How Brands Can Optimize Their Webpages for Google Search Intent
Marketers already know that Google search intent is critical for SEO success. The term "search intent" refers to the intent or purpose of an Internet search, usually done on one of the major search engines. It is a simple concept that has a significant impact on many aspects of search engine optimization (SEO), as well as in online marketing, advertising, and business development.
What are the Key Methods to Optimize for Google Search Intent?
Search engine optimization has changed in recent years, and Google’s shift towards user intent is a prime example of how.
The three ways to optimize your SEO content strategy for user intent are:
1. Use Search Queries to See What Type of Content Users Want to See
Begin by analyzing the search queries for customer intent. If you think about a customer’s buying process, it can be broken into stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. Use search queries to see what type of content users want to see. Create content that matches the customer’s intent in each stage.
2. Dissect the Top Results and Understand How you can Better Target Users' Intent
If a user types in a search on the web, they have an intent. By dissecting the top results and how they targeted the user’s intent, we can better understand how to optimize our content and reach more people.
Target users' intent by researching keywords. Focus on a long-tail keyword that has high volume, but not much competition. Focus on writing engaging content and having a quality user experience for the best chance to rank in Google.
Don’t Miss-Out on “On-Site Search Intent”
Optimizing content to satisfy on-site search intent should be next.
Discover user intent opportunities and topics to target that your competition missed. Analyze and implement page-level tips on how to improve search traffic by creating content that better matches user intent.
Often we think of optimizing for search intent in relation to Google, but what about on your own site? Can search intent and predictive analytics be used with internal search areas to boost conversions and engagement? Knowing how people are using their voice through our sites can provide a competitive edge and keep us ahead of the curve when it comes to retention and conversion features.
3. Use Rich Snippets to Provide Clear Information that Appeals to your Customers
Use rich snippets to provide clear information that appeals to your customers. Regular snippets make it harder for customers to find the information they want, but rich snippets incorporate extra elements including ratings, prices, and product descriptions. They also allow you to display special offers and discounts in search results, helping you draw customers' attention to your best deals.
Rich Snippets provide a clear and concise synopsis of your product. By describing your buying process, including shipping, details, and return policies you increase customer confidence that they will receive exactly what they want. Display clear information that appeals to your customers using rich snippets. This is one of the best ways to ensure a great user experience for those viewing your product page.
Whether you are designing your page to appeal to users searching for a product or a service, using rich snippets will add clarity to your content. Be sure to include the entire process, from looking for information to browsing and selecting, checkout and confirmation.
Customers are searching for information every day, and a rich snippet will help them find you. Using a bullet-point format to explain your process allows people to quickly see what you’ll do for them and whether or not it’s an easy process. Rich Snippets will make your website more informative and attractive, thus increasing traffic and sales.
Why you Need On-Site Search Intent?
On-site search intent gives you the ability to identify users who are already in your direct marketing channels, and we can learn what those users want to do next.
On-site search intent is now at the core of conversion rate optimization and has enabled marketers to compete with brands determined to be the best result on Google Search. On-site search intent can provide you with a competitive edge in your industry and what it can say about your customer.
Although originally used to help determine the rank of a website on Google, search intent models have now evolved into core business drivers around marketing, sales, and assistance.
The following are the three ways to leverage on-site search intent to your advantage:
1. Leverage Search Navigation Tracking to Gain Insight into your Traffic
Search Navigation Tracking is a data-driven service that helps you understand how visitors navigate through your search engine results pages. Over time, it helps you determine which pages visitors are most likely to view before converting to your site.
Once you figure out how users are navigating through your site, you can optimize for user intent. Search navigation tracking can help you gain insight into how users make their way through your website, as they search for the information they need.
Understanding user navigation gives you a clear picture of how people arrive at your web pages and what they do while they're there, so you can uncover their intention. You'll be well prepared to adjust the content on your pages, or the paths you send consumers on to increase views and maximize potential sales.
When you optimize for user intent SEO, it’s important to think about the buyer’s journey. The way people search changes as they move from the research phase to making a purchase. Search navigation tracking gives you insight into your traffic from each stage of the buyer’s journey so you can pin down exactly what information customers are looking for.
Search navigation tracking helps you understand what pages searchers landed on, which website pages they viewed after landing on your site from search, how long they stayed on each page and how frequently they visited. Optimizing for user intent SEO requires identifying and understanding your target audience and providing them with relevant content to meet their goals.
2. Leverage Search Intent Data to Build More Traffic Dynamically
Optimizing for search intent is essential for extracting more traffic from Google. But, the intricacies and strategies of doing this successfully to extract the maximum flow of traffic from SEO are not readily known. Numerous questions need to be addressed to correctly analyze and optimize for user intent on your site to rank higher in SERPs.
Search intent optimization ensures your content aligns with the purpose of a user’s search query. It’s a newer, more effective form of delivering results on Google, compared to the old school method of keyword stuffing and writing content to increase rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Optimizing your content for search intent will help you to understand the searcher’s intent, needs, and questions. It will also help you to evaluate the kind of content you should be creating for the searchers in order to achieve results. Here’s how to do that:
Step 1. Identify user intent for each keyword that brings traffic to your site.
Step 2. Examine how visitors are engaging with your pages after they click through.
Step 3. Craft one or more pieces of content designed to better meet the intent of searchers.
Step 4. Optimize your new content by making sure it ranks higher than existing content.
Step 5. Repeat this process until you’ve served user intent for every keyword that drives traffic.
User intent is one of the hardest things to pin down in the rapidly changing search engine algorithm. Most marketers and founders don’t have a ton of extra time on their hands to constantly be sifting through data, trying to pinpoint exactly what intent is driving Google results.
3. Leverage Internal Search Intent to Create Informed, High-Conversion SEO Strategies
Internal search intent content is incredibly powerful! If you're not currently using it, now is the time to start. Knowing the user's search intent is critical to writing informative and targeted content, enhancing usability, and boosting conversions. Your goal should be to gather clear, actionable insights from your internal search data and use the findings to optimize your website for user intent.
Guesswork is never fun, no matter the industry. Unfortunately, successfully leveraging deep-searcher intent can seem downright mysterious. Fortunately, Search Intent Management and SEO are not so different in their core principles—just the tools they use. Align your SEO efforts with users. Leverage internal search intent to create informed, high-conversion SEO strategies and help your users find what they want, from the first click.
"Search intent" refers to the purpose behind each search query as it relates to your site, explained in a single phrase. A customer that is actively searching internally for a purchasing page on your site has a different intent than someone clicking on a paid advertisement. Leveraging internal data can tell you more about the types of terms that correlate higher with your KPIs and help optimize your strategy to meet customer demand.
In Conclusion
Most companies struggle with driving traffic and optimizing conversions on their website because they don't leverage the power of search intent data to the fullest. In fact, every interaction that a user is having with the website is enabling you to optimize SEO, traffic, conversions, and ultimately your average monthly sales target.
We hope that this post helps you delineate a perfect conversion pathway leveraging the users’ intent data.