Understanding search intent to boost SEO rankings
Search engines seek to provide their users with the most relevant and valuable results for each search query. The most effective search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns are built on a fundamental understanding of precisely how your unique audience conducts searches around your services or products and the wider industry.
Consideration of the intent behind every search is key. Users conduct searches in order to locate specific pieces of information and search engines utilise their complex algorithms to deliver the most appropriate results for every keyword.
Understanding the expansive categories of search intent is critical to the development of an SEO and content strategy that can target both keywords and the intent behind them.
The importance of understanding search intent
Utilising SEO strategies for effective search engine marketing is relatively simple in many ways. If, for example, you are an electrician working in a small town and someone conducts a search for “electrician + your town”, there is a decent chance that you provide the services that they require. Ensuring your business is best placed to capture the attention of those searchers at exactly the right time is central to an effective marketing strategy. As these kinds of commercial search terms are highly competitive, you need to cultivate a deeper understanding of the intent behind those keyword searches.
The three core search query categories
– Navigational
If you have ever typed “Facebook” into the address bar in your browser, you have completed a navigational search query. Navigational search generates high-value traffic and provides opportunities to build brand awareness, steal clicks, and inflict feelings of doubt with regard to your competition.
– Informational
Identifying queries that are closely related to the services or products you provide is an excellent springboard for generating content that provides valuable information or answers the specific questions being asked. The aim here is to build brand awareness, develop your authority and credibility, and generate website traffic.
– Commercial
Commercial keywords are high-value and refer to the specific action you want your target audience to take, which might be anything from signing up to your newsletter to making a purchase.
Linking keywords and search intent
Creating successful content is often reliant on your list of target keywords and search intent can help you to identify more strategic keywords and phrases that will provide additional value to your digital strategy.
Clarifying search intent
Search intent is not always as clearly identifiable as we would like it to be. It is also very easy to attempt to rank well for content that simply won’t provide the sort of traction you want to generate. Although trusting your gut is sage advice in a variety of circumstances, when it comes to clarifying search intent, it is instead critical to search the keyword in question and analyse the results to identify precisely what Google sees as the intent.
A comprehensive grasp of search intent will simplify every facet of your SEO strategy. After all, if your content is not in sync with the intent of the search term, attempting to rank well will simply never succeed. As soon as you understand search intent, you can review your content strategy, improve existing content and identify the type of content you should strive to create in the future.