Everything You Need to Know About Search Intent
Tags: seo, contentwriting, search, optimization
Published: 2023-08-18 14:45:18

People explore information on the web for a good reason. They don't waste their time hanging on Google randomly. Hence, there is always a search intent behind every search query. 

Therefore, the best way to provide users with the information they need is to satisfy their search intent.

In this guide, you will find out everything about search intent. 

Let's get the ball rolling!

## **Search Intent and SEO**
It is a well-known fact that Google tries to offer the most relevant search results per user's query. In other words, your content should align with search intent. 

How does it work? 

For example, your company offers content design tools. You have just released a few more new [one-pager templates](https://visme.co/blog/one-pager-template/). You might wonder what potential customers of your product may explore by exploring the "one-pager template" query online. 


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/c7x9hvm7hclspmhygw1y.png)

As you can see, people are curious about both - templates and educational content. 

Hence, it makes sense to optimize your content for two types of search intent - informational and transactional. 

Now, let's dig deeper into search intent optimization. 

## **Search Intent Optimization**
It has already been mentioned about search intent types.  Basically, there are three of them:

Informational (when users want to learn about something)
Navigational (when users want to find certain websites)
Transaction (when users want to buy some product or service)

For example, a search query "best screen recorder" is an informational search request. The user wants to find out the best screen recorder first of all - not to buy it. 

However, even if you know the exact search intent behind the query, you can't figure out what the users want for sure:

Either a blog post or video
List of the best options or review
etc.

To sum up, if you don't know what your target audience wants for a hundred percent, you won't be able to rank in the SERP. Plus, you won't be able to raise [brand awareness](https://keyhole.co/blog/brand-awareness/).   

And here are steps that will help you with identifying search intent. 

## **Three "Cs" of search intent**

Start with the identification of three "Cs" of search intent for your target keyword. The idea here is to make sure your content aligns with the intent. These "Cs" are:

Content type
Content format 
Content angle

Let's review these "Cs" in detail. 

**1. Content type**
Content type includes the following ones:

- Written blog post
- Recorded video content 
- Product page
- Category page
- Landing page

Go to Google and type your target search query. Pay attention to what type of content dominates in the SERP. 

For example, check out the results for "best guitar tuner" and you will see - the majority of the posts are blog posts. 

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/i82vypwmzt2irks6u5pw.png)

What does it mean in terms of creating content? 

People are not interested in why certain guitar tuners are the best. They want to know how to choose the best one. It will help them make their final decision before buying the product. 

**2. Content format**
As a rule, content format applies to blog posts. Here are main formats:

- Listicles
- Reviews
- Comparisons
- “How-to” guides
- Step-by-step tutorials

Hence, consider content format when creating blog posts. 

**3. Content angle**
The content angle is all about the posts' selling point uniqueness. In a nutshell, it provides insight into what searchers value when doing their search.

For example, you have updated your blog post that illustrates [proposal templates](https://visme.co/blog/proposal-template/) for 2023. In this case, the exact date "2023" refers to the angle of this content. People want to get the freshest update regarding proposal templates. 

## **Work on exploring subtopics**
The only way to satisfy search intent is to cover a blog post topic in full. To do this, you will have to include subtopics that may pique the interest of your target audience. 

How to find subtopics? 

There is a two-step way for this process:

## **1. Review the top-ranking pages**
If you review top-ranking pages, you will be able to see what your target audience expects from content. 

For example, by reviewing top-ranking pages for the query "best guitar tuner", you will see the recommendations of the products. Also, this product belongs to different subcategories. It means people may have different needs for using tuners (guitar, bass guitar, ukulele, etc.)

Hence, it makes sense to include similar product categories in your blog posts. 

## **2. Use a content gap analysis**
A content gap analysis helps explore common subtopics by listing keyword rankings for the pages.

How does it work? 

Go to Keywords Explorer tools from Ahrefs and type your target keyword first. Then, scroll down to the list of the results in the SERP. Choose a few top-ranking pages and open them in the content gap.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/l43vny2k1k4o9whpuxhn.png)

Afterwards, analyze the keywords and use some of them as subheadings. 


To Sum Up
It would be fair to conclude that search intent is one of the most important ranking factors. If you don't provide users with the information they search for, you won't be able to rank on Google.

To succeed with search intent - give people want they want to read about!