Billions of Google searches are made daily and trillions of searches every year globally. While we search for anything on google, there is a purpose behind every search query. This purpose is user intent.
What is a Keyword Intent, and why do keywords matter in Search marketing?
The searcher’s words or phrases in the search bar are known as keywords. Generally, users’ intent gets reflected in the search query, so typed keywords in the google search bar come under Keyword intent.
Search marketing is the approach to acquiring online traffic and making your brand visible on Search Engine Result Pages. This approach uses organic or unpaid efforts and inorganic or paid efforts; if your brand is visible on SERP without paying a single penny to Google, it’s organic visibility.
If we consider search marketing a language, keywords are vocabulary for search communication and search engine advertising. Keywords carry motivation or purpose behind them, telling whether the user is looking to purchase or explore things or gather information. All Keywords can fall into four categories: informational, navigational, commercial or transactional. Don’t worry; we will discuss everything in detail later on.
What is User Intent?
When we search anything on Google, there is a reason behind every search made, and that reason might be anything. Maybe we want to gather some data for some research, or we might be investigating some topic or just casual search to know something. Sometimes, random thoughts pop into our minds, and we search based on our beliefs. We are humans, and we do not do anything without personal interest. We need rewards for every action we do during our lifetime. Those rewards are monetary, emotional, or anything that motivates us to do that task.
So we can say there is a motivating or driving force for any action we do, which applies to Google searches. So every search query made on Google results from some motivation or driving force. This driving force is user intent.
What is the importance of knowing User Intent?
Start creating content based on user intent; there are utmost chances that they will be visible on the top results of the search engine result page.
So, as a business, to attain a lot of online traffic through organic ways, you should leverage the full power of implementing user intent while creating content for publishing online.
You should creatively apply an intent-based strategy for maximum visibility. One crucial step in this strategy is proper keyword research and knowing various user intents associated with keywords.
Types of User Intent or Keyword Intent
While writing any content to be published online, there are around four types of user intent or keyword intent that need to be taken care of or considered. Practically it’s challenging to figure out the exact user intent. Still, while writing, if you follow some points or focus on specific user intents, it will help your content discover your prospective reader. So it is advised to at least focus on one of the user intent or keyword intent mentioned below:
Informational Intent: As the name suggests, the user wants some information or answers to questions. So this informational intent is crucial to consider as a business. You should write content intended to answer questions that may arise in the minds of your present customers or prospective buyers. You should include keywords that depict informational intent. Commonly, we can identify content with an informational goal by skimming powerful words like Who, Why, When, What, Where, Which, How, Are, etc.
While writing informative content, the motive is to create unique and helpful content because your website often competes with others. So it’s essential to think about what you’ve created for your audience should correctly answer the question. The goal is to include the information from your blog post on the featured snippet of SERP, also known as ‘position zero’.
For Example – What is the difference between bread and chapatti? So if a user searches these keywords, then his intent is visible that he is looking for some information. If information from your blog post is featured on position Zero, then it means you have done incredible content work. But sometimes, a user might have mixed intent, and he might be looking for information, and while looking, he might buy something.
Navigational Intent: The user knows what information he requires from the exact resource, page, or brand website. As the name suggests, under this intent searcher’s primary purpose is navigating the content from the specific resource or brand in his mind. A navigational query is often just another way of searching for an exact URL.
For example – easy dessert recipe Sanjeev Kapoor. In this search query, the searcher wants to know some easy dessert recipes by only chef Sanjeev Kapoor. So his intent is navigational as the user knows which particular resource or page he should refer to for gathering the information. Another example could be Instagram because the purpose is to access Instagram.
Navigational user intent applies to videos or vlogs, not just blogs or written content. We often search on the youtube search bar for videos of our favourite creators. Youtube is also a Search Engine.
Commercial Intent: When a user is investigating or researching before buying any goods or services. The user is logically or practically thinking, making inquiries, and researching. When the intent is commercial, the searcher typically searches for detailed reviews of the products or services. People also use the term investigative intent for commercial user intent. Generally, people often type words such as difference, reviews, compare, best, top etc., when their objective is commercial. Commercial intent is usually converted into transactional intent. There can be so many examples of commercial intent.
One such can be – Dell Inspiron laptop reviews hp laptop or Lenovo Thinkpad.
Transactional Intent: This type of intent proceeds after commercial intent when the user has done sufficient research for any product or service. Transactional intent means when the searcher is ready to complete an action or a transaction. He is looking to buy something. Generally, digital marketers use transactional keyword intents while creating Search Engine Marketing campaigns or Pay Per Click Ads. The driving force or motivational force behind this intent is to do a transaction or make a purchase. Under this intent, searchers also type keywords like Free, Subscribe, Purchase, Buy, Sell etc.
For example – A free online video editing course. When a searcher types this transactional intent Keyword in the search bar, he is undoubtedly looking for free online video editing courses. So it is an opportunity for all the digital marketers to grab a customer. So if the intent is known, then advertising becomes very much simplified.
User Intent Transmutation
User intent is very subjective, and it may vary from one person to another. Many thoughts come into our minds the whole day; statistically speaking, around 6000-10,000 ideas pop into our minds daily. So practically determining user intent is very complex yet achievable. Sometimes a user searches for something with an informational motive. Still, while discovering it, he may end up committing a transaction. Digital Marketers use this transmuting nature of mind for their benefit, and almost in every informational blog, in the end, they put a transactional link of their products or services.
For example, a searcher typed ethical hacking in the google search bar to get some information on ethical hacking. He came across a blog post describing ethical hacking. The blog content was very well created, and at the end of the blog post, there was a transactional link to purchase the entire course. The reader couldn’t resist himself and ended up doing a transaction or buying the hacking course. So intent gets transmuted from informational to transactional.
Empathize with customers
Empathy means putting yourself in your reader’s shoes to experience them emotionally. It would be best to empathize with your customers when you make content for your brand website, blog posts, or products and services. Try to figure out what questions may arise in your reader’s mind and provide proper solutions to those questions in your content. So basically, you have to be empathetic to your prospective clients to know their user intents. You can study the buying behaviour of your existing customers.
For example, a blog post about your brand’s history with informational intent should not rank on Google when the searcher searches with keywords like buy, purchase, or subscribe to do the transaction.
How to write user-friendly content with intent in mind?
It is not practically always possible to know precisely user intent and the purpose behind any searched keyword in the google search bar. But it is beneficial if you alter your content keeping all the keyword intents discussed above in mind while writing. You may not get immediate sales or immediate results from incorporating user intent in mind while writing. Still, in the long term, it will help.
To make better content, you should have an idea to understand what your readers type in the search bar that brings them to your website so that you can convert your readers to buyers quickly. An ideal way to look into this is at Google Search Console. Then focus on creating quality content with all the insights you get from the search console.
“Make sure you’re creating content for real people, not searching bots.”
Keyword Intent tools.
While writing blog posts or online content, writers search for primary and secondary keywords through various keyword research tools. Below are some free tools we have figured out for you.
| For finding great ideas: | For conducting keyword research: |
| – Google Autosuggest | – Google Keyword Planner |
| – Google Trends | – UberSuggest |
| – Google Autosuggest | |
| – Keywordtool.io |
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