When most people think about keyword research, they think about search volume and difficulty rankings. While those are both important to consider, there’s another factor that often gets missed: search intent. This small but impactful detail is what search engines associate with keywords and why people are searching for those terms. Knowing what the intent is, along with when and how to use it is an important factor in writing solid content, optimising your pages, and getting the right kind of attention in the right places.
What Is Search Intent?
Search intent is the associated motivation behind a search. It’s linked with different tasks, like when someone’s trying to find an answer to something, they’re looking for a specific brand or page, they’re comparing options between two products or services, or they’re ready to buy. It’s the “why” behind every search, and the intentions themselves are informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional.
Google is great at figuring out what the intent is by the language used. As a result, the kind of language you use and where you put it matters. Aligning intent and where it’s placed on your website is a major part of the customer journey.
The Four Types of Search Intent
With all of that in mind, let’s get into what each search intent actually means and why they matter:
- Informational: This one is pretty self-explanatory. The function behind it is labelling information as something that people would be looking for when they’re trying to learn – like this blog, for example. Informational intent is often phrased in a question format, like “how does search intent work”, or “what is search intent”. You’re in the learning phase, not looking for a specific organisation to teach you, nor a business that has a service you want.
- Navigational: If you’ve already found information or a brand you know and like, navigational terms help you get there. Rather than manually typing a full URL, you just go to Google and search for the brand name or a product they offer. Navigational search intent would be like looking up “Reform Digital“, for example.
- Commercial: There can be a bit of confusion when comparing commercial and transactional, as they both imply someone’s about ready to make a purchase or book in. Commercial intent specifically refers to when people are beyond research, but not quite at the buying point. It’s when you’re comparing your two options more closely, with search terms like “best SEO agency Melbourne” or “iPhone vs Samsung”.
- Transactional: This is the intent you’ll see when someone has done their research, compared their options, and they want to commit. Whether that’s buying something online, booking an appointment, or signing up for a service, these search terms usually include things like “buy (book from your favourite author)” or “get a free website audit”.
How to Use Different Intents Across Your Website
With the subtle differences between search intent, you can see why getting things just right matters when you’re trying to get the kind of attention you want. This should help to dictate and influence your SEO and copywriting strategy. To break it down further, here’s some context of where each kind of search intent works best.
- Informational search terms are ideal to include in everything from blogs and guides to FAQ content on category pages. Whether you’re explaining complex terms in an easy to digest way, or showcasing how your product has been created and why, you’re meeting prospective customers at the top of the funnel, which builds trust long before they’re ready to convert.
- Navigational intent is really more about brand awareness and making sure you’re easy to find, so it’s something you’ll want to include specifically on your home page and a little on your About page. When people know you by name, it’s more about delivering on the expectations people have already formed about your business.
- Commercial is the next step up, and these are the kind of search intent terms to include on pages like service or product pages, your case studies, and any content that could be influential in user comparisons. This is where the weighty social proof needs to come in, with the right balance of information to differentiate you from the competition, without being overwhelming when it’s crunch time on a decision. This is the moment to give your readers (and prospective customers) something to lean on.
- Transactional intent is your final piece of content and helps people to find your specific products or services after the research and comparison stage. They’re used with one goal in mind, to get someone to take action – whether that’s an online purchase or a lead generation conversion.
The trick with these is to make sure you’re differentiating your content, rather than throwing a few keywords from each intent at the wall (read: every page) and hoping they stick. Your website content will end up feeling a little stale and repetitive, without any real direction for people to follow.
Where Brand, Content, and SEO Come In
Now that you’re across what each intent is for and where to use it, here’s how to bring it all together. You’ll want to strike the right balance between technical SEO components, well-crafted copy, and of course, your brand and its unique tone of voice.
When it comes to SEO, your strategy needs to start with the keyword research and make sure you’re checking the associated intent. When you match the right kind of keywords that have specific associations with the right kind of intent, and use them on the right kind of pages, you’re onto something good. Then, when someone comes across your page from the SERP, not only are you actually fulfilling their query, you’re also landing them on the right part of your website for the part of the journey they’re on.
To get specific about content itself, along with using those keywords and the right intent, you’ll want to map out how they actually flow into each other. Your blogs and guides are the top of the funnel where you’re educating people. They need to flow into the case studies and category pages, with your content getting progressively more commercial and transactional as you follow the path from blog → case study → category page.
Finally, brand is more than just your business name. It’s the “how” to match the “why” of your communication. Outside of the right information, a well-designed website that’s gone through a solid CRO audit and web dev really does contribute to making people want to choose you over everyone else once they’ve done their research. Everyone has different preferences, too. Some people love big and loud branding, while others prefer the softer and more laidback style. Regardless of which you are, keep it consistent and make sure you’re weaving it through every part of communication and pick the keywords that resonate with who you are, not just what you do.
When all of these steps align, your website stops being a digital storefront and instead becomes a genuine tool for growth. Rather than hoping just anyone will trip across you, you’ll be getting traffic from people who are genuinely interested in what you do and are actively searching to find a business just like yours. From there, you’re building a pathway that meets different people at different stages and guides them toward the outcome that works for both of you.
Wrapping Up The Intent Package
This concept isn’t overly complicated, it just takes a bit of careful planning and thought. Having a balance of the right terms, intent, and putting content in the right place is the foundation of this SEO concept. It’ll help take you from wondering why your bounce rate is so high to getting high-quality traffic that’s going to keep coming back.
If you’re not sure where to start, or are struggling with your current strategy, the team at Reform would love to take a look. Get in touch for a free discovery call and we can work through it together.
