It’s difficult to stress out just how important Search Intent is for SEO and it is not an exaggeration to say that if you want to rank in organic SERPs, understanding and creating content with Search Intent in mind can be crucial. The answer to what search intent is is the reason behind every search query.
Why Search Intent?
A search engine’s aim is to provide users with the most relevant result for their query. However, some queries can be somewhat cryptic as to what the reasons behind them are, which is where the Search Intent comes into play. In order to rank in search engines you need to be the most relevant result for the query and what that means first and foremost is creating content that aligns with Search Intent. So if you’re trying to rank for the best product in a niche with your product page, it might never happen simply because users are searching for a list of the best products in your niche from an independent source.
Thus search intent is something you must align to when first doing Keyword Research and then both writing new content and optimising the onpage elements. If you don’t take Search Intent into account at the Keyword Research stage, you may end up writing content that will not stand a chance at ranking. And the reason behind this is that satisfying Search Intent is a search engine’s final goal.
The Four Types of Search Intent
Depending on the keyword you are researching you will find that it satisfies one of the 4 commonly accepted search intents:
- Navigational
- Transactional
- Conversational
- Informational
More often than not, Head Phrases are used to search for a service directly, which makes them, most of the time, appear either navigational or transactional. Longtail Keywords normally fall under the conversational or informational intent, one that seeks to start a conversation or seeks more in-depth information on a topic of interest, respectively.
The Navigational Search Intent is when the user is looking for a specific website or entity. The user already knows where he/she wants to go and what information he/she is looking for, but it’s probably easier for them to search it than to type the entire URL into the address bar, especially when the user wants to navigate to a particular landing page on a website.
It’s worth noting that Navigational Search Intent doesn’t always imply searching for a brand name, it might as well be a product or a person. However, it does imply that the user is searching for a landing page that he/she wants to navigate to directly and as it’s mostly searches associated with a specific website or entity.
The Transactional Search Intent implies that the user is looking to make a purchase and is already aware of the product, but needs a website to buy it from. For instance, if you would search for “Buy Keyword Search Intent tool” you will find that the SERPs provide a mixed search intent, where most search results focus either on an in-depth resource on Keyword Search Intent Tools or Digital Products ready to buy. The reason for this is simply because there aren’t enough Keyword Search Intent tools available on the market and as soon as they will appear, more and more search results will focus around a digital product that can be bought directly from the landing page.
Conversational Search Intent comes in the form of open or closed-ended questions that often require a real-time answer. Conversational Search Intent is somewhat new compared to other search intents and is the result of the introduction of voice search. A great example of a Conversational Keyword Intent would be “Weather in London” or “Time in Barcelona”. In these instances search engines understand that the meaning behind the search query is not a generic however in-depth description of what the weather is like in London, but a real-time answer of the temperature and precipitation in London.
Conversational Search Intent also implies that the user is in the process of interacting with a piece of information and is not necessarily at the decision stage, but rather at a stage of broadening their awareness of a topic. Another good example would be “Advantages of Ahrefs”, which would be a mix of navigational, informational and transactional search queries or in other words a conversational search query because it is part of a broader research process and the user is interested in finding more information which is not necessarily a complete solution to a problem.
Informational Search Intent is when a search query is looking for a solution to a problem that can be satisfied with just information. These tend to be narrow-downed topics of interest that can be satisfied with an article, blog post or guide. A good example could be “How is HTML5 different than previous versions” or “What are the advantages of SEO over PPC”.
Most SEO Managers would agree that there is another type of Search Intent called Commercial instead of Conversational, but I feel like the commercial search queries would most often be either Transactional or Informational and there is little point in having this category altogether.
Accounting For Search Intent
For a long time, the easiest way of checking the Search Intent for a Search Query when doing Keyword Research was to type it into a search engine and manually review the results. Although search intent is often evident from the search query itself, it is not always the case which is why it is important to check it manually.
So for instance, if you were to search for the “Search Intent” keyword, you would find nothing else than a list of comprehensive guides on what search intent is and how it works in the context of SEO from the likes of Backlinko, Ahrefs and Search Engine Journal. If on the other hand, you would be to search for “Search Intent tool” you will find that still a vast majority of the results are guides, apart from a single result from KeywordInsights.ai, which is able to compete with the other giants of the SEO industry, by developing a digital product that serves the specific search intent of the query.
Based on these results, it is evident that the market for “Search Intent Tools” is in its infancy and a tool that helps determine search intent may very well be a viable way of attracting SEO customers to your website.
Determine Search Intent in SEMRush
Search Intent is one of the most difficult aspects to get right in Keyword Research, but it doesn’t have to be. The long-used method of finding Search Intent is simply going to the search results and capturing the Intent behind each and every listing on the first page of SERPs. This however has changed with SEMRush which can now help you determine Search Intent for any keyword automatically.
