A Complete Guide to SEO Search Intent
Ever wonder how Google understands what you mean when you type a single keyword into the search bar? For example, when you search for “MacBook,” you’re most likely to get a list of websites selling this product instead of articles about the history of MacBooks or guides explaining how to repair them at home.
Google has come a long way. It used to use a keyword-based ranking approach. Now, it implements advanced algorithms that infer the real question behind certain keywords—which is where search intent comes into play. Today, by creating and optimizing pages according to the “one search intent = one page = one keyword cluster” rule, you can cover different search intent queries while helping Google rank your content faster.
In this article, we’ll explain what search intent is, why it is important for SEO, how to determine search intent from keywords, and what the main benefits of search intent targeting are.
TL;DR
User intent refers to the objective that a user seeks to accomplish when conducting a search on Google or any other search engine. In other words, it’s the “why” behind these searches.
You can divide all queries used by people online into five primary types of search intent: informational, navigational, transactional, commercial, and local.
By tailoring your content to user intent, you’ll benefit in a variety of ways, including:
- Improvement in website rankings
- Increase in organic traffic
- Brand trust enhancement
- Drawing in more qualified leads
What is User Intent?
To make sure users find the most relevant and valuable results in SERPs, search engines use machine learning models to understand why people conduct a specific search. In other words, Google first tries to identify the search intent of the query that the person typed into the search engine.
As the name suggests, user intent (search/audience/keyword intent) is the term used to describe the goal people have when entering a search phrase. Their goal could be to get information on a certain topic or find a solution to a problem. Maybe the user wants to complete a purchase or take action on a website. Some users, however, prefer to review product information and comparisons before investing in something.
Google does its best to put the most relevant answer to a search query at the top of the SERP. This is why most marketers strive to align with search intent. It is an almost surefire way to improve rankings in search results. With SE Ranking’s Keyword Ranking Tracker, you can easily monitor keyword performance and make adjustments to your SEO strategy as needed.
Take a look at our guide on tracking search engine rankings to learn new effective techniques for analyzing your website’s performance on search engines and optimizing your SEO strategy.
The 5 Types of Search Intent
Now, let’s dive deeper into types of search intent.
- Informational: The goal is to acquire specific data, conduct research a particular topic, or learn new information.
- Commercial: The goal is to find more detailed information on a product/service before making a purchase.
- Transactional: The goal is to make a purchase.
- Navigational: The goal is to find a specific brand/website.
- Local: The goal is to find products/services available within a specific geographic area.
The informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial categories were initially developed by Andrei Broder of Altavista. In 2002, he came up with a framework to identify the searcher’s intent in his seminal paper “A Taxonomy of Web Search.” Instead of focusing on SEO, Broder was just trying to determine the need behind every search. But today, this methodology is widely used by SEOs to achieve their marketing goals.
Apart from the four main types of user intent, there is a fifth type that is gaining importance in the world of SEO called local search intent. Each year, it is becoming more and more significant due to the increasing use of mobile devices and the rise of voice search. Currently, local SEO has become crucial for businesses that either have a physical presence or offer location-based services.
Informational Search Intent
As you may have guessed, the purpose of search queries for users with informational intent is to learn something. These search queries could be in the form of a specific question (e.g., how long does it take to get to the Moon?) or broad investigations that require research (e.g., the role of mass media in childhood socialization).
Google usually displays answers to specific questions with the help of featured snippets. These highlighted excerpts of text sit at the top of the SERP so users can save time browsing the Internet.
For example, if you type “who won the NBA Finals 2022” in the search box, your SERP will most likely look like this:
In addition to giving a clear answer to the question, Google also provides information about the Golden State Warriors team in the Knowledge Panel on the right side of search results. Meanwhile, the People Also Ask feature answers similar questions related to the user’s search query.
Informational SEO search intent can be recognized by question words like who, what, when, where, why, how, etc. For instance:
- Who invented the radio?
- When did the Titanic sink?
- Where is Elon Musk from?
- Why doesn’t it thunderstorm in the winter?
But that’s not always the case. Google also infers informational search intent from general noun keywords, such as:
- Carbonara sauce
- Chetham’s Library location
- UX writing trends
- Money-saving tips
The Importance of Informational Search Intent for Your Business
According to a Penn State research study conducted in 2007, more than 80% of all search queries are informational. Fifteen years later, this trend still remains the same—people look up information on the web more than anything else.
By providing your audience with high-quality informational and educational content, you can showcase your expertise in a certain field, generate brand awareness, and build authority. Many companies also perceive informational content as their chance to make a positive first impression on their target audience.
However, as you can see with the SERP features, Google often provides users with enough information right on the SERP. As a result, people are less inclined to click through to a sites content, and you might lose direct traffic to your webpages.
