what makes people search

How do we rank at the top of search engines? And then, when we do that, how do we get people to actually read our content and share it with the world? And then, after we’ve achieved all that, how do we get the people that love our content to actually convert? Whew. Loaded questions… to say the least. Entire books have been written that attempt to answer these questions. Yet still, there are no universal answers about how to check all the boxes. But, at the end of the day, every part of the process, from ranking in search engines to converting users, comes down to focusing on people first. And fortunately for us, people are predictable. Their intent when they search follows a familiar path that, when understood, can be used to inspire our future content. Let’s discuss! 7 Facts You Need to Know Right Now About the Intent Behind People Searching for Your Content Let’s dive in and take a look at a few facts about user intent when utilizing search engines. 1. Users Follow Similar Principles When They Interact With Search Engines Understanding how the majority of people interact with search engines is absolutely vital to your success in content marketing. Moz outlines this perfectly in their detailed beginner’s guide to SEO. Creating great content that gets results can seem like an insurmountable challenge. As Moz shows, most people follow similar principles when they use a search engine. First and foremost, they’re there to find an answer, solution, or piece of information. They then formulate that need into a string of words (keywords) and type it into the search engine. Knowing these principles alone should serve as a guideline for every piece of content that you create. If your content isn’t answering a question, offering a solution, or providing useful information, it serves very little purpose to users. But you can’t just provide bland and unsubstantiated answers, solutions, and information. As you can see with the 7th principle, users will return to the search results if they’re unsatisfied with their initial results. Knowing this, your focus should be on identifying why users are finding your content and ensuring that you satisfy their needs when they get there. 2. How Users Search is Based on Their Stage of Awareness We’ve already identified that, when a user performs a search, they’re generally attempting to find an answer, solution, or piece of information. The one they search for is almost always determined by their current stage of awareness. For this reason, when you’re writing content, it’s always a good idea to think like a copywriter. You want to focus your efforts on determining the user’s current stage of awareness and use your content to walk them through to the next stage. Legendary copywriter Eugene Schwartz laid out the five levels of awareness like this: Let’s use the example of a 40-year-old man who lacks motivation. He understands that this is affecting his life and is currently in the problem aware stage. He decides to go to Google and find a solution, so he types in how to get motivated. The results look like this: He sees a few solid options, but the article about How to Get Motivated When You Don’t Feel Like It sticks out. He clicks on it and sees this: As he reads through the article, he begins to see that he isn’t alone in his lack of motivation and that there are solutions to his problem. So he’s now in the solution aware stage. The author understands this and, once the reader has finished the article, offers up an email opt-in that promises to help the unmotivated user even more. The man enters his email, receives the ebooks, and is now in the product aware stage as he knows that the author has also published books that he can purchase to help him even further. Since the initial content, and the ebooks, provided the solution he was looking for, he doesn’t return to Google to check out other potential solutions. The author begins sending content through emails that slowly works him into the most aware stage where he is ready to make a purchase. This example shows the power of understanding how users interact with search engines based on their stage of awareness. Use it to your advantage and optimize your content to work users to the most aware stage. 3. Your Users Want Landing Pages We know that users search based on their stage of awareness. But, if this is the case, why isn’t all of the content we create based on walking visitors through to the next stage of awareness? This is a great question, and one that many content marketers can’t answer. To solve this problem, Search Engine Land puts it in the most simple terms possible: businesses need to look at every page as a landing page. They advise that you ask yourself three questions when creating content. These are: As you answer these questions, you arm yourself with the necessary information to create content that gets visitors to say, “This is exactly what I need right now!” By doing this, your content doubles as a landing page and can directly contribute to conversions for your business. And isn’t the goal of content marketing to serve as an avenue to generate revenue? [clickToTweet tweet=”Wondering what attracts readers to your content? @ExpWriters is sharing seven facts on user intent you should know!” quote=”Wondering what attracts readers to your content? @ExpWriters is sharing seven facts on user intent you should know!”] 4. Long-Tail Keywords are Used in Searches More Often The data shows that about 70% of search traffic is through long-tail keywords. And, if you’ve been following along so far, this makes sense. After all, if a user is typically looking for an answer, solution, or information when they use a search engine, they’re generally not going to find what they’re looking for by using a single word. Let’s go back to … Read more