User intent indicates what someone is searching for when doing a query. In this post we will try to explain how to go beyond those words and try to interpret them in context with consumer behavior. These are the 3 most common types of keywords segmented into user intent:
Informational User is looking for general information.
Navigational User is looking for a specific website or page.
Transactional Ready to buy
To use the above terms in an example if you are looking to buy a cell phone your searches gradually might look something like this: smartphone (informational), affordable smartphone (navigational), buy Samsung galaxy (transactional).
If you are satisfied with the quality and quantity of your content but not by the number of hits you are getting, keywords might be the issue. We can improve your performance by better adjusting the words with the users intent. If you are trying to make people learn something, the objective at this stage would be to advise users to sign up for your newsletter. If you would like your product pages to become more visible, you should focus more on transactional keywords.
To evaluate how well your website is stuffed with these words you should always keep in mind your customer’s purchase journey. So starting with google analytics you can see which key phrases lead to what pages. If your top keyword is “buy a camera” for example and that lands on a specs page about lenses, your potential client might not reach your goal. Consider restructuring your strategy to direct users to a page where they can actually purchase. A bigger win can be targeting long-tail searches, which have higher commercial intent.
Essentially, your users should be the core of your campaign. Here at Aeon Ads we construct SEO campaigns that are people-centric thus optimizing for users that use search engines. The other way around would be optimizing more for search engines than searchers.
Is keyword user intent part of your SEO plan?