How to Optimize for Informational User Intent
Blog posts, in-depth guides, a list of tips, how-to videos, and checklists are the most popular forms of informational content on the Internet. Pay attention to these content types when optimizing for informational user intent.
To get started, examine the way people look up information online. Discover informational keywords around your topics with the help of these features:
- Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) section—type your keyword into the search box and find lots of related questions that people are searching on Google.
- Google’s Related Searches section—just like the PAA section, the Related Searches block provides related suggestions in the form of keywords.
- SE Ranking’s keyword search offers a list of similar, related, and low-search volume keywords for you to optimize your content for.
Just click Keyword Research in the top navigation bar, paste a seed keyword, and scroll down to the Keyword Ideas section.
Alternatively, you can directly access this tool from the widget below:
You can also use this tool to get search volume and competition insights on the keywords you plan to use in your SEO strategy. What’s more, by filtering these keywords with the help of question keywords, you can find a variety of content ideas for your blog. To do this, go to the list of keywords, hit Filter, and add question words like how, where, why, when, etc. You’ll find plenty of topics that are interesting to your audience.
Navigational Search Intent
Users with navigational intent are looking for a specific web page or domain. These queries are typically used as an alternative for typing the entire URL into Google’s search bar. For example, when a person types in “Instagram,” they are looking for a direct link to this website.
Here are some more examples of queries with navigational user intent:
- SE Ranking website audit
- Twitter sign up
- Google Analytics
- WordPress blog
Make sure your website can be easily found. When someone searches for your company’s name online, the audience should be able to access your platform with minimal effort.
It also makes sense to audit a website to identify and rectify any technical errors that may impact its accessibility. Indexing errors are among the most critical ones. If search engines can’t index your pages, although optimized for navigational intent, they won’t appear in the SEPR, and your customers won’t see them.
The Importance of Navigational Search Intent for Your Business
Targeting navigational search intent is a great way to identify the least and most popular brand elements among your audience. For instance, if a product category you offer is targeted by most queries, it must be of high demand among your audience. At the same time, if there’s a considerable decrease in searches related to another product/service, try to figure out why.
How to Optimize for Navigational User Intent
There’s not much you can do with the navigational search intent outside of your own domain. Users with this intention are typically looking for a specific link pointing out to the website. Your task is to do everything in your power to nab and hook the first position on the SERPs for all variations of your brand’s name.
But how do you do it? Create content around navigational keywords, such as:
- Company name
- Company contacts
- Price
- Reviews
- Location
- Login
- Testimonials
Transactional Search Intent
Whether it be a product, service, or subscription, people with transactional search intent are looking for the right place to buy something. This is why transactional searches often include words like buy, subscribe, price, cheap, discount, sale, order, and so on. Here are examples of transactional search queries:
- Cheap tickets online
- Buy body cream
- Denim jackets sale
Still, transactional queries are not always this obvious. Sometimes people type the name of a product or service into Google’s search bar without any additional modifiers. A “denim jacket” query, for instance, most likely has transactional intent even though it’s not accompanied by other words, such as buy, sale, and so on.
Before optimizing your webpage for transactional intent, check SERPs for a given query. When people type the name of a specific product/service first, it usually means they want to gain more information about it (this refers to commercial intent).
For instance, if you type “SEO courses” into the search box, the #1 organic result is an article comparing the 10 best free SEO courses available online (which is not a specific course offered by a particular platform). This demonstrates that finding the difference between transactional and commercial user intents isn’t always easy.
From a business perspective, transactional keywords have the most value because they attract people who are ready to make a purchase right away. This is why many e-commerce websites optimize for transactional queries from the start.
Take a look at the screenshot below:
When you type “order bags online” into Google’s search bar, you’ve made a clear intention of buying a bag in one of the offered stores. To attract you as a potential customer, e-commerce websites that offer this product should optimize their content for your query intent. The higher they rank for your keyphrase, the higher their chances of getting you as a new customer.
The Importance of Transactional Search Intent for Your Business
Transactional keywords help your business make money. By optimizing your content for relevant queries of this intent type, websites can increase lead generation rates and raise their total revenue.
In fact, people performing this kind of search are in the “conversion” stage of the marketing funnel, so they can be turned into customers with the best chance of success.
How to Optimize for Transactional User Intent
To get the most out of transactional intent optimization, begin by auditing the following page types:
- Landing pages
- Product pages
- Pricing pages
- Sales pages
- Event pages
These are the most likely pages to appear in SERPs for transactional intent queries. They are also “responsible” for generating sales on your website.
To audit and improve keyword intent SEO on each page, you’ll need to analyze page SEO factors such as the title tag, meta description, heading tags, content, and internal linking. It’s important to ensure that each of these elements is optimized with the relevant keywords and intent in mind.
