Search Intent and Rankings

What is search intent and how does it affect the search engine rankings of your website?

Free traffic is the very best traffic you can get. Rather than paying big dollars on advertising to get exposure for your site, if you can rank well in Google and the other SERPs, you’ll receive a steady, increasing flow of organic traffic that doesn’t cost a cent.

Let’s take a closer look at search intent and what it means for your website rankings.

What Is Search Intent?

Also known as user intent, searcher intent and audience intent, search intent is a term used to describe the purpose behind an online search. People search online looking for specific information, or a product or service.

As a website owner, you want to know how to tap into search intent and use keywords, phrases and methods that captures search intent and impresses Google, so the SERP ranks your website higher. What Google is aiming to do is rank the most relevant sites or content the highest so it accurately matches the search intent of the user.

A search term typed into Google might be specific, but Google’s algorithm is also striving to understand the actual intent behind the search term that’s been input.

If you can understand the intent of your target audience and create content around that intent, you’ll have a far better chance of achieving first page rankings when someone does a relevant search.

The different types of search intent can basically be broken down into 4 categories:

1. Information – The user is searching for specific information or is looking for the solution to a problem or the answer to a question.
2. Navigational – In this instance, the user is looking for a specific website.
3. Transactional – Someone might be looking to buy an item online and is browsing around for the best deal.
4. Commercial Investigation – This is more about researching a product someone wishes to buy soon, but they haven’t yet made up their mind. As an example, what’s the best camera for a beginner?

Optimising Content For Search Intent

Whatever landing page you want to attract visitors to, it needs to be relevant to the search intent of the visitor. Subheadings that are questions are an effective way of drawing in traffic from people looking for an answer to a question. This why having sections for FAQ on your site is always a good idea, along with answering questions in your site’s content.

If the search intent of the user is based on finding information, you won’t want them landing on a product page that’s trying to directly sell them something. Likely this will scare the visitor off, or at the least make them feel somewhat duped.

For product pages, more commercial keyword phrases that are directed at potential buyers is the best way to attract your target audience.

In Conclusion

If you can understand the search intent of the users you want to attract to your site and create content around that intent, you’ll be able to boost your website rankings and increase the traffic to your site.

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