GOOGLES NEXT BEST THING! SEARCH INTENT
So Google wants to rank pages that best fit someone’s query; it was originally designed to answer the ‘How, What, When and Who’ questions that we all have all day. When a potential customers googles something, they usually have a purpose, this is called search intent. All companies should take search intent into account when they are looking to improve rankings, and to convince potential customers to buy or use your products and services. In short, if you can’t find what you are looking for quickly they will leave your site.
There are 4 main types of search intent query which you should take into account when you are creating your website content, and not meeting the customers required intent is not good news for your organic search engine optimisation:
Information Intent – so a huge amount of searches on the internet are about looking for information. People with an informational intent have a specific question on a specific certain topic. For example, What is the best school for my child in the West Midlands?
So you need to know that Googles search algorithm and its understanding of intent goes much deeper than simply showing results that give the answer to a specific question. It knows that people looking for “Apple” are looking for the technology giant not the fruit and will align that by reviewing the rest of your sites content, it even understands that for some search terms it will also include videos and imagery.
Navigational Intent – This relates to your brand name, it identifies when people are looking for a specific website, for example people who search for Twitter are usually on the way to use the Twitter website and are not interested in its history
Investigation Intent – This is where the research intent comes in – search terms such as “What is the best smartphone?” , “Where can i purchase vintage football shirts?” etc…
Transactional Intent – This is the process of people purchasing online and who are browsing the internet to find the best purchase. This normally means they are looking to buy exactly what they want to buy and that they already have taken on board the decision making information previously i.e. a search for a “Apple iphone 14” against a search for “best smartphone”.
Keywords are Key!
All of these 4 kinds of intent emphasise the need to ensure your website uses the words customers will use in their search queries. By formulating keywords with intent-specific words which can increase your chances of being seen by people with matching search intent.
So for transactional intent searches we need to include keywords such as “buy”, “best deal”, “discount” and the product name… and for informational intent searches we need to include keywords such as “information”, “how to”, “best way to” and “why”…
How to optimise your content for search intent
So it is vital that your landing pages or homepages fit the search intent for your customer audience. If a customer is looking for information then you don’t want to show them a product page – well at least not right away – they are in the research/information gathering stage.
If you an e-commerce business then optimising product pages for commercially driven keywords is a great idea – such as “buy apple iPhone” but also you could add an article that talks about the benefits of buying an Apple iPhone which includes a Frequently Asked Questions section.
Sometimes it can be difficult to know the search intent of a query, the best way is to write down ten words which you want your business to be found for and try it yourself in Google. Alternately ask your customers – create a survey containing questions relating to what they searched for – you can use various online exit intent pop ups but be careful as these can hard the User Experience. Alternately speak to an expert, like us. We have various tools at our disposal which will not only identify the keywords you need to optimise for but also the keywords which are driving your competitors web traffic.
Next Step
It is vital to ensure that your website content that your are writing fits both the search terms that people are using but also the search intent process. Your aim has to be for your website the first result when someone searches for your company name, make sure you provide content that helps people make an informed decision, and make sure you lead people to your sales page is they are looking to buy one of your products or give them a reason and simple way to contact you if you are providing a service.
Our team are here to help, if you would like to schedule a no-obligation FREE review of your website which will identify its strengths and its opportunities within search and keywords then contact us here.
