How to match SEO with search intent
Search intent - or search intent. A term you may know if you have a website or work with online marketing. If not, you should know it.
Because it's a godsend for Google when there is a match between your users' search intent and the content on your website. In other words, a match can give your website better rankings in search results. Read on to learn more about search intent - and how you can use knowledge about your users' motives in your SEO strategy.


Your keywords must hit the search intent
To condense SEO into one tangible definition, it's all about getting websites found for the keywords that your target audience is googling.
But it's one thing to be found on a specific keyword - it's another thing for a website or webshop to deliver what users are actually looking for.
If your visitors are looking for a hairdresser but are greeted by a website selling hairdressing scissors, they will very quickly click away again (well, maybe not at the time of writing, as hairdressers are closed and many are forced to give it up as self-taught hairdressers).
In other words, there must be a match between search intent and search results.
What is search intent?
In SEO and SEM, search intent is a user's intention for a search. Is the user looking for information? A product, service or solution that can fulfill a need? Or a pair of white Air Force 1 shoes in size 43?
For example, if your users are looking for a pair of white Air Force One in size 43, a blog post on how to make sneakers will not match their search intent.
Search intent is all about what Google users are looking for - and not least where they are in the customer journey. Do they have a burgeoning need that they don't yet know how to fulfill? Or do they know exactly what they are looking for?
In other words: What is their search intent?
To answer this question, you can distinguish between 4 types of search intent.
Information search
- The user wants information.
- Will often be formulated as a long tail keyword and a wh-question - 'how do I get better indoor air quality in my home', 'when was the internet invented', 'what is search intent', 'how do I get red wine off my white shirt' etc.
- The search results will typically be Wikipedia articles and other online encyclopedias, blog posts etc. - informative and educational sites.
Commercial investigative search
- The user is looking for a product, service, solution or recommendation.
- For example, searches such as 'best restaurant in Copenhagen', 'carpenter in Allerød', 'pan for induction', 'coffee grinder' etc.
- Search results will typically be landing pages about specific services, category pages on webshops or consumer tips.
Transaction searches
- The user is looking for a very specific product.
- Examples are 'white Nike Air Force 1', 'Moccamaster coffee machine', 'Samsung Galaxy S21' etc.
- The search results will typically be product pages on webshops and other landing pages with clear commercial motives.
Navigation searches
- The user searches for specific products, offers, services or subpages of a company or website they already know.
- For example, it could be 'offers IKEA', 'apartments in Aarhus DBA', 'website Amplify' etc.
- The search results will be product and service specific landing pages and domains under the companies the user wants to shop with.
Why your landing pages need to hit search intent
OK, now you know about the 4 types of search intent.
But why are they important to know? And why should you customize your landing pages for specific search intent?
First and for emost because Google always strives to present users with the best content. Therefore, the search engine's algorithm is also frighteningly good at understanding search intent. For the same reason, irrelevant search results will receive poor rankings in search results.
In addition, customizing your keywords to their search improves the user experience for your customers. This increases your chances of generating sales.
That's why it's a good idea to think about the type of search you want to target when you're doing SEO on your website.
Do you want to communicate and give good advice - creating top-of-mind awareness with potential customers to prepare them to buy from you when they are further along in the customer journey? Or do you want to convert your users into customers on their first visit to your website?
The answers to these questions determine whether your landing pages rank well for certain keywords - but also your conversion rate.
Because if you try to force a sale down the throats of users who are really just looking for information, they will most likely leave your website again.
On the other hand, are you trying to educate 100% ready-to-buy users about a product they've researched from start to finish - without offering them a solution to their needs? Then they're bound to click through to the next best online store or contact form of your nearest competitor.
Therefore, you need to know the search intent behind your keywords - and adapt your content and landing pages accordingly.
How to find the search intent of your keywords
In some cases, the search intent is quite obvious. Users googling 'white Air Force One in size 43' or 'Samsung Galaxy S21' are hardly interested in reading Wikipedia articles about sneakers or mobile phones.
Other keywords are more ambiguous. These are typically broader keywords that can have both informational and commercial research motives behind them.
For example, take a keyword like 'dental technician' - who is using it? Is it users who need a dental technician? Or is it users who want to train to become a dental technician?
Are they information-seeking or commercially researching users? There are several ways to find out.
Do a Google search
As mentioned, Google is scary good at understanding users' search intent. Therefore, the first and simplest way to understand the search intent behind a keyword is to simply Google it - preferably in incognito mode to avoid caching and search history giving misleading results.
Here I googled 'dental technician'.

The first 5 search results all show informative pages describing dental technician training. This suggests that Google prioritizes informational searches the highest on this otherwise somewhat ambiguous search.
If we scroll further down, dental technicians start to appear in the search results - these are search results that target commercially researching users who need a dental technician.

