What It Is & How to Optimize for It

Search intent is the reason behind a search query. In other words, it’s what the searcher is looking for when using a search engine like Google.

In this guide, you’ll learn all you need to know about search intent and how to optimize your content to align withit.

Google prioritizes relevance in search results. So if you want to rank in Google, your content must be the most relevant result for the query. First and foremost, that means creating content that aligns with search intent.

For example, if you search for “best suv,” you’ll find all the results are SUV rankings and reviews, not any particular car’s product page.

This is because Google knows searchers want to learn first, and then potentially buy.

Optimizing for search intent can bring great results. We got 516% more traffic in less than six months by making a change to one of our landing pages.

The landing page wasn’t ranking well because it lacked a free tool functionality. To align it with searchers’ expectations for the “backlink checker” query, we needed to add thattool.

SEOs usually group keywords into one of three intent buckets:

• Informational – Searchers want to learn something.
• Transactional – Searchers want to buy something.
• Navigational – Searchers are looking for a specific website.

These are generally far too ambiguous to be useful.

For example, the query “best air fryer” is informational, as searchers clearly...