Search intent for SEO and content marketing

When setting up your business to succeed online, there are a number of different and important factors to consider. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the most important strategies for any business, large or small. There are a number of different aspects to SEO, including keywords, content marketing, technical SEO and search intent. But what are the benefits of considering search intent for SEO and content marketing? And how can this help boost the performance of your business online?

What is search intent?

Search intent is all about the intentions of the searcher. Did they want product information, reviews or to purchase a product? Understanding the search intent, also called the user intent, is something that Google already does, and in fact results tailored to meet this initial intention are already shown to users of the giant search engine. Companies and businesses need to develop an understanding of the search intent to maximise the potential for SEO.

What are the advantages of considering search intent for SEO and content marketing?

There are a number of different advantages to planning your SEO strategy, and your content marketing, around the search intent. These advantages include:

• Securing higher ranking positions- on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), the organic websites that are indexed are ranked in order of relevance and usefulness to the initial user search. This means that if you can ensure that your web page content is designed around the user intent, and not just focused on the message your company wants to provide, your website will be able to climb the ranking positions, securing a larger portion of organic traffic.
• Improving the user experience- when people are directed to your website from a search engine index like Google, they expect that page to have the information they need, without needing to trawl through the website. And if this isn’t the case, website users will simply leave, and try the next result. For companies and businesses this contributes towards a high bounce rate. But if you can ensure that your web page does meet the requirements of the user, before they arrive, you can create a positive user experience that will ultimately lead to an increase in sales, bookings and sign ups. And this is only achievable by planning your SEO and content based on the search intent.
• Featured snippets and voice search- for very specific search queries and question form searches, featured snippets are often used by Google to provide a small insight into the answer. And these are also used to give answers to people using voice search too. As a result, this content needs to be specific to the question and search intent. And by creating content based on this search intent, your company can aim to land these highly coveted top spots.

Search intent for SEO and content marketing in practice

So what does this mean in practice? Well, practices should include:

• Creating a content market strategy based on search intent relevant to your products or services- instead of creating content that simply markets your products, you need to instead produce content that answers the original search intent. By researching search trends related to your products or services, you will likely see a high number of “how” questions, as well as “what”. These are the questions potential customers or clients are most interested in, not the “why” that is usually answered by traditional marketing.
• Removing any paywalls or registrations for content- forced popups, email subscriptions and registrations just for information the user is looking for is not the best option for most companies. Yes, you might see a steady rise in your email subscribers list, but once they have the information they were looking for, they’ll likely unsubscribe or send your emails straight to spam. In short, it’s not the best marketing tactic for the long term. This also is a frustrating experience for the website users, and this frustration will result in a high bounce rate too.

For help or advice with any of these aspects of web marketing and SEO, why not ask the professionals today, here at Pumpkin Web Design? We are Preston’s leading web design and web marketing professionals. We provide valuable web design, SEO, and marketing solutions to a range of clients, across the North West, including Southport and Wigan, as well as Manchester.