What is keyword intent and how can you use it to create targeted content?

Keyword intent is the reason behind a user's search query, falling into categories like informational, navigational, transactional, and consideration. To create targeted content, identify the intent, tailor content accordingly, optimize keywords, and adapt over time. This approach helps your content align with what users are seeking, improving relevance and meeting their needs.

Intents can be divided into funnels for a clearer idea. >Informational are top-of-the-funnel keywords- searchers want to know about something in detail (early stage buyer). >Navigational are used when people want to find a particular page on a site. Middle of the funnel when the customer has some ideas about the product/service and who sells those. >Commercial keywords are between the Middle and Bottom of the funnel because the customer is evaluating the best options available. Example- free coffee. > Transactional is the Bottom of the funnel keywords -the customer is ready to make a decision (purchase/sign up). For example- buy coffee. This knowledge helps to understand intent without tools as well.

The four "main" search intents are helpful, like for filtering keyword research, for example. But that's only where it starts. When analyzing search results, you can easily encounter product listings (transactional) alongside guides (informational), which in theory represent opposite ends of the funnel. This is because one keyword can have overlapping or mixed intents. You can also find websites ranking multiple pages for one query by providing content for different intents. This is why keyword cannibalization is a nuanced idea. Also, due to NLP advancements (like BERT), Google is better at understanding meanings, like nuances of "and" vs. "or." Some queries even have underlying or hidden intents. So always think as a user: what's the goal?

I'd be careful about being too formulaic when considering how to match a keyword's intent with a content type. It's easy to think, "This is a long-tail query, let's make a blog post." But ask yourself, is that ultimately the right format to satisfy the user's need? Do you even need a dedicated piece of content for the keyword, or could it be an FAQ or section added to a current guide or even a product or service page? Beyond content formats, the structure of a page also matters for satisfying search intent. Maybe the user wants to quickly find 1-2 sentences of information at the top of the page. Maybe they're looking to be entertained by an introduction. Maybe your audience is both, and you need a dual-solution. Focus on the goal(s) itself.

The first place to start, in my opinion, is the average position of the page for the queries themselves in search, or at least the level of visibility your content gets in those SERPs, like if it's a product listing, video, social post, etc. Chances are if your page is highly visible for the query, you're meeting the search intent of at least some users. That said, it's not a given or one-to-one. Especially in a mixed-intent SERP, not all users are going to find your result valuable. It's also possible your page could be topically relevant, yet not great at meeting the needs of users. This is particularly true for less-competitive keywords. In that case, measuring on-page engagement may be even more important to assess "qualified" clicks.

Honestly, finding content gaps or improving the readability score of your content doesn't necessarily translate to improving it based on keyword intent. Improving your content for keyword intent means, in my estimation at least, taking a page that's already relevant for a query but not as helpful for meeting users' needs as it could be, and then making that content more satisfying for their goals. For example, I recently had a case study on my site where I talked about "not" including a particular type of SERP feature, yet the page was ranking for queries from people who likely wanted to know about that feature. My page didn't satisfy that intent. So, I added a section explaining the feature, to help meet the needs of that audience as well.

I'd say these are mistakes made with content topics being outside of the buyer's journey, or that don't support qualified traffic and conversions. To me, that's slightly different that avoiding mistakes with keyword intent. In my mind, a mistake with intent is writing content that doesn't satisfy the search intent of the keywords it targets. In such cases, not only might that page drive irrelevant traffic ranking for unintended keywords, it likely may not drive much organic traffic at all. Of course, the paradigm is changing a bit thanks to Google SGE, where having a corpus of content may result in visibility, even if you're not ranking in top results. That said, I'd try to match the content type with the query's intent and buyer's journey.

When choosing keywords for your content, it is important to consider the type of keyword intent that you are targeting. If you are targeting navigational keyword intent, you will want to make sure that your content is relevant to the website or page that the user is looking for. If you are targeting informational keyword intent, you will want to make sure that your content provides the user with the information that they are seeking. If you are targeting transactional keyword intent, you will want to make sure that your content provides the user with a clear call to action. Consequences of making mistakes for keyword intent can result in lower website traffic, fewer leads and sales, and damaged brand reputation.