not a massive issue to start with . So not a big one to worry about , but it is just something to pay attention to as your brand grows or if you're working with larger brands .

Okay , so we now know why intent is important and what the different types of intent are and how it will help determine what kind of content that you're going to need to meet those different kind of intents . So how do you actually work out what the intent of any particular question or keyword is ? Well , what do I ask ?

That of A really great place to go to find this out , to give you clues , and that's Google itself , because Google's really , really good at working out intent , based on its billions and billions and billions of search interactions with real people and seeing what kind of content that they actually go for , they click on when they're asking particular questions and

particular keywords . So really the best place to look is Google . Now , first of all , there's a few clues on the search engine results that you can see for any keyword , so you have to go along , query that keyword and then see what comes up . Now you've got two elements for you to look at here . You can look at the actual results themselves .

What kind of pages is Google ranking ? Is it review pages ? Are they informational pages ? Are they product pages ? You can tell from the kind of results that come up what kind of intent Google is suggesting this one fits . You can also look by looking at other search features , like is it full of adverts ? What type of adverts have you got ?

Have you got people also ask questions coming up ? Have you got ? All the different sort of search elements that Google can put on a page will give you clues as to what kind of intent it thinks it has

for these keywords . And you'll also find the times where Google isn't actually really quite sure , because sometimes you will get those keywords where the intent is not very clear . Also , you will get ones where there are examples of keywords which can mean multiple things .

For example , a very well known example is if you search for Mercury , are you searching for the planet or are you searching for the element Mercury and there are brands that are called Mercury . So what is it you're searching for there ?

And sometimes Google will try and have a best guess , but obviously I think also at times look at what you've previously been searching around to give you those sort of personalized suggestions . So some kind of search features that you'll see for informational intent will be featured snippets people also ask knowledge panels , video carousels and news boxes .

Now , you're not sure you're going to see all of those for informational intent , but those are the kind of things that tend to appear more on informational intent keywords .

If you're down to commercial intent , then you'll see things like product listings , reviews that's where you get star ratings and snippets , reviews from various sources , ads , because obviously you're starting to get that commercial intent shopping results .

And sometimes you might get a local pack if it's a commercial intent , for like a restaurant that you want to eat out locally , for example . And then , when you get down to transactional intent again . You'll see shopping results , ads , featured snippets with transactional information like prices , booking options and things like that .

Now , obviously you can see there's a bit of crossover between some of those , but it does mean that you can start to see how those change as you go down . I've forgotten navigation intent . Yeah , with that you will see the organic search results listing the specific website that you're looking for and also site links for that website .

So when it's doing those navigational things and you'll see less ads and less of the others . Now it's not to say that you won't see ads , because sometimes competitors will buy ads on their competitor brand names , but you'll see far less .

Google will not be putting in like carousels of ads generally on navigational intent , so you can use the Google search results to give you a really good idea of the kind of content that Google is expecting on a keyword and also the clues from those search features surrounding it .

That will help you work out what kind of content you're going to need to produce to meet the intent of those keywords . So now at this point you hopefully have got to be the point where you have all your keywords and you've managed to chunk them into different intent types . Now , with this , it then helps you start to build your funnel .

And your funnel will start with the informational intent keyword at the top and this is where you put in that broad guide content which gives you a very wide funnel top to draw people in to your content .

And then you'll have your commercial intent , which is where you'll do your sort of narrower feature guides around those commercial intent questions where people are coming further down the funnel and narrowing down what it is they're looking to buy .

And then , at the transactional intent , at the bottom , you'll have those pieces of content that are really tightly focused on their particular products and particular solutions for people so that they can then go off and purchase either from you or , if you're an affiliate , off to a merchant that you've got a relationship with or you're providing that solution to them .

And how can you use intent to sort of increase your SEO , boost your traffic , sort of explore new avenues ?

Well , if you are a primarily informational website currently with just lots of informational content , maybe you can start thinking about starting to boost some commercial and transactional content further down the funnel and start becoming sort of exploring either producing and selling products yourself or working with affiliate partners , affiliate merchants , so that you can

actually drive traffic to those merchants and make extra revenue that way , rather than just relying on display ads at the top .

Also , if you are a actual e-commerce site selling actual products or the actual brand yourself , start thinking about producing content that's further up the funnel , so like the commercial content and the informational content to draw people in higher up , rather than relying on other people and other websites to do it for you .

Start trying to capture those people further up the funnel with those intent funnels that may seem like they don't fit you selling products because they weren't in the first instance , but they will , over time , start to bring you in much more traffic in your own funnel , down to selling your own products at the bottom .

So , yeah , that's why it's important to think about intent and the content you've got on your site and where to capture people in that intent funnel . So I hope that helps and , yeah , go away , start thinking about how intent can help boost your website . Thanks for being a listener . I really appreciate it . Please subscribe and share . It really helps .

Seo is not that hard as brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUsecom the solution to finding the questions people ask online so , where thousands of people use us every day , try it today for free at KeywordsPeopleUsecom To get an instant hit of more SEO tips . Then find the link to download a free copy of my 101 quick SEO tips in the show notes of today's episode .

If you want to get in touch or have any questions , I'd love to hear from you . I'm at channel five on Twitter . You can email me at podcast at KeywordsPeopleUsecom . Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO is not that hard .