Optimising for Search Intent
Search intent should pretty much dictate the type of content you create. For keywords that have Navigational Search Intent, ensure you have your brand name visible in every Page Title. In the case of Transactional Search Intent, create a Product Landing Page. When targeting Conversational Search Intent, make sure you have a related section on your website, along with internal links within your content that would assist users in fully solving a Search Query. When targeting Informational Search Intent, write a comprehensive article that fully solves the Search Query.
It goes without saying that the four search intent groups are way too broad to be actionable and in order to truly optimise for search intent, you need to analyse the actual SERPs in detail. In many cases it would make sense to go to individual SERP results landing pages to better understand the content you will be competing against.
1. Check the SERP Reliability
Search Engine rankings aren’t static, they fluctuate and change over time. Given that you’re relying on the nature of the current top-ranking pages to infer Search Intent, this can be a problem because you are judging Search Intent based on a single snapshot in time. If you were to analyse the top-ranking pages next month, your understanding of Search Intent may be different in some cases. For that reason, it pays also to check the ranking history of your target keyword.
Checking SERP Fluctuations in Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
This can be achieved using Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer. Enter the keyword you want to analyse into Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and scroll all the way to the bottom where you will find the Position history graph which shows the SERP volatility for a particular keyword.
What you are trying to find here is whether there is any fluctuation in rankings over time. When there is little or no fluctuation in organic rankings, it indicates that the current top-ranking pages are a good proxy for Search Intent. In other words, when targeting these keywords it is reliable to look at SERPs to identify Search Intent.
When there are some fluctuations in pages, it means that the current SERPs may not be entirely reliable to check directly for Search Intent. However, if you pay attention to those pages that have retained consistent rankings over time, you are probably in the clear. What about the pages that do fluctuate? Well, in these cases most likely what is happening is that the search engine isn’t entirely clear on whether these pages meet the Search Intent which is why it might be useful to check them as examples of what to be cautious about.
Similarly, when you see lots of fluctuations in the organic rankings, it means that the search engine is most likely struggling to understand the real intent behind the search query or that the Search Intent is constantly changing, in which case it might be a good idea to isolate those landing pages that have more or less constant rankings and investigate those as good examples for Search Intent or throw yourself all cracking the Search Intent by coming up with something completely original.
2. Aligning Your Content
Now that you understand the Search Intent of your keyword, analyse the search results for the Content Type, Content Format and Content Angle.
Content Type can be a Blog Post, Product Page, Category Page or Landing Page. Your task here is to look for the most dominant Content Type in the search results, then make sure to align your content with that said Content Type.
Content Format can be a How to Guide, Step-byStep Tutorial, List Post, Opinion Piece, Review or Comparison. When aligning you content with Search Intent, it makes sense to follow the crowd. The Content Format mostly applies to informational and conversational search queries.
Content Angle refers to the unique selling point (USP) of the top-ranking pages and provides insight into what searchers value when making this particular search. Pay particular attention to SERP features and whatever stands out in the offer itself, especially in the case of transactional keywords.
3. Take Inspiration from SERPs
Aligning your search intent can go a long way in correctly understanding and targeting your Search Query, but if you’re serious about targeting a query, you need to analyse both the SERPs and top-ranking pages in more detail. Especially when the SERP volatility is low that is the only way to truly understand what people want to see, and what your content should talk about.
Nothing gives you more insight into Search Intent than actually visiting the top-ranking pages. In fact, there’s no other way to truly understand what searchers want to see. Some of the key things to keep in mind when taking inspiration from top-ranking pages are:
- The importance of images and visuals: few people want to see stock images which are nearly identical across all websites and provide limited additional value. Opt for real imagery that is unique to your website.
- Implement an internal linking strategy: so that when a user lands on one of your pages, he/she will be tempted to visit other pages as he/she goes through his/her research.
- Consider User Personas and different types of backgrounds your visitors might have and how this should reflect in your content.
Re-Optimising Pages for Search Intent
Re-optimizing old landing pages for Search Intent is one of the fastest ways to get more organic traffic to your website.
One of the ways of doing so with Search Intent in mind is paying close attention to the ‘People Also Ask’ boxes in search results. Answering the questions you find in ‘People Also Ask’ boxes as part of an FAQ section or depending on your content format, even using headings can go a long way in making your content relevant for Search Intent.
One thing you have to keep in mind about optimising for Search Intent is that it is not always about content. This is particularly applicable to commercial search queries which often target visitors who want to ‘Sign up for a trial’ or ‘Get a quote’. Creating long-form content for such pages may turn up to be a mistake as the users that search for them may have a completely different Search Intent in mind.
Optimising for User Experience
If you are wondering how search engines know if a page is a good fit for Search Intent, you are not alone. They simply look at the way people interact with the SERPs and the individual landing pages within SERPs.
To put it simply, most often Search Engines can tell if users are satisfied with an individual search result. If they notice that an individual Landing Page is better at satisfying a Search Query, they move it up the organic rankings. Otherwise, they downrank it.
More specifically, search engines don’t like the idea of ‘pogo sticking’ or users browsing from one result to the next. Instead, they prefer when users land on a page and get an answer to the search query from that single page.