November 29, 2011 in Articles, SocialStream SEO, Website Traffic Strategies by Conversion Leadership
Query Intent & SEO
Talk to many other SEO professionals and you’ll hear much discussion about keyword placement, keyword density, backlinks and link sculpting. These were and still are all valid, all useful and definitely all terms and concepts you should be (or at least – become) familiar with.
You see, SEO today has advanced and the recent Google “enhancements” are all driven by three concepts.
These concepts are related to what is known as Query Intent and it goes something like this.
Users perform searches with intent. A user wants to find something in particular, rather than just aimlessly surfing. Knowing what type of queries will be performed helps in determining some of the SEO tactics that needs to be performed.
If you really want to know the science behind the thinking, download yourself a copy of The Transactional Query Identification in Web Search which identifies these three main search query categories in detail.
In summary, Query intent is broken down into three major categories:
- Informational (The user wants to Know something)
- Navigational (The user wants to Go somewhere)
- Transactional (The user wants to Do something)
Why Identifying User Intent Is Important
Identifying the intent behind a user’s search queries when driving traffic to your website has huge benefits in determining what keywords should be targeted in your SEO strategy. These keywords can identify what content or functionality could to be added to your website.
A Page 1 ranking on Google for a one word high volume keyword such as “plumber” may bring your website a lot of traffic but this does not necessarily mean that it will bring you any quote requests or policy sales. This “plumber” search query is informational in nature.
A better strategy would be to target a query which is more transactional such as “Melbourne plumbing quote”. This type of query will likely be the one that drives sales, downloads and conversions. It may have lower traffic volumes and bring in only 10 visits but if these 10 visits result in 5 sales, this is a better result than getting 500 visits and getting only 1 conversion from “plumber” – and it may less expensive as well!
So, when thinking about the keywords you want to use for your website (and in Social Media for that matter), think about the intent you want from your visitors.
Talk to us about our SocialStreamSEO solution and discover how your single SEO efforts can work across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and many others.
Book Your Complimentary SocialStreamSEO Consulting Session Now
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March 3, 2012 at 6:43 am
Adwords can be a great tool for finding keywords that your potential customers will use to search for your business. You should also try and use these keywords with great content on your website, so the search engines will find those words when they crawl your site. Every business’s goal should be getting on to the first page of the search engine results. There are a lot of factors that go into getting on the first page for a competitive industry or niche. Some you can do on your own. Other times, this is where it is good to work with an SEO firm who knows the ins & outs of what search engines like Google look for, both on your site and across the web. Thanks for your article. Ronnie
March 3, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Thanks for your comment Ronnie.
You’re right about every business’s goal should be getting on to the first page of the search results and when you combine this with keywords that that mirror the intent of the searcher, then you have the highest likelihood of sales conversion.
For example, if you’re ranking on the first page for a term like “free social media tips for business” but you’re website is a place where you pay to learn how to do social media for business, then chances are, the visitors you get to your website will likely be the wrong type.
And, if you’re paying for traffic, making sure you get high-converting visitors is extremely important. This is why understanding Query Intent is so important.
Luce Chandon