What is Keyword Intent and Why is it Important for SEO?

In SEO, the idea formed in a user’s mind when making a query is what is referred to as the keyword intent. It has been discovered that people use certain keywords when they have a certain intent in mind. Hence, businesses strive to understand what their target audience is searching for.

This understanding helps businesses create content that users are searching for and refine their existing products and services or even launch new ones. Determining the keyword intent helps advertisers target their campaigns more effectively. This ultimately leads to more traffic, sales, leads, and revenue.

Here, we shall explore the importance of keyword intent and its major types. We shall also provide information on how you can implement keyword intent optimization in your SEO strategy to enable success. Read on for more.

The Importance of Keyword Intent

Here are some reasons why keyword intent is important for SEO:

1. Determining the intent behind a keyword gives you an insight into the minds of your audience members to understand why they are searching for that specific query.
2. The keyword intent of the audience guides content creation and marketing strategies to deliver optimal value to the audience.
3. Search engines are programmed to prioritize search intent. Thus, towing this line sets you on the pathway to higher rankings and more traffic to your website.

Main Types of Keyword Intent

To use keyword intent for SEO, you need to understand the type of content that matches each type of keyword intent and how you can optimize for each.

• The informational intent pertains to users who want to be educated about a particular topic. Examples include “how to make a pizza dough” and “what is SEO.”
• Users looking for a particular website or web page have a navigational intent. This manifests through keywords such as “Facebook login” or “Amazon Prime.”
• With the advent of e-commerce, more and more users have the commercial intent of trying to research items that they want to purchase. Such searches may be in the form of “best coffee maker,” “best dog food,” or “best credit card.”
• After researching the desired items, a user trying to make a purchase or take some other type of action is said to be applying a transactional intent. Examples are “order pizza online” and “book flight to New York.”

1. Informational Intent

Blogging is a common way to target informational keywords because blog posts are often the top content for informational queries. By providing valuable information and building trust in your expertise, you can attract new leads to convert later.

Here, the goal is to create content that answers common questions or explains complex topics in an easy-to-understand way. Also, don’t forget to use headings and subheadings to break up your content and make it easier to read.

2. Navigational Intent

Focus on creating content that helps users find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Primarily, you must ensure your website is easy to find and navigate. This includes having a clear and memorable domain name, using descriptive page titles and meta descriptions, and having a well-organized site structure with easy-to-use navigation menus. Also, ensure that search engines properly index your website to appear in search results when users search for your brand or website name.

3. Commercial Intent

For keywords with commercial intent, create content that helps users make informed purchasing decisions. Such content may come in product information, reviews, and comparisons.

The goal here is to help users to choose the right product or service and make them see why they should choose yours. This means that beyond mere writing, there must be a clear and persuasive call-to-action (CTA) that makes it straightforward to complete the task you are marketing to them.

4. Transactional Intent

To optimize for transactional intent, you need to make it easy for users to complete a specific action, such as purchasing. That means your website must have a clear and easy-to-use checkout process, provide multiple payment options, and use clear call-to-action.

Also, your product pages should provide all the information users need to purchase, including detailed product descriptions, high-quality images, and customer reviews, as required. Consider encouraging users to complete a transaction by offering promotions or discounts.

3 Steps to Optimize your SEO for Keyword Intent

This gets into the ‘how’ of search intent. The following major steps highlight the pattern you should follow to ensure that your SEO considers users’ search intent.

a. Optimize for the Right Keyword

Optimizing for keyword intent makes you recognize that there are right and wrong keywords for various contexts. Not all keywords will deliver equal value to your website. So, you must research keywords carefully to ensure that they match your audience’s search intent closely.

Use the Eye10 Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas and suggestions based on what you are already ranking for. This helps you find keywords that are relevant to your business and have a high search volume.

b. Align with the Search Intent

Once you’ve identified your target keywords, you must ensure your content aligns with the search intent. This means understanding what kind of content searchers want to see when they type in a particular keyword and creating content that aligns with that intent.

For example, when writing is to purely inform readers, keep the promotional elements at a minimum. However, feel free to be promotional when writing to meet a commercial or transactional intent.

c. Follow On-Page SEO Best Practices

Finally, you must ensure your content is optimized for on-page SEO best practices. This includes using your target keyword in your title tag, meta description, and URL and throughout your content naturally.

Using the Eye10 On-Page SEO tool, you can easily determine how well your content aligns with these practices and identify any existing issues.

Conclusion

Keyword intent is an inevitable part of search engine optimization. No one can succeed in SEO without determining and understanding the features that define their audience and how their audience uses keywords to search for what they need.

To properly align with this strategy, you need tools to assist you through the journey. Eye10 SEO tools, combined in a single $39 subscription, are the best offer to supercharge your SEO and easily optimize for search intent inclusive. Get started on Eye10 today and experience the difference.