With our upcoming Twitter Space – How To Create Content That Satisfies Search Intent – with SEO Manager Lewis Esson and Content Specialist Reji Yates just around the corner, there was no better time to share our blog on An Introduction To How To Optimise Your Content For Search Intent. Whether or not you currently take search intent into account when optimising or creating new content, you’ll be able to take away some bite sized chunks into search intent and SEO based on the four different types of search intent.
Sometimes, search intent is referred to as ‘user intent’, but they both mean the same thing. It relates to the goal a user has when typing a query into Google or another search engine.
If you’ve been a part of the marketing scene for some time now, you’ll already know the importance of writing content for people, not just for search engines. By writing with your audience’s search intent in mind, you’re creating the experience they are looking for through providing clear answers to their question or query. By doing so, you’re essentially showcasing that you know your stuff around a particular topic and understand how to answer questions about your business, product(s) or industry in general, helping to build your business as an authority.
Search intent is about taking a deep dive into why someone may be conducting a specific search and understanding what they want to know in order to provide the most relevant content. For example, a user searching ‘what is SEO’ (our informational search intent) will require different results compared to someone searching for an ‘seo marketing agency’. Businesses need to create content in a way that meets their customers needs by developing a user persona.
Even though writing content for search intent differs from industry, niche and even brand, there are a few things all businesses (and content writers) can consider before writing a new webpage, blog or article:
Build an audience persona: Utilising a user or audience persona, you can better understand the type of person you are writing for (aka your target audience). There are several ways you can do so, including by carrying out a market segmentation to develop real consumer insights. This may include conducting comprehensive research on your ideal customer or speaking to your existing clients/customers to understand what attracted them to you in particular. You can also use it as an opportunity to identify further interests and challenges to ensure greater consistency.
Conduct keyword research: From a keyword perspective, it’s important to identify what your customers are searching for through identifying particular long-tail keywords relevant to your audience.
Carry out a SERP analysis: Conducting a SERP analysis can also help you understand what keywords your competitors have ranked for and are currently ranking for to identify what the most popular types of search intent are within your niche.
Schedule a content audit: Running regular content audits can be great for a number of reasons, including when it comes to finding gaps in the content already on your site. Google Analytics can help you identify the pages on your website that are performing the best, revealing the types of keywords that are the main drivers of traffic. You can then take this insight to find out the pages your can further optimised based on the keywords driving the most success to your webpages to deploy further keywords that match user intent across your website.
Create new content: Whilst there’s likely to be the opportunity to drive further targeted traffic to existing pages on your website, there’s already a need for new content. Having identified the gaps in your user’s journey, you may feel as though it’s best to devise something entirely new based on what you have discovered to be a common theme in terms of the content you have written, your competitors’ content and the opportunities being missed.
For example, if you’re targeting users with informational intent, consider writing how-to articles to answer common questions, recording tutorials, producing guides or breaking down complex data or information into an infographic to make it easier to consume.
When it comes to writing content for search intent, it’s important to make sure you provide users with the content they want, when they want it, which means crossing all the T’s and dotting the I’s to answer the questions they have about your business or product. But, it’s important to remember that it’s not just about making sure you deliver the information that’s needed, but showcasing to Google that you understand what users want to know to increase your ranking. Optimising and writing content for search intent shows that you care about your customers/clients, helping to build your website’s authority. Google will then reward you with higher rankings, increasing your chance of converting leads.
On 19 July, Lewis and Reji will be going live on our Twitter (@AbsoluteDMedia) to explain more about how to identify intent and build an effective strategy around target keywords. Sign up for free here.
For more information about our digital marketing company, get in touch with a member of the Absolute Digital Media team on 0800 088 6000 today.
