Most people understand how SEO works on a basic level:
You rank your website for the keywords people are searching to find your products or services.
The result? You get more website visits from folks who are interested in what you provide.
The more relevant your website traffic, the higher the chances of your visitors buying from you (or converting in some other way).
Everyone goes home happy.
Let’s say you’re in the business of selling dog jumpers. This is what getting more customers with SEO could look like in action:
The theory of SEO is simple enough to understand: rank well and reap the results of your rankings.
There’s nothing complicated about it.
It’s the execution that’s the hard part.
But ranking your website becomes much easier when you understand one simple concept:
In SEO, we call it search intent.
What is search intent?
Simply put, search intent is the main goal someone has when typing a keyword into Google or any other search engine.
Example:
Someone that Googles the keyword gluten free doughnut recipe likely wants to learn rather than buy.
They’re digging for info — in this case, a step-by-step explanation of how to bake gluten free doughnuts.
So it’s no surprise that when you Google that keyword, no landing pages or product pages appear in the top search results.
Informative recipe guides are ranking best for that keyword:
What happens when we change our search to doughnuts in london?
Let’s find out:
All of a sudden listicles are now ranking at the top of our search results.
Why? Because Google took an educated guess that people searching for doughnuts in london likely want to find the best places in London for buying doughnuts.
So the top search results for doughnuts in london are articles that list down and review the best doughnut spots in the city.
Google works overtime to provide the most useful info for the Searcher. That’s its job.
Every now and then it misses the mark and delivers bad results.
But most of the time, among the billions of searches it processes every day, it gets it right.
If you can create useful content that meets search intent, you’ll win half the battle with ranking your website.
Let’s talk about the different types of search intent.
Search intent typically falls into one of four categories:
Informational intent
Searchers use informational keywords when they want to learn something, not buy.
Here are a few examples:
- how to tie a bow tie
- why’s the sky blue?
- how to write a cover letter
- how to learn the ukulele
- what is bitcoin?
Navigational intent
Let’s move on to navigational keywords.
These are the keywords Searchers use when they are looking for a specific website or page.
How do you spot a navigational keyword? Look out for keywords that include the names of specific brands or websites.
- reddit r/askreddit
- bbc news
- YouTube
- NY Times
Transactional intent
If you’re looking to sell, you’ll be interested in the transactional keywords.
These are the keywords searchers use when they’re interested in buying:
Commercial intent
Last but not least, we have commercial keywords.
These are the keywords Searchers use when they’re weighing their options and want to compare products or services.
Commercial keywords use terms like best, alternatives or top:
- best project management software
- microsoft teams alternatives
- top seo agencies uk
Most search intent guides end there.
But not many guides dig into how you write for search intent.
So let’s do that.
I follow a simple process to nail search intent. And the great part is you can apply it to any keyword you target.
This is my process for targeting search intent:
How to write for search intent
1. Find the top ranking pages for your target keyword
Study the content format of the top ranking pages.
If anyone can give you some clues on how to rank for your keyword, it’s the pages that are already ranking top 5 for it.
So use the top search results as a frame of reference when writing your content.
Let’s say we want to rank for the keyword best seo agency uk.
We can follow these two steps:
Google best seo agency uk and review the top pages on the search results:
Looking at the search results for best seo agency uk, I can see that the top ranking pages are listicles that compare the best SEO agencies in the UK.
So now I know that this is the content format that works well for that keyword.
I’d probably have a tougher time ranking a sales page designed to solely promote my SEO agency.
Do the same.
Find out what type of content is ranking well for your keyword. What do all the top pages have in common?
Slide on to the next step when you’re done.
2. Spot areas of improvement for top ranking pages
Finding the right content format for your keyword is only half the battle.
We still have a lot more work to do.
Remember, we want to rank above the top pages as well.
So the next steps is to find ways to make the content of the top ranking pages better.
And when I say ‘better’, I basically mean discover ways of making these pages even more useful to Searchers.
You could do this by manually checking the pages:
Go through each page of the top pages, note down the good and the bad, list down areas of improvement. Job done.
But that’s easier said than done, and it can be a painstakingly boring and long process.
I designed a ChatGPT prompt that can hopefully speed up the process.
Replace the info in the prompt below with:
- Your target keyword
- The search intent
- The URLs of the top ranking pages for your target keyword
The articles below rank in the top 5 for the keyword [Add your target keyword here] and target people that want to [Add the search intent here].
I want to create a more comprehensive resource.
Can you:
Analyse these articles and provide detailed tips on how to create a better resource, considering aspects like structure, content, and unique features.
Create a detailed article outline that incorporates these tips, breaking down sections, headings, and subsections.
Here are the articles:
- URL #1
- URL #2
- URL #3
Let’s circle back to that SEO agency scenario.
If we add our info into the prompt, this is how our prompt will look:
Analyse these articles and provide detailed tips on how to create a better resource, considering aspects like structure, content, and unique features.
Create a detailed article outline that incorporates these tips, breaking down sections, headings, and subsections.
Type your prompt into ChatGPT and we get a detailed plan for outranking the top pages:
And that’s it.
That’s writing for search intent, explained in simple terms.
Thanks for reading ✌🏿
