One of the most important keyword research concepts is intent. A searcher’s intent can give you an idea of a keyword’s purpose. It can also give you some idea of what the user is most likely intending to do while searching for a certain phrase. Once you understand these things, you can better meet the needs of your visitors and match your landing pages to their personal goals.

This means that every Singapore business owner should make it one of their top priorities to analyse keywords by the user intent. Let’s take a moment to discuss how you can identify keyword intent and how to organise them for better conversion rates. But first, let’s talk about the different types of keyword intent.

1. Types of Keyword Intent

Keyword intent can give you a better idea of how to serve your visitors. However, it’s important to keep in mind that there are different types of intent. Four of the most notable includes commercial, information, transactional, and navigational.  Each of these represents different user goals and expectations.

Commercial

Commercial intent keywords are often referred to as the “Buy Now” words and phrases. These are used when the user is ready to take action and commit. They are interested in buying, joining, subscribing, and etc. These phrases usually contain the words ‘buy,’ ‘coupon,’ ‘deals,’ and ‘free shipping.’ These words signify that the users will more than likely be willing to make a purchase.

Informational Intent

While informational intent keywords are less likely to come from someone who is willing to buy, they still present a great opportunity for collecting emails. And that’s because informational intent keywords are used when the user wants to find out more about a certain topic. These phrases usually contain the words and phrases ‘how to,’ ‘why,’ ‘best way to,’ ‘history of,’ ‘anatomy of,’ and ‘what…means.’

Transactional Intent

Transactional intent keywords are a cross between commercial intent and informational intent. Simply put, it means that this individual can be persuaded to buy. These phrases usually contain the words and phrases ‘reviews,’ ‘vs.,’ ‘best,’ ‘top 10.’

Navigational Intent

When someone uses navigational intent keywords, it means that they are interested in a certain brand and know exactly where they want to go. And these can be extremely useful because you don’t have to convince this person, all you need to do is use these words. Your landing page can instantly satisfy their need.

2. How to Identify Keyword Intent

The good news is, identifying keywords intent is a relatively straightforward process. In fact, a great deal of this particular SEO strategy has to do with using your common sense. And that’s because you can usually tell what a customer wants when using a certain word.

Google has been investing its time and resources into getting a better idea of what users want. So using this search engine as a guide can be extremely helpful. For instance, pay attention to the ‘Quick-answer” and the ‘People Also Ask’ search boxes. They both signify informational intent. Pay attention to Google shopping results as they signify commercial, or high-intent, searches. You should also monitor Google’s local results, knowledge graph, and ‘Search in Search’ features as they signify navigational searches.

There are also other tools that you can use in order to get a better idea of what people want to accomplish. For example, Serpstat is a great resource. You can use this tool in order to find out which types of universal search results a search term will trigger. This tool also gives you the ability to restrict the search to searches that trigger a specific search type, or particular intent. This can be invaluable if you are working on a certain marketing strategy.

3. How to Organize Your Keywords for Increased Conversions

One you have an understanding of keyword intent and the types that exist, it will give you the ability to better organise your content strategy. And in this way, you will be able to do a better job of converting your visitors and making your customers happy. Another important part of this process is organising your keyword phrase by their intent.

Step 1: Identify the Intent and Then Associate It With a Certain Type of Content

Keywords that have informational intent are simple and straightforward. They focus on the facts. These are pieces of content that you can send to your staff.

Keywords that have transactional intent are also factual. They focus on walking the user through your conversion channel. The content that would be used in this case are product lists, product manuals, comparison charts, FAQ pages, and etc.

Keywords that have commercial intent are those that have to do with purchase. The content that would be used in this case would be product pages, product lists, and landing pages. Your SEO agency or consultant would need to do their best to optimise this content so that it reflects “buy now” phrases.

Keywords that have navigational intent are those that reflect your brand. In this case, they may include transactional phrases. So this should be organised. It’s a good idea to let your reputation management team handle this content.

Step 2: Further organise your list based on the required action

You need to know exactly how your keywords can be used most efficiently. In some cases, a keyword may be used on your landing pages or in content. In other cases, the keyword may be best used in order to optimise your older pages.

Step 3: Organise your keywords by the types of landing pages

There are times in which your transactional and informational queries will call for different types of landing pages and content in order to satisfy the users’ needs. For instance, you may create multiple blog posts which contain lists of your products for certain holidays and gift ideas. You may create FAQ pages.  If your industry involves a lot of complicated terms, you may include on-site glossaries. You may also create a different type of cornerstone content.

The Takeaway

An often overlooked part of SEO and keyword research is keyword intent. Not only does knowing the intent of a user help you to better serve them, but can also lead to higher conversions. There are 4 different types of intent: commercial, informational,transactional, and navigational. And each of these types of keyword requires its own, distinct approach.

Defining keyword intent and organising the keywords so that they work well with your content can be a time-consuming process. However, it’s ultimately what will help you to plan your entire marketing strategy. So don’t rush through this process; take your time. It’s a good idea to use a spreadsheet or a project management platform to organise your keywords.