What is Search Intent: A complete Guide

Search Intent

Every time we type something into a search bar, we get results that are overwhelming and relevant to us. However, there is more to it than that. Search intent is the purpose of the user behind the search. Understanding this will help us in making the right decisions at the right time to attract traffic to our website. Thus, more users will visit our website, resulting in an increase in sales. In this post, we will explore what search intent is? importance of search intent, types of search intent, and how you can optimize your website for search intent.

What Is Search Intent?

Search intent or User intent is a concept/term developed by marketing professionals to know what people are looking for when they search on the web.

Every online searcher wants to find something. Is someone searching because they need some information regarding a particular topic? Do they want to find a specific website? Or, they just want to purchase something? These are some of the intentions behind all the searches.

For the past decade, Google has been working tirelessly to find out what the user's search intention is. The only reason is that Google wants to show the best/most relevant results for the search.

Types of search intent

According to the user's perspective, search intent can be classified as:

Informational Intent
Navigational Intent
Commercial Intent
Transactional Intent

1. Informational Intent

The first is the informative intent. People seeking information conduct a large number of searches on the internet. This might be academic information, financial information, or general information. In the informational intent subset, there is a specific question or topic that users want to learn more about.

Google understands intent in much more depth than simply showing information-filled results. If you are searching for "mouse" then google knows that you mean "Computer Mouse" and not the "mouse" which is a mammal. Informational intent could be in the form of questions like How, What, When, a guide to, How to fix, etc. Remember not all informational searches are questions. It's likely that those searching for "Muhammad Ali" simply want to get more information about him.

Examples of informational intent:

How to lose weight?
What is artificial intelligence?
President of India
Distance between Mumbai to Delhi

2. Navigational Intent

The second type of intent is Navigational Intent also known as Pre-Determined Intent.

The main purpose behind the search is that users want to visit some specific website or want to know the address of some specific brand/shop. This type of search is the simplest and clearest. Example- If we search for "Apple"' in the address bar, the results will show us apple.com, where we want to go. Most individuals do this very often because it is easy to type the brand name rather than typing the whole URL.

Example of Navigational Intent:

Twitter Login
Instagram Signup
Walmart Careers
Kindle Help

3. Commercial Intent

Some users investigate or research before buying something in the near future on the web; these types of searches come under Commercial intent. Example "best mobiles under ?20000" or "top hotels in Pune". For example, they may inquire about various goods and services they wish to buy, or they may simply want to compare products or know the reviews and experience. In this type of search users usually search for local terms such as "best", "top", "most", etc.

Example of commercial intent:

Best trimmer to buy in 2021
Lenovo Vs Hp laptops
Harry Potter books review
The best places to visit in India

4. Transactional intent

When somebody wants to make a purchase then they go for a Transactional intent search. Every day millions are buying some of the other things on the internet. They may either buy services, products or subscriptions. Before searching the web, users have a great idea regarding the purchase they are going to do. Research doesn't come in Transactional intent.

Examples:

Buy smart speakers
Mobile recharge promo code
Online deals on clothing

5. Keyword intent

Keyword intent describes the goal of the searcher. These keywords often give a direct idea about the intention behind the search.

Keyword examples for informational intent:

How to
What to
Why is
Fix
Solve
guide

Keyword examples for transactional intent:

buy
offer
discount
order
coupon/promo code

Best way to optimize the website for search intent

Now, you know what is search intent and what are the types of search intent. It's time to discuss the best optimization technique for search intent. The first thing you need to do is match the intent with metadata and website content with relevant taglines and specific keywords. This will increase the click-through rate and organic traffic on the website. Ensure that users land on the article page and not the product page when they search for information. Similarly, when someone is visiting your website to make a purchase, do not waste their time with boring articles, however, send them straight towards the checkout page.

You should optimize your website with a maximum amount of transactional and commercial intent keywords if you want to leverage your traffic and sales. Before targeting new keywords first analyze your competitor's website and see how they have optimized their content and also check the outline of the pages which are ranking. If you want to dive a little deeper then the best idea is to conduct surveys about what people are searching for, this can be easily executed using a popup on the homepage of your website. This technique will give useful insights into the audience.

Is Your Website Optimized for Search Intent?

If you have not optimized your website for search intent then this is the right time to do it. At Mplussoft we have a dedicated SEO and a content writing team that will help you in optimizing your website up to its full potential. Call us now to discuss how we can proceed further +91 8459630022.

What is Search Intent: A Complete Guide