Creating User-Intent Based SEO Strategies Is A Sure Way To Gain Mileage In Online Marketing
When people search the internet for information and type or ask their queries to search engines, it becomes extremely important for marketers and search engines to understand the reason behind the searches. Discovering the real intention of searchers helps to understand what drove them to ask the question or what the purpose of gathering the information is. It can be that they are looking for some solutions to problems that they are facing. Or they might want to collect information about some products or services? Another reason can be that they want to buy something and are looking for some sources of procurement. The reason for searching is the user intent, and on knowing it, marketers can decide the type of content that would be appropriate in answering the question.
Google uses various tools, including AI, to discover the intent behind the searches so that they can serve the best results which are most relevant and useful to searchers. To make your website a favorite with users as well as search engines, you must understand user intent correctly. It will help to present the most relevant content that satisfies users to the fullest. As a result, not only the content and the respective web page but also the entire website would become very relevant for users and boost SEO prospects. You must base your SEO strategies according to user intent increases the relevance of the content that users find most useful.
Kinds of user intent
The type of content you should create depends on your SEO strategy. And to create the right type of content, you must have a proper understanding of the types of user intent. To start the exercise, you must type some commonly used search terms in the Google search box. By analyzing the search results, you will discover that users have different kinds of intentions, depending on which stage of the purchasing funnel they belong to. Based on the findings, you will discover that the search queries belong to three categories – informational searches, navigational searches, and transactional searches.
Informational search queries
When people decide to buy something, they first gather information about that product or service to understand its usefulness as much correctly as possible. The intention is clear that they want to know more about the product or service but not sure whether they would buy it. If you look at the SERP against any specific keyword of this type, the user intent will become quite evident. The search queries are very generic, like ‘marketing companies near me’ that hints at the user’s intention of trying to gather information only while the purpose for it remains unknown.
Navigational search queries
Having gone through the initial stage of gathering information, users have not yet made up their mind about buying. They would like to gather some more information about the different type that helps them to evaluate the options. They are still undecided about buying and would like to explore which option would be best for them. These search queries comprise of questions like ‘what are the best gaming TVs under $5000?’ The search results will display a list of blogs that compare gaming TVs within the price range that should help users to make some decisions about buying. Users may even type the name of a brand like ‘Samsung’ in the search query, which makes the search engines understand that users want to reach Samsung’s website.
Transactional search queries
This type of query comes from users who have already made up their minds about buying, and the query they place will reveal their intention of engaging in some transaction. This is the time when users are looking for places where they can buy the product or servic. So, naturally, the search results would comprise of names of sellers and their store address for that product. Transactional search queries are self-revealing, and the user intent becomes evident, which is easy to understand. These queries might specify the brand and manufacturer, which makes things easier for search engines to present specific answers.
Align content with user intent
On knowing what users want, review your current content to assess how much it matches their expectations. Enter your top-performing keywords in Google Analytics to see if the result page displays the content. For example, if the search query is ‘buy home water filters’ and the content topic is about cleaning water filters, it shows a disconnect between what users want and what you present.
Recasting your SEO strategy should help to create the right content relevant to search queries by relating it with user intent. So when users want to buy the water filter, they can quickly access a product page instead of a page that provides general information about water filters. This would increase the chances of conversion.
To enhance the attraction of your blog posts, you must insert more informational keywords in it. Using transactional keywords in the product page can help to improve ranking in searches with similar user intent.
Base your content on user intent
To gain mileage in SEO, you must develop strategies by considering the user intentand looking beyond keywords to discover the bigger picture of satisfying users with the most relevant content. Google focuses only on user intent. If it finds that your content is not addressing the user intent behind the keyword, then it would never consider it for presenting in the search results of that keyword.
The content must revolve around the search query so that it becomes an obvious choice for search engines. The more the content drifts away from the keyword in terms of user intent lesser are the chances of search engines choosing it for that keyword. At best, it can figure against search queries that seek general information, which does not help in any way to generate leads.
Developing content based on the type of user intent is the only way to fulfill user expectations. It can be quite rewarding as it has higher prospects of conversions.