Search Intent And SEO: Everything You Need To Know

Are you optimizing your articles for search intent?

Google, much to the dismay of every SEO expert and blogger out there, is forever changing its algorithm in hopes of delivering more accurate results for the search queries its users enter.

This is search intent, something every blog post you publish that targets a specific keyword needs to match.

In this post, we cover what search intent is, what it isn’t and tips on how to optimize for it.

What is search intent?

Search intent is the type of results a user expects to find when they enter a particular search query into a search engine.

For example, when you enter the keyword “gummy worms” into Google, you expect to find product-based results.

google search gummy worms

But when you enter “what are gummy worms,” you expect to find information-based results.

google search what are gummy worms

This is Google optimizing its results for keywords for exactly what users are looking for.

This is why search intent is also known as “user intent” and “keyword intent.”

Why is search intent important?

To put it into simple terms, search intent is important because it improves search engine rankings. 

Let’s explain how.

We know each update Google makes to its algorithm is done with the purpose of making search results more accurate for its user base, but why is this important?

Search engines are one of the first sources consumers look to when they try to discover information about a topic or product.

Google has a 90.1% market share in the world and an 88.01% market share in the United States when compared to search engines like Bing, Yahoo!, Yandex and DuckDuckGo.

This means it’s worth optimizing your content for what Google wants to serve to its users.

As for why you should care about search traffic at all, in spite of the emergence of AI-based search tools, Google is still the web’s go-to source for information, receiving tens of billions of visits per month, according to multiple sources.

Ranking on its search engine results pages (SERPs), especially in one of the top three positions, will bring a lot of traffic to your website.

Types of search intent

There are four official search intents that are based on the different types of search queries users enter into Google:

  • Find information
  • Discover products
  • Find specific discounts and offers
  • Find a specific web page or a specific website
backlinko

There’s also a fifth, lesser-known type of search intent called “local intent.”

Local intent search queries are used to find local businesses or products and services that are sold by local businesses.

It’s typically not listed as a type of search intent because local keywords can technically fit into one of the four original types of search intent, but it’s important to be aware of it since local search results are an important part of Google.

For example, if your blog is in the fast food niche, you shouldn’t try to target the keyword “wendy’s” since the majority of search results for this keyword will be optimized for the searcher’s location.

Informational intent

Informational queries are keywords that are entered into search engines with the intent to find information about a topic.

Examples of informational search intent keywords:

  • iphone 16 review
  • best lures for bass fishing
  • chocolate chip cookie recipe
  • when did marvel comics start

Informational search queries sometimes feature products, but for the most part, when users enter these types of queries into a search engine like Google, they’re looking for information pages, not product pages.

Commercial intent

Search queries that target commercial search intent are made with the purpose of discovering products or finding specific products.

Examples of commercial search intent keywords:

  • android smartphone with stylus
  • rapala bass fishing lures
  • marvel tshirts
  • italian restaurants near me

Some keywords will return a mixture of information and commercial intent results. When this happens, it’s up to you to determine which search intent you want to target.

Transactional intent

Transactional search intent keywords are search queries that are made with the intent to find products and services for specific ecommerce-based transactions.

Examples of transactional search intent keywords:

  • iphone 16 free
  • bass fishing lures on sale
  • nyc to london flights
  • carpet cleaning quotes

Navigational intent

Navigational search intent refers to search queries that are made with the purpose of finding a specific web page.

Examples of navigational search intent keywords:

  • spotify pricing
  • spectrum customer service
  • pinterest
  • minecraft news

How to optimize for user intent in search engines

Knowing what search intent is and understanding search intent are two different things.

You need to know how to find the user search intent of a keyword as well as how to optimize it.

We’re going to cover a process you can follow to optimize your articles search intent.

Use your own knowledge of your niche

Hopefully, you picked a niche you actually have experience in or at least know a lot about.

If you do, you should be able to use your own brain to understand the search intent of a keyword.

If you were to enter the keyword “rapala bass fishing lures” into Google, what results do you want to find? Product pages for Rapala bass fishing lures, or roundups that list the best Rapala bass fishing lures?

Use your own knowledge of your niche to determine what a keyword’s search results should look like and whether or not you want to target that intent.

Perform keyword research

Oftentimes, understanding a keyword’s search intent is as simple as entering that keyword into Google.

This should be done from a browser in which you are not logged into Google and has a recently cleared cache. Google tailors search results to your individual search history, so it’s best to use a clean slate for research.

So, using our bass fishing example, let’s say I want to write an informational blog post that targets the keyword “bass fishing lures.”

However, when I enter “bass fishing lures” into Google, I see that all of the results are for products, be it product pages or roundups of products.

google search results bass fishing lures

But I want to write an informational blog post about bass fishing lures. I should, instead, enter this keyword into a keyword research tool to find a different keyword to target.

When I do, I find the keyword “types of bass fishing lures” listed as a suggestion.

