When you investigate how to rank higher in Google, you’ll encounter the term “user intent.” It’s a phrase that’s both simple and complicated at once. But it’s key to understanding how search works – and making your site work well along with it.
User intent is, of course, all about what a user is trying to do. In this case, it’s what information they want when they perform a search.
Of course, the way they compose their search term matters a lot. They could be very specific and make it easier for the search engine. Or they could be very general, leaving it up to the search engine to guess.
Google and other search engines try to provide accurate answers. They make a reasonable guess about what the person wants to know. That’s where it can get difficult, though.
Joe’s Search Intent
Let’s say, for example, that Joe searches for “Trojans.” That can mean a lot of things, though. Perhaps he’s a fan of USC football and wants to know the upcoming schedule. Maybe he’s doing a report on ancient Greece. It could be he’s worried about a computer virus. Or he wants to know where to buy prophylactics nearby.
Any of those is a possibility, and the search engines have no idea what he wants. That means his results will be less than ideal. Often, at the bottom of a search page, you’ll see suggested related searches. Or Joe might look at the results and realize he needs to be more specific.
Of course, if Joe put “Trojans football” in from the start, we’d have a much better idea of what he’s interested in. He likely wants information about the college sports department. There’s a tiny chance that he could be wondering if they played football in ancient Greece, but that’s not likely.
If he searched for “Trojan horse”, it’s unlikely he wants condoms for horses. If he’s looking for “trojans and viruses,” odds are that it’s related to computer problems, not ancient epidemiology.
What That Means For You
So far, we’ve talked about the user and the search engine. But what does it all mean for you?
It’s important for you, too, though. Your content creation should match with what users will be looking for. That means you need to be specific, clear, and precise.
When you write a web page or a blog entry, stick to a key point. Talk about it clearly. And don’t forget to say what you’re talking about!
We worked with one client who wrote a great promotional piece – but never mentioned what their product was. They listed all kinds of benefits you would obtain and why their product is the best. And if you read the piece, that would likely be true. They assumed everyone would know. But first, it had to be found. We rewrote it so it explicitly mentioned what they sell. That “little” change led to great results!
Using our example from above, if you want Joe to find your page about USC Trojans football, then you have to focus your page on that topic. Don’t forget to include the actual phrase, “USC Trojans football.”
That doesn’t mean to overuse the phrase. Write naturally. Keyword stuffing is a big no-no in content creation. Write to inform your reader, not to try to “trick” some computer algorithm.
Be clear what you’re about. Create content that answers the user’s question. Try to be as complete as possible about your topic without straying into other areas.
One good way to do this is to compare your work with other related articles. Imagine that one article talks about points A, B, and C, all of which are important. Another address A and B. It doesn’t mention C but adds D. A third article might cover B, C, and E.
If all their points are valid and important, you might try to cover A, B, C, D, and E so that your reader gets the best answer.
User intent is all about understanding what people search for and seeing how you can match that to your content. If you develop antivirus software, you don’t want users looking for football scores. If you write about history, you’re not trying to get the readers who are looking for the nearest drugstore. The more you can focus your content, the more the user intent and your pages will match. And the better your content will rank for the right users.
This Article As An Example
We’ve covered a lot of bases here. And we don’t think this is going to be the top-ranked article for “user intent” for a good while. However, we can give you some ideas based on what we’ve covered.
We do want to rank for searches about “User intent.” We’ve talked about that content. We’ve used that phrase just six times so far. From there, we’ve expanded on the related ideas. By doing that, we can hope to begin showing up in searches for related searches. And there’s a good chance of that.
There’s also a good chance we’ll show up in searches related to the “Trojans” example. But the content of the article doesn’t revolve around that. Search engines can process that for the most part. They understand that it’s an example, not the substance of the article. So we might show up in a search, sure. But it’s likely to be around forty pages deep in the results. And that’s fine because we’re not interested in that traffic.
Conclusion
Understanding user intent will help you create better content for your site. By knowing what users search for, you can focus your writing on that. Be clear and concise. And be explicit in talking about the purpose of the page you’re writing. Using descriptive language and writing naturally will help you rank high for the right search queries!