If you have ever been involved with digital marketing, or you have ever looked at how to optimise your content for a target keyword on your website, then there is a good chance that you have come across the words ‘search intent’. As search engines become more sophisticated, understanding what people are searching for, and what their specific intent behind that search is, becomes more important.

What is search intent though, and why do you need to get a handle on it for your business?

What exactly is ‘search intent’?

Search intent is pretty much exactly as it sounds — it is the keyword intent behind specific search query posed by a user. Thinking about the last time you took your fingers to the keyboard in Google, what was your intention?

• Were you searching for some info?

• Were you looking for something to buy?

• Were you looking for the answer to a question? Either a quick response or in-depth explanation?

• Perhaps you were looking for a video on a specific subject?

The actual informational intent behind the search is going to determine which search results are going to be more useful to you.

Let’s say I hit my favourite search engine up because the family game night is coming up, and I want to find an excellent board game. The problem is that I don’t know what I want, so I use the search term “best board games.”

Whichever search engine you use, you are going to get two things in the results pages — sites listing the best board games over the last year and a fair number of advertisements.

Now, this isn’t really what I want. If I was looking for the latest or most purchased over the 12 months, that’s what I should have entered into the search bar. I just want something traditional that is going to be easy to pick up and play.

Altering the search term to “fun board games for a family game night” produces results that are closer to my intent. Looking through the results, I see one that I like the look of, so I search for that one in particular.

Searching for the specific game gives me prices, which shops that stock it and which of those shops are closest to me — including directions and opening times. If you perform a similar search yourself you will see the results are vastly different, this is because the intent is different — there are more results for stores than a manufacturer and no results at all for ‘top ten’ lists.

This is, of course, a simple example, but it serves its purpose in terms of showing the different types of search and intent and how it impacts the results pages.

So why is search intent essential for SEO?

Understanding that you can optimise for search intent for a specific website or product pages will certainly increase your ROI or your client’s bottom line.

Using search engines to query your own business may produce a lot of results relevant to your business, but which effects are related in terms of what you want to be appearing for ‘actual’ searchers? Using your findings, you can optimise your content pages to rank for the words that are important for you or create content that answers specific queries. That’s the direction you want to be moving in.

Knowing this is one thing, but you also need to be thinking about the search intent. Without knowing and understanding the intention, you are going to be moving against the wind. You need to identify the terms that people are using when they are looking to make a purchase, for example, as opposed to looking for an answer to something.

Let’s take another example: Say that you sell coffee tables. If somebody uses a term like “mahogany effect, glass-topped coffee table” they know what type of table they want. However, if they search for “coffee tables for sale near me” then they are much further along the purchase path.

Knowing they intend to buy a specific item means being able to create explicit content. You can produce some exceptional informational content about “mahogany effect” tables, so the users come to your site and trust that you are a reputable source of information. Then you will be “top of mind” when it comes to buying a specific product.

“Top of mind, tip of tongue.” — Jonah Berger

All search queries fall into at least one of the following:

• Navigational — they want a specific location.

• Site queries — they are looking for a particular website.

• Purchase/action — the search queries they use when looking to make an action, otherwise, known as transactional intent which is sometimes called the Holy Grail of search marketing.

• Information — they are just looking for information or an answer to a question.

How do you go about organising, optimising your website with a user’s search intent firmly in mind? Quite frankly, your landing pages need to match the search intent.

If you do sell actual products or services, then the product descriptions need to be created with user intent in mind.

Knowing when to provide information content and when to make it purchasing content is something of an art form, but at the heart of it lies the understanding search intent.

What it all boils down to is that properly optimised content answers search intent. If the content is poorly constructed or too long-winded then when your visitors just want to click ‘buy’ you could end up losing them. Alternatively, if your content is not informational enough when they just need an answer to something, then you are losing valuable traffic and reputation.

Final tip: Do your keyword research, use tools such as alsoasked.com to find out what questions you need to answer to best help your potential customers.

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