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Understanding Search Intent to Create Winning Content

Your Guide to Using Search Intent

Search Intent, also known as keyword intent, is a way to optimize your content to attract more qualified leads through search engines. People search, process, and use the results of their online searches differently based on their goals (whether that is to buy a product or just gain more information). It is, therefore, essential for digital marketers and businesses that use SEO to understand and optimize their keyword usage according to what their target audience usually searches for.

Your mission as digital marketers is to ensure that if your product or service is what the consumer is looking for, their search leads them to you!

Types of Search Intent

To be able to produce appealing content, it is important to understand how search intent operates. If you want visitors, you need to make sure that the keywords and language used in your online content matches what they search for. The MozTeam1 categorizes 3 types of search intent:

  1. Informational intent: These are people looking for products or services. Keywords include:
    • (Product name)
    • How does (product name) work?
    • What is (product name)?
       
  2. Commercial intent: This is the stage when the consumer has decided on the product or service that they require and is now looking for additional information. Keywords include:
    • Best (product name)
    • (Product name) reviews
    • Compare (product name) with (competitor product name)
       
  3. Transactional intent: This is the point when the consumer has reached their decision and would like more personalized information regarding their chosen product or service. Keywords include:
    • Cost of (product name)
    • Order (product name) near me
    • (Product name) in (location)

By integrating keywords that consumers are most likely to use, into your digital content, you improve your chances to draw qualified, high quality, repeat traffic.

Meet Your Customers’ Needs

If your product or service falls into only one of the above search intent categories, then you will benefit from including those relevant keywords in your content. However, as The MozTeam2 mentions, intent-blended sites such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Best Buy are the winning sites as all three types of search intent are available on their pages. The product pages of these large retail websites usually only require their customer to try one search and all the follow-up options that they may need are answered on the same page.

For example, when searching for a specific product on Best Buy, the same page has information such as:

  • Description of the product with its features highlighted
  • Pricing/price range
  • Reviews and ratings
  • Similar products and their pricing
  • ‘People also bought’ – additional products
  • Any discounts on the product or its competitors’ products
  • Whether that product is available online
  • Whether that product is available in your nearby store
  • The option to compare your product with its competitor
  • How to make a purchase

No Longer ‘Go Big or Go Home’; Today, it’s ‘Go Deep or Go Home’

If you’re a small business with limited products or services to offer to your customers just yet, the intent-blended kind of approach that big retailers are using will not work for you. Instead, you should make sure that your customer’s attention is on one or two of your top products or services.

For example, if you’re selling purses but currently have a small collection of 15 purses, make sure your page is as descriptive as it can be for that one purse that the customer chooses. Mention its price, the available colours, a short description, pictures, and an easy and clear way to purchase it. When your company grows, you may adapt to a more intent-blended and all-rounded approach. Imagine that now you have a collection of 500 purses, 200 wallets, and an outerwear section as well. On the page of the purse that the customer is considering, you can have a “people also bought” section which showcases wallets, other purses, or even coats that would match – the possibilities are endless.

Search intent is a way to make navigation for customers easier on webpages by providing most or all the information they would require to make their decision, available in one click. Moreover, by incorporating the keywords that your targeted audience uses to search for their needs, you can optimize your reach. It really is Content Marketing 101!  

MintCopy is an established content agency headquartered in Ontario, Canada. We have a team of dedicated and qualified SEO copywriters. Whether you need fresh content for your website, blog, social media channels, email campaigns, and more, or you need assistance with recycling previously published content, our team is here to help. You can reach us online or call toll free at 1.888.646.8003.

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