Search Intent: The Key to Ranking in Google in 2022

Want to take your digital marketing game to the next level?

Aside from optimizing your pages for SEO in Fort Lauderdale, you need to start understanding and creating content with search intent in mind.  

Relevance is the key to ranking high and making sure that your ideal customers choose your search results over others.  

What Is Search Intent?

Search intent is the reason behind a search query. It answers the question: what is the purpose of an online search?

Why Search Intent Is Important

When you know the reason behind why your target audience is performing a web search, you can create content that directly speaks to their needs and desires.  

You can dive deeper and answer questions before they even thought of asking them. You can also address possible concerns they have about your business, products, and industry in advance.  

As a result, you can better satisfy users and establish your business as an authority in your field. This helps you achieve SEO success.  

4 Types of Search Intent

• Informational – This type of search occurs when a user is looking for knowledge. Not all informational searches are formulated as questions. Sometimes, they’re just composed of keywords. Here are some examples: “Joe Biden”, “Local SEO”, and “weather forecast today”.  
• Navigational – This type of search occurs when a user is looking for a particular website. Usually, it's easier to look up a site on Google than to type in its URL manually. Examples of navigational searches are: "Instagram", "HubSpot academy”, and “Facebook login”.  

• Transactional – This type of search occurs when a user already knows what to buy and is just searching the web to look for a place to buy it from.  Examples of transactional searches include "buy GoPro", "house and lot for sale Fort Lauderdale", and "Guns N' Roses tickets".  
• Commercial Investigation – This type of search occurs when people are looking for the best product or service on the market. Examples of commercial investigation searches are “best Japanese restaurant in Fort Lauderdale” or “L’Oreal lipstick vs. Olay”.  

Determining a Query’s Search Intent

To figure out the intent behind every search query your target audience makes on the web, you need to step into your customers’ shoes and try to relate to them on a more personal level.  

This makes it easier to imagine what they are seeking to achieve by typing certain keywords in the search box.  

Let’s find out how Google’s search results can help you identify search intent.  

1. Signs of informational search intent

You’ll know a query has informational search intent if Google shows the following search features:

• Image and video carousels
• Featured snippets

• “People also ask...”

How to optimize for informational search intent

• Create a page dedicated to answering frequently asked questions about your products or services.  
• Include the frequently asked questions related to your primary keyword in the headings, subheadings, or descriptions of your content.  
• Answer a question directly in the first paragraph.  

• Format your content according to the top results in the SERPs of your target keyword. Usually, informational content is in the form of tutorial videos, listicles, how-to guides, articles, or blog posts.

2. Signs of navigational search intent

You’ll know a query has navigational search intent if Google shows the following search features:

• Google’s brand knowledge panel
• Site links

• Site search

How to optimize for navigational search intent

• Create pages for each of your products and services. Then, optimize them for branded and unique keywords. Make sure to include these keywords in your titles, meta descriptions, headings, and subheadings.  
• Emphasize popular product features that are unique to your brand in your product or category pages.  

3. Signs of commercial search intent

You’ll know a query has commercial search intent if Google shows the following search features:

• Google shopping
• Product carousel

How to optimize for commercial

• Optimize your content for SEO in Fort Lauderdale to make sure that your search results appear first in front of your ideal customers.  

• Make sure that your product or service descriptions are unique to avoid duplicate content problems or content cannibalization.  
• Create content that aims to compare the different brands, products, or services in the market.  
• Give an in-depth review of the products that you want to promote. Make sure you include all the information necessary to help people make a decision quickly.  

4. Signs of transactional search intent

You’ll know a query has transactional search intent if Google shows the following search features:

• Brand carousel
• Local pack

How to optimize for transactional search intent

• Design your landing pages in a way that makes it easy for users to convert or buy.  
• Use a compelling call to action (CTA) button that stands out from the rest of the page.  

• Avoid putting too many elements on your landing page that might distract users from taking action.  
• Use white space to bring a user’s attention towards the CTA.  
• Optimize your landing page for SEO in Fort Lauderdale and make sure you incorporate your target keywords into it.
• Use transactional keyword modifiers in the titles, meta descriptions, and headings.  

Additional Tips on How to Optimize for Different Search Intent

Based on the data you gather from both the SERPs and your customer profiles, you can identify what format, angle, and depth of discussion your target audience is expecting to get when typing in certain queries.  

This allows you to create content that answers search queries in the best and most effective way.  

Here's how to achieve this:

Tip 1: Monitor the SERPs

Google’s rankings fluctuate and change over time, in part because search intent is constantly changing too.

To make sure that you’re producing content that is aligned with your target audience’s intent, you want to monitor the SERPs regularly.  

Sometimes, if the search result changes, you’ll have to create another blog post, video tutorial, or a white paper to match the new intent.  

However, this doesn't always have to be the case. Some keywords experience little to no fluctuations in ranking because the search intent is clear, while other key terms fluctuate rapidly because the intent isn't clear.  

It's good to target stable keywords because it'll be easier on your end. But, if you're up for the challenge, there's also nothing wrong with creating new content that aligns with the current intent behind a query.  

Tip 2: Align Your Content with the 3 C’s of Search Intent

When search features are not available for your target keyword, you can use the 3 C’s to optimize your content for search intent.  

• Content-Type – To know what type of content you should produce, find out the dominant content type in the search results for your target keyword or query. Are they landing pages, product pages, or blog posts?
• Content Format – You need to determine the most popular format of the top results for your target keyword. The right format can help make your content feel more relevant to your target audience.  
• Content Angle – Take note of the viewpoint taken by the top-ranking posts. You want to address the subject from the same angle so search engine bots will favor you, but at the same time, you also want to bring something new to the table to help differentiate your content from the rest.  

Are You Producing Content That’s Optimized for Search Intent?

At Digital Resource, our team of digital marketing specialists and SEO experts will work together to create a custom content strategy for your business in Fort Lauderdale that will not only put you on the search engine results pages but also generate more customers for your business.  

Reach out to us today if you want to optimize your content for SEO in Fort Lauderdale and start ranking in the SERPs.