Why Search Intent Matters For Web Rankings

• By Sarah
• General News
• 1386 Views
• 24th October 2022

As anyone who works in digital marketing knows, search engine optimisation (SEO) is the key to good website rankings. However, it is no longer enough to simply pick the highest ranking keywords and include them in your content. You now need to consider more widely why the user is conducting the search in the first place.

In the earlier days of SEO, all that mattered was to include the most relevant keywords to your site. The search engine algorithms picked them up, and the chances were that your site rose through the rankings. Now Google, which is used by 83% of all web users, is much more sophisticated in its approach.

To improve the user experience, it now attempts to understand the reason for the search, or the ‘search intent.’ This provides more useful and relevant results, making it more likely that the user will find what they were looking for straight away. 

For example, whereas five or ten years ago, someone googling ‘dog care’ might be presented with a whole page of results for vets or canine grooming parlours, now the algorithms will try to figure out if the user is searching for information on how to care for their pet, or a business offering pet care services.

In fact, research has shown that the majority of internet searches are informational: they are made to find something out, rather than to directly look for a product or service. Generally, these searches will be prefixed with ‘how to…’ or the five W’s of journalism: who what, when, where, why (and how). 

Of course, the distinction been commercial, navigational, and transactional searches, (where a person is directly looking up a product or service) and an information search, is not always cut and dried. For example, the person looking up ‘dog care’ might be both looking for advice, and also for a treatment product. 

So how can you optimise your website for search intent? The first step is to analyse the search results for your site. Some keyword research tools allow you to identify ‘modifiers’, such as ‘best’, ‘how’, ‘where’, ‘ideas’, ‘examples’, ‘reviews’, ‘cheap’, and so on.

These are very important words which will help you understand if the user is looking for information, looking up a brand, or doing pre-purchase product research. Not all keywords contain modifiers, and sometimes they can be misleading, but it’s still an effective way to boost SEO results.

Including plenty of helpful and interesting content on your site, such as ‘how to’ guides, or articles with interesting background information about your field, will attract organic search traffic, and improve the authenticity of your site. 

While search intent definitely matters, it’s still equally important to have a well-designed website with fast loading times. If people can’t see what they are looking for with a few seconds or a couple of clicks, the majority will soon move on to a competitor. 

 

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