how to optimize for search intent

Did you know there are nearly 6 billion – a whopping 5.8 billion Google searches – every day? That’s 70,000 searches per second, or two trillion per year. (This number doubled over the lockdown, originally at 3.5B at the beginning of 2020.) We rely on Google for the answers to almost every question we have, whether it’s a word searched out of mere curiosity or in consultation before making a big life decision. Google gets it. With several core updates occurring each year, plus hundreds of tiny ones, it’s constantly tweaking its algorithms to provide more authoritative, relevant, helpful content to readers. Over the past several years, Google’s updates have sought to refine the way its algorithms understand what we mean when we type queries into its search box. In 2020, optimizing your content for search intent is the best way to stay relevant and at the top of the SERPs. Here’s what that means, plus my best pro-tip on how to optimize for search intent. Let’s go! Did you know? Our content writing team adheres to Google’s search intent algorithm rules, and we even conduct SEO and content strategy research to find the perfect keywords to write your content around. Go Content Shopping. [bctt tweet=”In 2020, optimizing your content for search intent is the best way to stay relevant and at the top of the SERPs. Here’s what that means, plus @JuliaEMcCoy’s best pro-tips on how to do it, now on the Write Blog.” username=”ExpWriters”] How to Optimize for User Intent and SEO Once upon a time, it used to be super easy to figure out what keywords you needed to shove into a webpage to get it to the top of Google. And to nobody’s surprise, that’s exactly what people did. Remember the era of spam content that flooded every search query, sending you leapfrogging down the results list to find something readable? Yeah, Google wasn’t impressed, either. The changes they made to the search algorithms forever redefined the way we write and publish content. To get in Google’s good graces and rank highly, your content must now be expert-level, authoritative, and trustworthy. Google’s evaluator guidelines call this E-A-Ting, and they expect content creators to serve up something good! However, E-A-Ting is only part of the story. If we look at Google’s mission statement, the first thing mentioned isn’t stunning, well-researched content from high-quality domains, but something else entirely. Google, first and foremost, wants to: Users want to E-A-T only what’s relevant to them. Source: Google. Well, that’s interesting. Let’s break down what that means. What Is Relevance According to Google? If you’ve ever written and published an amazing article full of high-quality citations and unique, witty tips only to watch it coast along smoothly at position number 6 for the chosen keyword, you know the frustration that Google’s algorithms can inspire. Seriously, you did everything right. So, what gives? ‍♂️ Here’s where you went wrong. Google wants to make sure that users get served only the most expertly written, authoritative, trustworthy content but the search engine isn’t optimizing its algorithms for quality. It’s optimizing them for user experience. That means it only wants what users are actually looking for to rank in the top results for a query. We refer to that as search intent, or “what the user meant when they typed that question into the search bar.” As it turns out, user intent in SEO is huge. For example, if we search for a guide to eating kimchi, we get results that look like this: If we’re looking for a guide to eating kimchi, we probably want to know how to eat it, not necessarily recipes for preparing or cooking with it. Source: Google. It seems to follow a pattern, doesn’t it? ️ If we scroll through the results, however, we start to see articles on other topics that technically rank for the keyword: How to pair different types of kimchi with various dishes The benefits of eating kimchi at different times of the day A schedule for eating kimchi to cure your digestive problems How to identify kimchi that’s spoiled These are all ostensibly “guides to eating kimchi” yet they appear on the second, third, even fourth pages of Google. Why? They don’t contain the information that people are looking for when they query Google with those keywords. Google can tell via metrics when a page isn’t relevant to a user’s query. Specifically, they pay attention to whether people seem to be clicking on a link, scanning its contents, then hitting the back button and clicking on the next link. Backlinko refers to that as “pogo-sticking” and if Google catches that happening a lot, it’ll drop the page’s SERP. What can we take away from all of this? [bctt tweet=”It’s possible to have expertly written, authoritative, and trustworthy content that’s irrelevant to the person searching the keywords for which you optimized. In 2020, that’s almost as bad as junk content.” username=”ExpWriters”] 4 Types of Search Intent In general, people search on Google for four different reasons. There’s a lot already written on search intent around the web, so I’ll summarize. The most basic type of Google search involves queries for more information about a topic. According to research by Penn State, about 80 percent of all Google searches fall under this category. Informational searches become commercial searches when people have enough information on the solution they’re seeking, and now wish to compare solutions that already exist. It’s the difference between “what is kimchi” and “best kimchi brands.” Once someone’s ready to buy something, they’ll use transactional searches. That “best kimchi brands” search will become “buy Amazing Kimchi Brand online.” People do navigational searches when they want to find something on a specific site. So… “Express Writers login” would reflect a navigational search intent, as would “return policy site:AmazingKimchiBrand.com.” A solid content strategy addresses all four types of search intentions in your content and your web pages. We’ll look more closely at how to … Read more