How to Create Content That Satisfies Search Intent & Customer Needs

As the digital world evolves, so does the way consumers search for and find information. They are becoming savvier, and expect to find exactly what they are looking for quickly and easily.

This has made search intent a hot topic for marketers, as they strive to create content that will satisfy the needs of their target audience.

Google’s top priority is to create a great user experience, and part of that is understanding and satisfying search intent.

In content marketing, search intent should be a major part of the strategy. Why? Let’s have a look:

What Is Search Intent?

Search intent is the motivating factor behind why customers use search engines. People use search engines for a specific purpose, whether it’s to find information on a product they want to buy or to get an answer to a question.

With the advent of mobile search, we now always have a search engine available to us, making it even easier to find the information we need.

As a result, as entrepreneurs and search engine marketing professionals, we must understand where our prospects are in the customer journey after typing in a specific phrase.

This will help us determine which piece of content or landing page we should target this phrase.

Search intent is the backbone of a well-optimized landing page and should be our primary focus when creating content for our website.

By understanding search intent, we can create content that meets the needs of our target audience, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

What Are the Different Types of Search Intent?

Search intent can broadly be classified into three main categories: navigational, informational, and transactional.

1. Informational

When someone searches for information on a topic, they have what is known as informational intent.

This means that they are looking for information about a particular subject, such as how to make a cake or what the capital of France is.

In order to satisfy this intent, the results of the search must provide the searcher with the information they are looking for. This can be in the form of articles, videos, or even just simple definitions.

All three types of search intent are important to consider when planning and creating content for your website or blog.

2. Comparative (Also Known As Navigational)

At this stage in the content, the client is attempting to compare your services or products to others in order to assist them in deciding what to do.

Users in the middle of the comparative stage are attempting to determine whether they actually require the services or products they’ve been researching, or if there are better alternatives than the ones they’ve previously discovered.

To better understand this stage, think about all of the times you’ve compared two completely different restaurants or two related products.

3. Transactional

When someone has transactional intent, they are looking to buy something. This could be a physical product, like an iPad, or a service, like booking a hotel room.

Transactions usually involve some sort of exchange of money, goods, or services.

In order to complete a transaction, both parties usually need to be in agreement on the terms.

It is critical that when we create content, we ensure that the phrases we target match the intent of what the user is searching for.

We can ensure that we are targeting the right keywords on the best page that Google wants to show by creating content and landing pages that match all stages of a user’s journey.

We can also ensure that we own our own digital presence and that we are increasing visibility and conversions.

While half the battle is ensuring that our content is properly optimized, the other half is ensuring that Google wants to show our content based on the phrase — which is why search intent is so important.

If you’re ignoring search intent when creating your content then you’re doing one of the worst content marketing mistakes.

What Makes Search Intent So Important?

Search intent is the most important factor to consider when conducting keyword research. This is because it reflects the reason why a user is searching for a particular keyword.

For example, if someone is searching for the keyword “buy shoes”, their intent is clearly to purchase shoes. On the other hand, if someone is searching for the keyword “shoe store”, their intent may be to find a store that sells shoes or to simply learn more about shoes.

There are thousands of variables to consider when conducting keyword research, but search intent is the most important.

This is because it reflects the reason why a user is searching for a particular keyword, and this can help you to better target your marketing efforts.

Understanding the searcher’s intent is critical to ensuring that relevance is prioritized in our content and keywords.

The more phrases a user types into Google or another search engine, the further along in the buyer’s journey they are and the more likely they are to convert.

By understanding the searcher’s intent, we can ensure that our content and keywords are aligned with the user’s needs, making it more likely that they will find what they’re looking for and be more likely to convert.

Also,

If you want your content to appear in Google’s search results, you need to follow their guidelines. Google is constantly changing its algorithms, and if you don’t keep up, your content will be left behind.

There are also many cases where people are too focused on search volume, rather than quality.

Pursuing high-volume keywords can be a recipe for disaster, as you’ll often miss the mark and end up with little to show for your efforts.

How Can We Make Sure Our Content Aligns with the Search Intent?

When you’re having trouble grasping the concept of search intent, step outside of your company and imagine yourself as a person. Consider what you might look for in order to land on your blog article or product website.

Enter that phrase into Google (ideally in Incognito or private browsing mode, so it isn’t tailored to your search history) and see what comes up.

A SERP (search engine result web page) evaluation is one of the simplest ways to validate what Google believes the person needs to see.

When you conduct a SERP evaluation, you’re essentially seeing what Google would show someone who doesn’t have any prior knowledge of your company or product.

This can be a helpful way to determine whether or not your website is optimized for the right keywords, and whether or not your content is relevant to what people are actually searching for.

Is it possible to find content aggregators? Are transactional websites available?

Is there a combined search engine result page that includes both content and transactional content?

There are times when even Google is unsure what the person is looking for, so it displays a mixed SERP with various types of content.

We can see what Google is rewarding in high positions and what it believes is the intent of the person’s question by discovering this information live on the SERPs.

SERP analysis is a critical part of any content marketing strategy. By understanding what your competitors are ranking for, you can create content that is more targeted and relevant to your audience.

Additionally, you can use SERP analysis to identify opportunities to rank for high-value keywords that your competitors are not targeting. This will give you a competitive advantage in the search engine results pages.

How Can We Create a Content Strategy for Search Intent?

The user has complete control over what content they see on the internet. We may think we have the best content in the world, but if the keywords we’re targeting don’t match the user’s intent, they’ll never see it.

It’s important to conduct keyword and competitive research before creating any content so that we’re not wasting our time and energy on something that won’t bring in qualified traffic.

Competitive research also enables us to identify semantically related keywords for use in content. These are keywords that aren’t necessarily synonyms but are related in some way.

Semantically related keywords help search engines understand what our content is about, and they also help users who are looking for similar things (but with different keywords) find our content.

The hub and spoke content marketing model is one of the best ways to develop a content strategy with search intent in mind.

With this content marketing model, we can target transactional keywords on hub pages and more informational keywords on spoke pages.

By doing so, we can ensure that we have content that corresponds to where our users are in their journey.

Keyword research is the backbone of any content strategy, and it’s critical for understanding search intent.

The point is that SEO professionals must constantly monitor what is already appearing on Google and search from the perspective of the user or customer.

This visual aids in our understanding of the content strategy we might pursue if we sell reading glasses.

In Conclusion

Putting our customers first and determining the search intent of their query is the best way to ensure that our content meets their needs.

We’ve also only covered half of the story: the research side.

The exciting part of enterprise SEO is being able to track keyword rankings and report back to executives on the changes you made — and how they resulted in a significant increase in traffic or conversions.

With the right platform, you can see how your efforts are paying off and make data-driven decisions about where to focus your energies for maximum impact. That’s the kind of information that can help you get buy-in for your SEO program — and make a real difference in your company’s bottom line.

When it comes to keyword research and optimizing our content, search intent will always be the most important factor.

Google’s recent algorithm updates have been heavily focused on user experience, but the company is continuing to place a greater emphasis on user intent and making its search engine more conversational in order to provide users with the most accurate search results.

When in doubt, ensure that search intent and keyword relevancy are your primary focus areas when creating and updating content.