What is User Intent and Why It’s Important

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Search Engines and User Intent

Google is constantly updating its algorithm to produce more relevant results to match the query or keyword searched by the user. Google cares even more about user intent.

User intent is concerned with what the user is actually looking for when they query a search.

Generally speaking, long-tail keywords, or more descriptive searches, make identifying user intent much easier. But, in many cases, user intent can be hard to determine.

For example, if you search “plastic manufacturing” in Google, you’ll see a few different results on the first page of Google:

• A few ads from plastic manufacturing companies.
• A map or the Google “map pack” which shows three local plastic manufacturers.
• A Google search engine feature called the frequently asked questions or “People also ask.”
• A few videos that link to YouTube.
• Several different organic links that include topics like manufacturing processes, plastic manufacturing jobs, and plastic manufacturing technology.

The reason you see so many different options is that Google has no idea what the intent of the user is when they search “plastic manufacturer.”

RELATED: SEO for Manufacturers

Google wants to help you find what you are looking for, but without more information, they aren’t sure what to show you, so they offer a mix of options and different ways to help you drill down and determine your own intent when you search.

User intent is extremely important to search engines and they are constantly seeking to make their search engines better by understanding user intent. Learn more about search engines and user intent with Google’s Rank Brain.

If your business isn’t concerned with user intent, you’re probably missing out on huge opportunities to attract and convert new customers.

Drilling Down User Intent

Let’s go back to the example of someone who searches “plastic manufacturing.”

Here is a screenshot from some keyword research software for that term. You can see that there are 11,463 different keywords that have a broad match to that keyword. That’s a lot of different keywords, which means there is a lot of different intentions behind searching for something related to plastic manufacturing.

In order to understand your ideal users’ intentions, it helps to get a complete view of how people search. You can take a look at the questions they ask, the way they add more specific terms to their search and start to get an idea of their buying journey online.

Google and other search engines are concerned not only with helping you identify a company that lists themselves as a plastic manufacturing company but helping you identify a company that offers the best, most relevant content to match the intention of those that search for a plastic manufacturing company.

The best way to position your business online for the right keywords is to do your absolute best to match 100% of user intent.

Let’s take the more specific keyword of “plastic molding manufacturing” as an example. Maybe you believe that most of your customers don’t care about the process of plastic molding manufacturing and don’t want to read about the highly technical engineering process.

But, Google doesn’t know that.

If even a small percentage of those that search “plastic molding manufacturing” really care about educating themselves and they are willing to read a 5,000-word article about the process of plastic molding manufacturing, then you should care to have that for them.

Attempting to match 100% of the users intent of the keyword you are after is a great way to attract people to your website. You may end up attracting a lot of people that are not ideal buyers, but, the likelihood of attracting the right buyers by attempting to match intent with valuable content will drastically increase your online visibility. It also helps position your brand as an authority and expert in your industry.

There are many ways to begin publishing content that matches your ideal users intent. The best place to start is by listening to your ideal customer and doing keyword research. Ask good questions and begin to empathize with them.

• What questions do they ask you about your business when you interact with them? Write those down.
• How could a customer learn more about what it is you do for them? Is your website a good resource for that? Is there a better resource?
• Do you actually have everything about what you sell, service, do for your customers on your website?
• Go keyword by keyword and think through what someone could be looking for when they search a specific term. Write and create content (images, video, etc.) that best helps all intentions.

Use a tool like answerthepublic.com to get an idea of what questions people ask in Google that include the keyword you are after. Here is an example of “plastic manufacturer“:

What A Blog Post Has To Do With User Intent

Doing careful keyword research can help you identify opportunities online to better match user intent.

When you can find a keyword that is valuable to your business that does not offer a great search result with a full match of user intent, you can create an opportunity for your business.

This graph below shows the trend of search engine visibility for over 30 keywords. In mid-February, we published just one, very in-depth blog post that matches the intent of those 30 keywords. (How to get tons of leads from just one blog post).

The green line is a customer of ours and the trend is showing an overall increase in search engine visibility (keyword rank position) for a group of keywords over time.

This graph may not look like much, but since this blog has been published the business has received over 50 leads directly attributed to this blog post.

The reason we were able to accomplish this was because of thorough research. We did our absolute best to match 100% of user intent.

In fact, we were even rewarded with one of Google’s featured snippets (the quick answer at the top of the search engine results page). We even beat out a national brand, homeadvisor.com

Featured snippets like these are a great way for Google to validate that your business is a trusted authority in your space.

Because we offered helpful content and answered a question that people go to Google to ask, we’re able to take several number one positions on keywords that lead to new business and build our client’s online trust and overall brand strength.