Search Intention: Key in your SEO Strategy for Google

Understanding the search intent is vital in taking your content strategy from just okay to excellent. Often times, people rely on content that is not close to ranking for their target keywords. Why?  There is a mismatch between the keywords and the intent. The more specific your content is to various search intents, the more your chances of reaching more users and at different stages, the funnel increases – just by focusing your efforts on matching search intent.

• What exactly is Search Intent?

Search Intent, otherwise known as user intent, is the central aim of users when entering a query in any of the search engines. Satisfying search intent is a primary goal for Google, which in turn makes it a primary goal for SEO. When a web user searches for a particular item and does not find a piece of relevant information, that sends a feedback to Google that the intent is likely mismatched but when an article proves to be the most relevant answer to a similar thing multiple users are searching about, the article gets a significant ranking boost.

In fact, in the latest version of Google’s quality scoring guidelines, there is high attention to search intent. While backlinks and other customary Google ranking signals are still important, failure of your page to match the search intent would result in a corresponding failure to rank high as Google improves the ranking of pages in the results mainly based on search intent.

So before you write a word, there is a need to consider the search intent of your keyword. Generally, 99% of search terms belong to four different intent types: information, navigation, business, and transaction. The search intent can also be calculated based on the search intent of the keyword itself. Even if the search intent is clearly evident, there is a need to examine already published pages that are ranked for the keyword. The page that pops up first upon search has definitely passed Google’s user intent test else it would have been hidden on later pages. Thus, there is a need to create a page that closely match the content on the first page.

• How does Google determine a page’s suitability for search intent?

People’s interaction with SERPs is the main consideration. That is to say, people’s reaction to a particular search result or not is noted carefully. And if it is noticed that a certain search result is not suitable for a certain keyword, it is downgraded. Specifically, Google avoids seeing people “pogo-sticking” search results.  Instead, they want to see people land on a result and get answers to their search queries from the very first page. Thus, in SEO, user experience is vital.

• 2.  You are always available for business.

Normally, physical businesses are open for business between 9 am to 10 pm every day. However, you can run your business online 24/7 without having to pay for those extra hours. For instance, a future customer might get up from the bed around 3 am and realize that they need to get a certain product and immediately make a purchase on your website.

• 3.  Ecommerce is cheap

To run a physical business, you need to pay your staff and also offload some utility bills. However, you can avoid these recurrent bills by establishing your business online. All you need to do is establish a website and then sit back to start packing the dollars.

• 4.  It helps you stay in touch with your customers.

In a brick and mortar business, you almost can’t reach customers after they leave your office. Can you recall cases whereby prospective or already established customers come to your shop to get a product but couldn’t find it?

With e-commerce, you can keep a tab on the client and then remind them once the product is available. In fact, e-commerce allows you to send targeted or planned ads to people who have once visited your website but did not order any good. With this, you would be able to reach your targeted financial goal.