This keyword does return commercial-based results, but they come after informational results.

google search types of bass fishing lures

This is a much better keyword to target as the results are a much better representation of the type of article I want to write.

Some keyword research tools list the search intent of each keyword it lists. Some even allow you to filter keywords by search intent.

These include keyword research tools like SE Ranking, Semrush and Ahrefs.

Perform deep search intent research

Even if your keyword research tool defines the search intent of your target keyword, you should still enter that keyword into Google to see its user intent for yourself.

This will reveal the keyword’s most popular content format, as in list post, tutorial, guide, etc.

For example, as you can see in our screenshot above, when I entered “types of bass fishing lures” into Google, the first result was a snippet that featured a list of bass fishing lure types.

This means I should write this post as a list.

Use an on-page optimization SEO tool

Most of search intent comes down to knowing what keyword to target and what type of content to create to target that keyword properly.

There’s no way to determine search intent scores for web pages, so you may still be uncertain on whether or not your posts satisfy search intent.

The easiest way to ensure this is to use an on-page optimization tool that offers suggestions for related keywords to include in your article.

These include dedicated content optimization tools like Frase, Surfer SEO and Scalenut.

However, some all-in-one SEO tools, such as SE Ranking, include their own proprietary versions of these tools.

No matter which tool you decide to use, they all work more or less the same: they analyze the top results for your target keyword and determine the average number of words and images they all use.

They’re even able to pick out common keyphrases that are common among each article.

Using these keyphrases in your own article will help ensure it’s not only optimized in comparison to your competitors but matches the same search intent your competitors are matching.

These tools then grade your article on how well optimized it is based on the top results it analyzed for your keyword.

Optimize old articles

If you already have articles published on your site, enter each keyword they target into Google one by one to see if your article matches the search intent of each keyword.

Optimizing them may be as simple as making a few tweaks in your content layout, such as rewriting the post as a list post.

It can also be as complex as completely rewriting an article to target a different keyword that better matches the article you wrote.

It can also be as complex as rewriting an article to match the search intent of your target keyword.

In any case, optimizing old articles is truly where on-page optimization tools shine.

surfer seo content grade

The content grades they provide can be helpful in helping you optimize underperforming posts.

Create outlines for your articles

For new posts and rewrites, create an outline before you begin writing.

An outline does several things that help you optimize your content for search intent:

  • Defines your content format (list post, how-to tutorial, review, guide, etc.)
  • Includes key areas of focus in the form of H2 subheadings
  • Includes specific facts and information you should include

Better yet, you can use the top search results for your keyword as research, and include that research in your outline.

You can even see if your content layout matches the content layouts of the top results for your keyword.

If you want to save time, I’d recommend using Frase to automate this research for you. This video explains how:

Sign up for a free trial of Frase.

Improve the user experience on your site

Part of matching user expectations in search results means matching the user with a website that performs well.

After all, when you’re looking for information on a product, you don’t want to be bombarded with ads that slow down the web page or several popups that advertise a website’s discounts and email newsletter.

You also expect to be able to see what you clicked on right away.

This means websites that load slowly or have other performance issues will not rank for their chosen keywords no matter how much their content meets search intent.

As you optimize your content, make sure your website is optimized as well.

Keep an eye on its page speed, bounce rate and time on site.

Time on site, in particular, can clue you into user experience issues. For example, if you have a lot of ads on your site, you may have a high bounce rate and a low time on site metric as users find it difficult to view your content as they scroll down the page.

A high bounce rate also indicates that users aren’t invested in your content enough to engage more with your brand, which can also impact rankings in subtle ways, such as not having enough internal links for Google to crawl.

Fix this by creating topic clusters on your website and linking between them.

Create additional content types for your target keywords

As you become more familiar with analyzing SERPs, you’ll notice that some keywords return multiple results.

Some only return web pages, but most also return videos, news stories, forum posts and more.

In this case, you should consider creating multiple content types for your target keywords.

Videos are the most important content type after blog posts. Most of the web prefers to consume content via video, so it’s an important content type to include in your content marketing strategy.

Some brands make the mistake of focusing on one or the other, but it’s actually better to do both if you have the resources. That way, you satisfy search intent with multiple content formats. This means your brand may appear multiple times on the same SERP for a particular keyword.

Plus, you receive an additional source of traffic.

Final thoughts

Optimizing for search intent is critical if you want to rank in Google and other popular search engines.

You can’t just create any old random page on your website and hope to rank. You need to look at what is ranking in SERPs and create a similar type of page.

If Google is only ranking ecommerce product pages, you’re not going to rank with your brand homepage or a blog post. 

Similarly, if informative articles are ranking, you won’t have a chance ranking an ecommerce product page.

It’s also important to remember that Google is constantly testing its search results and may change the type of pages it ranks at any time.

So, it’s worth re-analyzing your search competitors a few times each year. I’d recommend building these checks into your regular content audit process.