This not only helps search engines understand the topic and purpose of the page but also helps users find the information they are looking for. By conducting regular audits and making necessary improvements, you can increase the visibility and relevance of your pages in search results, ultimately driving more organic traffic to your website.
To learn more about on-page SEO—whether it’s one page per time or all pages in bulk—check out our complete guide on this topic.
Commercial Search Intent
Commercial intent is usually perceived as something lying in the middle of informational and transactional intent queries. Simply put, the user has already decided to buy something but still needs to conduct a commercial investigation to make the final decision.
What hair straightener would be best for me? Which news website should I subscribe to? Similar questions encourage people to compare products and brands that fit their needs best. Take a look at different examples of commercial intent queries:
- Android and IOS comparison
- Best graphic design courses
- Top hotels in Las Vegas
- MacBook Air vs Pro
The Importance of Commercial Search Intent for Your Business
Commercial keywords play a key role in any buying cycle because they help people find relevant information for making a potential purchase. Your audience will use a navigational keyword to find your website if, for instance, you provide them with a detailed explanation for why your product/service is better than those of your competitors. By successfully outlining the benefits your product provides that your rivals don’t, you’ll get more customers, which means more sales.
How to Optimize for Commercial User Intent
To optimize your content for commercial user intent, make sure to target commercial keywords, be honest about a product’s shortcomings, and structure your content so that it clearly answers your audience’s questions.
For example, let’s take a look at the comparison table presented by Tesla:
Even though there’s not much textual content, this webpage still demonstrates the main differences between three car models in a structurally appealing way. People trying to make their final purchasing decision can easily navigate and compare information without leaving the page. The additional CTA button placed under each car doesn’t look like a lengthy sales pitch. Still, it gently encourages readers to move to the ordering process and contributes to the website’s conversion rates.
Local Search Intent
While this type of search intent is not a common one among the majority of classifications, we decided to add it as a separate one. Local search intent refers to the search queries made by users with the intention of finding information, products, or services available in their local area. For instance, if someone types “pizza places near me” on a search engine, it means that they are looking for pizza places in their vicinity. Often, users expect to see these places on Google maps when inputting these kinds of queries. They also expect to see the direction from their current location.
Some other examples of local search intent queries are:
- Restaurants near me
- Events this weekend in [city name]
- Pet stores near [zip code]
- Best coffee shops in [neighborhood name]
- 24-hour pharmacy in [city name]
- Hair salons open now
The Importance of Local Search Intent for Your Business
Local search intent is especially crucial for businesses with physical locations. When users search for products or services near them, search engines show them relevant results based on their location.
This means that optimizing your website for local search intent can significantly boost your online visibility, increase traffic to your website, and ultimately drive more sales to your business. By making it easier for local customers to find your business, you can improve your chances of converting them into loyal customers. If your business is not optimized for local search intent, it will not appear on SERPs, and potential customers will not be able to find it.
How to Optimize for Local User Intent
Here are some tips on how to optimize your website for local user intent:
- Create a Google Business Profile: Google Business Profile is a free tool that allows businesses to manage their online presence on Google. By creating this listing, you can appear on Google Maps and local Google search results when users search for businesses like yours in your area. Also, make sure your NAP is consistent.
- Include local keywords in your website content: Local keywords are phrases that include your business’s location, such as “coffee shops in downtown LA.” Including these keywords in your website’s content can help search engines understand that your business is relevant to local users.
- Optimize your website for mobile devices: Each year, more and more users perform local searches on their mobile devices. This is why it is essential to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly on mobile devices.
- Encourage customer reviews: Positive customer reviews can give an added boost to your business’s online visibility and reputation. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your Google Business Profile listing, Yelp, or other review sites.
By implementing these strategies, you can improve your website’s visibility for local search intent and attract more local customers to your business.
Why is Search Intent Optimization Important?
Here’s the short answer. User intent is high on Google’s priority list which is why marketers who want to succeed in SEO should prioritize it, too.
SEO is no longer about picking a few traffic-driving keywords and sprinkling them into the content as much as possible. The focus of SEO today is on the information attached to those keywords. If the content you produce matches Google search intent, the ranking algorithm used by this search engine will recognize it and will bump up your position in SERPs. Keywords help to identify this intent.
By understanding the purpose of an online search query, you can:
- Get more organic traffic as your page will be highly relevant for the search query.
- Get a more relevant target audience to your website.
- Build brand trust by using your content to show that you understand what users are looking for.
- Attract more qualified leads ready to make a conversion.
- Improve your keyword research strategy by focusing more on search queries that meet your audience’s needs while also bringing in more targeted website traffic.
- Produce valuable human-oriented content.
