If you’re editing your website to improve its SEO and want to match up to what you think your audience are searching for, be sure to get the right user intent in mind. Not sure what this means or what your audiences intent would be? Let’s look at some examples of what the user intent would be behind the keywords and what you can do to appear in the right results.
What Is User Intent?
Understanding user intent is vital when creating and changing keywords in your meta data and content, it will ensure your website appears for the correct people using particular phrasing and terminology. That way people looking for directions to a local coffee shop don’t find guides for how to make coffee, it’s not what they’re looking for and it’s a waste of time to appear for that user with that intent. However, if the user has been to that coffee shop a few times now and loves how they make the cappuccino, the user may search for “how to make cappuccino ”and try to replicate it at home, or they may even search for buying a cappuccino machine or a particular brand of coffee.
That’s what we mean by the intent, do they want to find somewhere to buy fresh coffee, learn how to make coffee or purchase a coffee machine. These different intents are called’ navigational, informational and transactional.
Navigational Searching Intent
“Coffeeshop near me” – a query searched for by thousands every month, with the intention of visiting or getting the contact details of a location. This user typically will visit a location found in the search and make a purchase. 76% of location searches result in a same day store visit and with the use of Google Maps, this journey becomes almost effortless.
Informational Search Intent
“How to make coffee” – a how-to question and probably the most obvious style of search when you thinking about using a search engine like Google. This user typically isn’t looking to buy something on a website or discover a local hidden gem, they’re looking for a step-by-step guide or a quick answer.
Transactional Search Intent
“coffee machine” – this is the search of a user looking to make a purchase online, sometimes it can be even more direct with searches such as “buy a coffee machine”. This user is going to be looking to make a purchase, or at least researching their options to make a purchase further down the road.
Keywords For User Intent
With these different types of user intent in mind, review what your content is saying and how it is saying it. Using the correct keywords and how your website is written will go towards the searches it appears for. For more information on selecting the right keywords, take a look at another one of our blogs: your keywords are not my keywords and if you have a question or would like to discuss the SEO of your website, get in touch with us today.