As a marketing broker, I need to understand the ins and outs of SEO for business so that I can better vet agencies to partner with.
In my SEO blog posts, I will be sharing these insights with whoever is looking to follow along. In hopes that as you understand SEO more deeply, you come to realize what you can do yourself vs what you need professionals to help with. SEO has many different aspects, and it is not always about something technical.
Today we will be examining SEO and users’ intent. When you look at the different types of user intent, they boil down to three type.
Navigational Queries
This type of user intent is when a customer or client is looking for a specific website. These types of users are high buying potentials for the business they are looking for, and a possibility for you to convert a potential competitor’s customer. yourself vs what you need professional help with.
Informational Queries
These users are typically at the top of the funnel in your marketing campaigns. They are doing research on what they want to buy or learning about certain topics. These types of users are typically targeted by informational blogs.
Transactional Queries
These user are typically in the bottom of the funnel and are ready to make a purchase. Typically the value for this traffic is extremely high.
Why is User Intent Important?
User intent is important to understand as you can map out a user’s journey from learning to purchasing. Without this understanding, you cannot target information or position your brand in the right way.
Let’s talk about some examples.
Someone searching for “what makes a great noise cancelling headphone”, is in the informational phase of the user intent. As a business, if you know people are searching for these types of keywords, you would create blogs to explain the different aspects of noise cancelling.
Alternatively, let’s say there is a user looking for “best noise cancelling headphone”. This user is likely in the same informational phase but very soon to be a transactional customer. For these types of customers, your business would likely focus on creating a direct landing page to explain why your headphones are the best, with a call to action to buy.
Now that we have an understanding of user intent, one of the best ways to plan content for your website is to create a keyword research chart. Here is an example:
| Keyword | Search Volume | User Intent | Value |
| Hudson Bay Downtown Vancouver | 320 | Navigational | Low |
| How to pick the right mattress | 3200 | Informational | Medium |
| Buy Bamboo Socks | 220 | Transactional | High |
As you do your keyword research, you will start finding topics that naturally go together and you are able to create content that will be able to target what the user is looking to find.
Although this is a basic example, this type of understanding is what you begin to think about as you plan a more comprehensive marketing plan.