- Increase your SERP rankings, thereby getting more visibility, building credibility, and improving domain authority.
Expand your understanding of search intent and its crucial role in SEO by enrolling in our online Basic SEO Course. Discover the impact it can have on your online presence and take your SEO knowledge to the next level.
How to Determine Search Intent from Keywords
Determining keyword search intent is an integral part of any content marketing strategy. There are two main practices for identifying search intent—and they don’t take much effort on your part.
Analyze Keyword Modifiers
By considering keyword modifiers, you can identify SEO user intent without using additional techniques.
- Informational keyword modifiers are who, what, when, where, why, how, etc.
- Navigational keyword modifiers are [brand name], [product name], [service name], etc.
- Transactional keyword modifiers are buy, subscribe, price, cheap, discount, sale, near me, order, etc.
- Commercial keyword modifiers are review, vs, best, top, alternative, comparison, and so on.
But identifying user intent is more complex than finding modifiers (especially for the Transactional and Commercial intent), so the best way is to check the SERP for your keywords of interest.
Examine the SERPs
Identify user intent by typing the target keyword into the search bar and analyzing Google’s search results. This is the best way to figure out user intent because you’re essentially getting hints from Google’s algorithms as to what it believes is the best match for your searched keyword.
To get in-depth information on top SERP players and all their major metrics—and on a single screen, you can use SE Ranking’s SERP Analyzer tool. Choose the depth of analysis (we recommend choosing the top 5 and top 10 results when analyzing search intent), select any country/region, and enter a keyword from which to find top-performing webpages.
By using this tool, you can:
- Identify the main SERP players.
- Analyze their associated SEO metrics.
- Determine the main ranking factors for a certain SERP.
- Learn more about the type of content offered by top-performing pages and how optimized they are.
Since you will always see different types of SERPs depending on the intent of keywords, let’s go over the different types of intent in more detail.
SERP Results for Informational Intent
Most often, Google reacts to keywords with informational intent with Knowledge Panel, featured snippets, and People Also Ask sections. Wikipedia or informative articles oftentimes occupy the primary positions for these keywords. Also, the majority of URLs in the top 10 would include something like “blog,” “guide,” etc in their URLs. Take a look at this example:
SERP Results for Navigational Intent
Considering that people with navigational intent already have the exact domain they’re looking for in mind, these results typically feature the most relevant page within that domain at the top of SERPs. You can also find additional site links and Knowledge panels in search results depending on the search you run.
The first organic result will most likely include the product or brand name in the URL, page title, and meta descriptions.
SERP Results for Transactional Intent
Transactional SERPs include paid results, shopping carousels, maps, shopping places, and reviews. Top-performing pages optimized for the transactional user intent include information about the product, its features, price, benefits, and alternatives.
SERP Results for Commercial Intent
With commercial intent keywords, SERPs include paid results or local pack at the top. For these keywords, you’ll see information related to the associated brands and their products or services.
Meta titles and descriptions of top SERP players optimized for commercial user intent often include a list of different products/services accompanied by modifiers like best, top, perfect, leading, and so on.
Use an Automated SEO Solution
Understanding user intent is a critical aspect of creating a successful SEO strategy, but manually analyzing search results for each keyword can be a tedious and time-consuming task. Fortunately, with the advent of automated solutions, such as SE Ranking’s Keyword Research tool, this process can be streamlined and made more efficient.
In particular, you’ll see the intent behind any keyword you enter right at the top of the screen.
When going through the lists of similar and related keywords, as well as low search volume keywords and the questions section, you’ll also see each term analyzed against this metric. This information can be used to create a list of intent-specific keywords to optimize content quickly and efficiently.
To make this process as convenient as possible, you can use the filtering option and choose any user intent you want, be it informational, navigational, commercial, transactional, or local.
From here, you can easily add a list of keywords with a specific search intent to a project, a Keyword Manager list, or be taken straight to the Content Editor. Alternatively, you can export these keywords in .csv or .xls format.
Another valuable feature of the SE Ranking platform is its Competitive Research tool. You can use this tool to figure out which keywords the target domain/URL ranks for and see what the search intent is behind them.
Before you move on to finding untapped keyword opportunities and carefully analyzing their search intent, make sure to check out our extensive keyword research guide that covers different methods of finding keywords, keyword grouping, and more.
Final Words
Understanding both search intent and SEO is one of the most crucial marketing tasks for ranking higher in SERPs and attracting the most motivated users. If you want your content strategy to pay off, write content that targets specific search intents and corresponds to the expectations of your audience. Spend more time on research so you’ll know exactly how to match your content with each keyword’s search intent.
What are some best practices you use to identify user intent? Are there any problems you face when determining the motive behind an Internet search? Share your experience in the comments below so we can discuss it together!
