Dedicating a prominent amount of your time and efforts to SEO always pays off. As you are probably aware how much importance whitehat SEO has for a blogger. Understanding the pinnacle of SEO elements can put you one or two steps ahead of your competitors in less time.
In this article, we will go through what is search intent? What are the benefits of utilizing search intent on your site? and how can you modify your content according to your search intent type? Therefore, making it easier for any beginner to learn more about how Search intents work.
What Is Search Intent?
The term “Search Intent” is rather easy to understand if we break it down into simpler forms. Search + Intent, where intent means the intention of someone or something. So if we combine them together, Search Intent means the motive or reason why a person is initiating a search.
Most bloggers often overlook this essential SEO factor while being too SEO-centric with other aspects. Not understanding why a person is running a search query can put you at a disadvantage in many ways. Hence, the search intent of your visitors is the key factor that decides which search engine result, an individual will select.
Different Types Of Search Intent To Consider
The search intents are mainly divided into four categories as below. All of them are based on past search queries research and observation to understand a users’ behavior. Let’s go through them one by one to get more information about each of them.
- Navigational Intent
- Informative Intent
- Consumer Intent
- Preferential Intent
1. Navigational Approach
The first and the most direct one is navigational search intent. You may have also done it unconsciously many times. A navigational search intent refers to a condition when a user searches for a particular website or URL.
For example, if you wish to start a new blog with WordPress, your possible search can be related to blogging tools for beginner bloggers. To be specific a person will search SemRush or any other SEO software according to their preference. Searches like this help the user to navigate to a specific webpage easily.
2. Informative Approach
Informative search intent is the most common one that we usually implement. Whenever we hit Google or any other search engine looking for some information, we are taking the informative approach.
As the user’s main motive is to get the information he/she desires, keywords like How, What, and Why are often present in their search query. It allows them to get the exact data they want from the internet.
3. Consumer Approach
There are billions of people who do online shopping every year. So it is inevitable that not all searches are made for gathering information only. People are constantly searching for new deals and discounts on their favorite products while being ready to buy them anytime.
In order to achieve this, they take the consumer approach or we can say transactional search intent. Due to the fact that they are ready to buy something, their search queries can vary depending on the product.
4. Preferential Approach
The word “Preferential” is used for those people who are about to buy a service or product in the near future. These potential customers do their research before deciding to buy a product.
Each potential buyer goes through a number of e-commerce stores to gather information and reviews regarding that product. This means they are not visiting the e-commerce stores with an intent to actually buy them on the spot. Such type of preferential approach indicates investigative search intent.
3 Reasons Why Search Intent Is Essential
Can Boost Your Rankings
Identifying your visitor’s search intent can help you move up in the SERP rankings. But how? Once you start offering the information they exactly want, it is obvious your site will get more organic clicks from the search engine results.
Knowing how to satisfy your visitor can help you improve your on-site duration score significantly. As the visitor will spend more time going through the information, your site will become a better source of information in comparison to others. A lower bounce rate plus informative content is more likely to boost your overall rankings for sure.
Helps You Create Accurate Content
Content accuracy plays an important role in estimating the amount of time it will take you to hit top positions. Not to mention the more accurate your content is, the more it will be able to help your visitor. But what if you are not sure what type of content is accurate for your site?
In such cases, following the search intent of your visitors can help you a lot. The only reason behind creating content is to offer the right set of information to someone who needs it. So following search intent data can help you create content that is capable of satisfying the visitors.
Improves Overall Site Credibility
Site credibility is not easy to increase quickly. Especially if your site is not too old, it is difficult to get the attention of Google crawlers and mark your site as a reliable source of information. No wonder you will get an automatic boost in rankings if it happens.
Utilizing the search intents successfully will result in more satisfied visitors per month. Resulting in more returning visitors to your site. It will boost your overall site credibility in eyes of Google if you take a search intent-based approach.
How To Modify Your Content According To Search Intents?
Modifying your content according to search intents may seem difficult. But it is not that difficult after you successfully identify your visitors’ search intent or what they actually want.
Below are some effective ways to modify your site content according to the search intents. Go through them to make sure you receive the best possible number of visitors to your site.
1. Figure Out Your Audience Type
Thinking as a potential visitor of your website is one of the best ways to experience what your visitors want. Even though understanding your audience type is also important. By doing so you understand the way of thinking they have.
Go through your most popular keywords and top-ranking pages to determine what is working for them. It will help you decide what type of audience you actually have along with their area of interest.
2. Refining Content Approach
Only focusing on keywords and SEO while creating content is not a wise choice at all. As the main motive of creating quality content is to satisfy the visitors, we recommend refining your content approach accordingly.
For instance, if your visitors are searching for “Best Webhosting Providers For WordPress” your content should be accurate enough to guide them. Instead of just listing out the providers’ names in a bullet list, you need to explain to them why those options are best for your visitors.
3. Pursue Longtail Search Queries
It may sound more like a Keyword research practice but pursuing longtail keywords can benefit you in many ways. Fulfilling various search intents os among them. Because people usually search a longer query when they are looking for specific information.
As we discussed previously, this type of approach seeking information can come in many variants. Therefore going through the Google suggestions under “People Also Ask For” or using a long tail keyword research tool can help you. In this way, you can modify your content according to the exact queries people are looking for.
4. Learn From Your Competitors
Your competitors do not exist to give you extra stress only, sometimes they can be useful too. If you see a site ranking higher than your site for the same term, you can learn a lot from it.
Go through their site to find out what approach they are taking for significant results. Fortunately, if your competitors have any featured snippets ranking at the top in SERPs, you can follow in their footsteps to rank your content in a similar way.
Final Thoughts
It goes without saying that each SEO element is important when it comes to making your blog successful. Despite how small it may seem, Search intent is an aspect that is easy to deal with if you follow the right path.
In conclusion, consider sparing some time for conducting research regarding your site’s search intent. Not to mention we have discussed how you can modify your content according to it. It will benefit you and your business both without a doubt. Feel free to ask any questions below and share your suggestions.
