Keyword intent is one of the most important aspects to consider when selecting the right keywords for your landing pages and blog posts. The #1 keyword research mistake that SEO’s and digital marketing professionals make is not considering the commercial intent behind a keyword.
When it comes to choosing the right keywords for your business, the most important thing to consider is: “What kind of traffic am I trying to attract to my website?”. After all, what good is website traffic if it doesn’t increase the number of leads and sales for your business?
Most marketers and SEO’s agree that keyword intent can be broken down into three key categories. Each of these categories provides information about the searcher and the intent behind their search.
Navigational Intent
Let’s say you heard and ad on the radio for an upcoming music festival that you want to attend. You remember a few details about the festival like the name, location, date, or one of the acts performing. You might perform a search like the one below:
Your google search immediately identified the music festival you were searching for – Falls Festival Byron Bay. Your search intent was not to purchase a ticket, it was simply to find out more about the date of the festival, the musicians performing, and the location. For organisers of the Falls Festival, it is important to rank well in search engine results pages for search terms that are highly relevant to your brand.
While navigational intent searches may have a low conversion rate (they are unlikely to immediately produce sales), they are important for awareness and provide a critical first step for visitors who may convert to buyers down the line.
Informational Intent
The most common kind of search query comes in the form of users seeking information. Think about the last search that you did on Google, chances are you were looking for information in the form of directions, reviews or maybe you were just looking to settle a debate about when a celebrity was born.
Informational intent keywords rarely lead to a conversion (initially). If you’re an electronics business looking to generate traffic for your “LED Television” landing page, chances are you’re going to come across the long tail keyword “What is an LED TV” at some point in your keyword research. Informational intent keywords are about identifying a problem and providing a solution.
With this is mind, it’s a good idea to use your website blog or YouTube channel to answer some of these questions and position your business as an “authority” of the industry. Your potential customers may be using keywords with investigational intent in mind to compare products or services offered by different businesses. Content marketing is a good way to address investigational intent keywords and strengthen branding within your niche.
Transactional Intent
For SEO professionals and digital marketers, transactional intent keywords are the holy grail of keywords. Sometimes referred to as ‘buy now keywords’ these keywords have a very high conversion rate and are responsible for driving sales and SEO visibility for ecommerce businesses. Here’s some examples of words that are often included transactional intent phrases:
The person using these key phrases are ready to make a purchase. If you can put your product or service in front of customers who are using these keywords – there is a very high chance that they will convert to a sale. For ecommerce businesses, developing landing pages with transactional intent in mind is an effective way to attract highly-motivated customers.
You should be able to categorise every keyword on your website into one of the above three categories. Scrutinise and be specific with your landing pages.
