What is User Intent? A Beginner’s Guide
Updated: October 23rd, 2023
User intent is why someone searches the internet for a topic. Their intent is what information they hope to find (i.e., an answer to a question, a helpful guide, a product to fix a problem, etc.).
Understanding user intent can help you attract your target audience, keep them on your site, and generate strong leads. This is necessary for creating an effective content marketing strategy.
In this guide, I'll share everything you need to know about user intent, including what it is, why it's important, and how you can satisfy user intent to grow your business and increase sales.
What is user intent?
User intent, also known as search intent, is the reason someone enters a phrase into a search engine. Understanding user intent means you know what your targeted audience is looking for and why.
User intent is the why behind what a person searches the internet for
For example, if I search for "all-natural body soap," I want to find and buy a natural soap with minimal ingredients. If I land on a page that shows me an organic dish soap, my intent isn't met, and I'm going to leave that page.
Using SEO keywords and purposeful content helps you meet user intent. Keep reading for more information on this.
Why is user intent important?
Satisfying user intent helps you reach your targeted audience, get them on your website, and keep them there. If someone lands on your page and finds your content doesn't satisfy their intention, they'll leave and go elsewhere. You want to avoid this if you hope to use your website to grow your business.
Here are a few scenarios for why you need to meet user intent to keep your audience around longer:
You’re a blogger who makes money from affiliate marketing and ads
You’re a service provider who runs an online business where people book through your site
You’re an eCommerce business that sells products on your website
You’re a small business with a lot of local competition, so you need potential customers to find you online and pick you over your competitors
What are the three types of user intent?
User intent tells us why people are searching the internet. Three primary types of user intent are: transactional, informational, and navigational. Intent should drive the content you share on your website.
Meet user intent to drive website results that matter
Transactional Intent
Transactional intent is when the user is ready to buy. They search the internet, knowing they’re ready to make a purchase. For example, if I search “best workout clothes,” I’m ready to buy exercise attire. Or if I search “social media manager,” I want to hire someone to help me with social media marketing.
Informational Intent
Informational intent is one of the most popular. Someone’s searching the internet to learn about a topic.
Most blogs are meant to satisfy informational purposes. For example, if someone searches for “ways to travel on a budget,” they want to learn how to travel with a small budget.
Informational content can also drive sales. When you write helpful blogs, you can build trust and encourage people to eventually buy from you.
Navigational Intent
When users want to go to a specific website, their purpose is navigational. For example, I type "Amazon" into the search bar instead of typing www.amazon.com into the address bar.
Most of the time, we don't focus on navigational intent, but you can meet this by including your business name when you write your homepage or about page content.
How to Satisfy User Intent
Now that you know what user intent is, let’s explore how to meet it to get website traffic and drive results.
To satisfy user intent, you must:
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes
Answer the query above the fold
Share diverse and valuable content
Find user intent keywords
Look at the top-ranking pages
Optimize for SEO
Keep up with your analytics
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes
If someone on Google is searching for something you can help them with, your website needs to serve them.
Ask yourself these questions when creating content for your website:
If you were searching this term, what would you want to find?
What information should you give that’s not already found on Google’s page 1?
How can you maximize valuable information and reduce fluff?
How should your content be formatted and structured so it's easy to read? (Think about lists, charts, images, videos, etc.)
Answer the query above the fold
For any page on your website you’re optimizing for SEO with a target keyword, you need to answer the query above the fold (the top part of the page before the user scrolls). It’s common for people to beat around the bush in the introduction on a webpage. The issue with this is that when people land on your site, they’re looking for an answer to a search term, not chit-chat.
If you’re writing a blog article and your target keyword is “simple skincare routine,” give a quick summary of what this would look like at the beginning of your article. Then, go into more detail. At the end of your article, you can share related information to your topic. The same setup can apply to sales, service, and product pages.
Share diverse and valuable content
Your target audience might have various intentions. Some want to learn more, while others are ready to buy. Diverse content lets you meet your readers where they are.
If you’re a service provider, you might have service pages to help your website visitors who might want to hire you. You might also have a blog for those who aren’t ready to buy yet but are ready to learn more.
Valuable content includes:
Various keyword phrases - Target SEO keywords your audience might search
Helpful, easy-to-consume content - Include useful information that readers can easily skim (lists, headers, and short paragraphs)
A positive user experience - fast loading speed and accessible design
One of my favorite ways to figure out what readers are looking for is to go to the "People also ask" section on Google after you type in your targeted keyword phrase. I did this for this article, used two of the questions as headers, and answered these questions for you.
Use questions from the “People also ask” section on Google to help you satisfy user intent
Find user intent keywords
To write SEO (search engine optimization) content, you must target appropriate keywords.
Once you find keywords to target, determine if they’re transactional, informational, or navigational. Then, create content appropriate to the intent.
The best way to use various keywords to reach your target audience and offer valuable content is through blogging. In my SEO blogging course, I share a walk-through for doing keyword research and discuss how to effectively use keywords.
Look at the top-ranking pages
When you’re ready to create content for a specific keyword, search Google for the phrase and look at the first few ranking pages.
You know that Google finds these pages valuable, so use them for inspiration.
As you look at the top-ranking pages:
Create an outline based on what your reader will want to find
Skim the pages on Google and see if you're missing anything
Edit your outline from here. As you're writing, think about what else you can add to provide even more value (i.e., words, images, charts, videos, etc.)
Optimize for SEO
Meeting user intent doesn’t help your business without your audience finding your website. When you optimize for SEO, you increase organic website traffic.
SEO is how your site ranks and is found on the SERPs (search engine results pages). SEO practices like appropriate keyword usage, linking, and image sizes tell search engines (i.e., Google) that your website is helpful for your audience.
Keep up with your analytics.
Track your analytics to ensure your efforts are satisfying user intent. If not, you can make changes.
Your website platform (WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, etc.) likely has a feature that shows your analytics. You can also track your analytics on Google Search Console, which I recommend connecting to your site to.
Your analytics show you things like what phrases your audience is searching for before they land on your page, where your readers are located, and how long they’re staying on different pages.
Keeping up with your analytics is the best way to learn more about your audience and better understand their intentions. For example, you might notice that a specific blog article is getting a lot of traffic, but the read time is very short. This means you probably want to update it to satisfy user intent better.
What is user intent? Conclusion
Your website can be an effective, long-term marketing strategy if it’s set up to give users what they’re looking for. Keep your target audience in mind when updating or creating content.
If you want to work with someone who can help ensure your website is working to help you meet your business goals, consider booking my website consultation service. You can ask your top questions to help you make the best use of your website. I’ll answer them and offer actionable steps for setting your website up for success.