Google is telling us that you probably won't get to the top of the search results by trying to target commercially investigative searches - but that you can easily get into the top 10 and thus on page 1.
This gives us the following equation:
- 50% informational content + 50% commercial content in top 10 = 50% want to know, 50% want to buy
And you can afford to try to hit more than one search intent.
On the other hand, are the search results almost or completely dominated by informative results? Then you probably shouldn't bet on being found on commercial results - and so on.
Use SEO tools
Still unsure about your users' search intent - or just want to geek out a bit more on SEO? Then tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush are your best friends (they require a subscription, which I highly recommend investing in if you want to get serious about SEO).
Both platforms have excellent keyword tools that can tell you something about the questions related to specific search terms.

You may notice that the majority of questions related to the search term 'dental technician' are clearly information-seeking.
And you can easily transfer this knowledge to other search terms. For example, try searching for the following search terms in either Ahrefs' or SEMRush's keyword tools and assess whether they are informational or commercial research.
- pilot
- carpenter
- iphone
- ....
How to create the right content for the right search intent
If you've ever been involved in sales or marketing, you may have come across the term 'customer journey'. The term covers the "journey" your customers go through from initial need to purchase and can be roughly divided into 4 stages:
Awareness
The customer has become aware of a need and starts researching a solution or product that can fulfill the need.
Consideration
The customer starts to consider options to fulfill their need.
Decision
The customer is ready to buy - they just need to be convinced that your company is the right one to do business with.
Retention
The customer has already purchased a product or service from your company - but now needs to be convinced why they should buy from you again.
And what does this have to do with search intent?
As the astute reader may have already noticed: The 4 stages of the buyer journey more or less correspond to the 4 search intentions.
Or in other words - users in:
- awareness stage will most often conduct an information search,
- the consideration stage will most often conduct a commercially exploratory search,
- The decision stage will most often perform a transaction search,
- retention stage will most often perform a navigation search.
And why is this coincidence worth noticing?
Because your knowledge of the customer journey is an indispensable tool for targeting your landing pages and keywords sharply to your users' search intent.
Want to be in the top 10 for information searches?
Create landing pages for the awareness stage. This could be for example:
- Blog posts
- Guides
- Product recommendations/reviews
In other words, you need to target users who may not be ready to buy yet - but who could be in the future. Read my post on why it makes sense to write blog posts for inspiration on how to reach users in the awareness stage.
And no, you shouldn't expect a high conversion rate by targeting users in the awareness stage. On the other hand, you will be top of mind for your visitors once they become more ready to buy - and thus have created a potential customer.

Blog posts and guides are a great way to target information searches
Want to be in the top 10 on commercial searches?
Create landing pages for the consideration stage. This could be for example:
- Product and category pages on your online shop - for example, pages with frying pans, red wine, hand blenders etc.
- Service pages focusing on commercially researched keywords - for example, generic pages about bricklaying, ventilation installation, furniture storage, dental care, etc.
- But also product recommendations/reviews - "how to choose the right frying pan", "best flat screen TV in 2021", "Apple or Android - what should you choose?" etc.
In other words, you need to target users who know what they want - but want to explore the options.
Want to be in the top 10 for transactional searches?
Create landing pages for the decision stage. This could be, for example:
- Brand specific product pages - Samsung Galaxy S21, Dom Perignon Vintage 2009,
- Landing pages about specialties in specific fields - new construction, civil engineering advice, bathroom installation, etc.
- Customer references and cases
In other words, you need to target customers who know exactly which product can fulfill their needs - but who need to be convinced to buy from your company.
Want to be in the top 10 for navigation searches?
Create landing pages for the retention stage. This could be, for example:
- Updates about products
- Events and competitions
- Newsletters
In other words, you need to give your existing customers a reason to stay your customers.
How to check if content hits search intent
Good - you've done your keyword analysis, mapped your keywords to different search intents and created landing pages with content that hits the right places in the customer journey.
So now it's time to sit back and rest on your laurels, right? Well, not quite. SEO is dynamic, so you should continuously check if your content hits the desired search intent head on - and optimize if it doesn't.
This is where Google's Search Console and Analytics tools can give you indispensable insight into how your users interact with your search results and landing pages.
In Analytics, you can look at parameters such as bounce rate and average session duration. A short session duration and a high bounce rate can be an indicator that your content is not meeting the desired search intent.
On those landing pages that hit the more commercial search intent, you can also look at the conversion rate. If it is very low or zero, your content is most likely to miss the mark in terms of your users' search intent.
Finally, take a look at your click-through rate in Search Console. If it's very low, there are also indications that your meta titles and meta descriptions are misaligned with search intent.
Want help hitting search intent?
Does it all seem confusing and impossible? Then contact Amplify - our SEO specialists are ready to match your content with your users' search intent.
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