SEO Success Requires Search Intent Knowledge

Are my website’s pages really worthy of ranking for the searches that are most relevant for my business, and or the audience I’m trying to reach? Before you flippantly answer that, really consider the search results that are appearing now for those terms you’d like to show up for. Be honest with yourself here and give it some real thought...

Assuming you have the necessary technical SEO aspects under control, one of the most important questions you have to ask if you hope to give yourself a chance of having your website appear in the search engines for the terms that matter most to you is “if I was looking for “xyz” would the page or pages I have on my website for that term be the absolute best result?”

Plus, you have to answer honestly whether it would not only satisfy what you are looking for (remember, you’re naturally biased), but would it also stand out among all the other choices the search engines (i.e. Google, Bing, etc) have to choose from when deciding what to display in their SERPs (search results pages). A simple search of the terms you want to appear for will reveal the level of competition you are up against if you hope to rank for those terms. Don’t let the existing results scare you away from even trying to rank your content and site pages for these terms, but at the same time, don’t just assume because you have some willy nilly page on the topic that it is going to appear either.

To be clear, there are a number of other really important factors (i.e. page load speed, various expertise, authority, and trust signals just to name a few) that go into whether a web page ranks well or not for specific keywords or terms in the search engines. In my humble opinion, being able to honestly say that the particular page actually delivers on what the specific person is searching for is an essential first step to address and deliver on. If you’re honest in answering this question, you’re going to find that many of the pages out there just aren’t up to par. I get it, this takes a great deal of humility, but if you can pull it off you’ll be creating truly rank worthy content. Consider how many times you have done a search for something, clicked on a result and thought to yourself, “what the heck? This page has nothing to do with what I’m looking for.” And quickly hit the back button and went to the next result.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, you can’t think in a vacuum

It is common for people I am consulting with to look at their site in its totality and assume their websites are properly answering the intent of the search queries people are looking for. Heck, in the sites I own and operate myself this is a common thing I fall prey to. That said, here’s a look at what is actually happening from the search engines perspective when it is trying to evaluate and decide what pages to show for each of their users searches. Don’t worry, it is less important that you understand the high level aspects of the search engines and just get this basic point I’m making. Below we will dig into how search engines decide what to show in their search engine results pages (SERPs).

Understanding how a search engine works -- simplified

Crawling - each search engine has its own crawler that goes from website to website literally exploring what each page on the site is about. Put simply, the crawler looks over the content on each page (i.e. URL / web page address) it crawls. As an aside, Google’s crawler is known as GoogleBot. Bing’s standard crawler is known as Bingbot. Of course, other search engines also have their own crawlers. Keep in mind that typically, the crawlers find URLs or pages to explore/crawl by following links on webpages. As the crawler finds various forms of content while it is going through the crawling phase, it adds the content it finds to its Index. 

Indexing - This is where things get especially interesting. The Index is essentially a massive database of the content that it finds during the crawling phase. One important thing about indexing is that your content has to be deemed worthy of being included in the index. That’s a huge point to keep in mind. And that’s where knowing how to properly optimize your own site can make all the difference. The other part you must understand is that even if your page’s content makes its way into the index, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be ranked (i.e. appear) anywhere near a placement in Google or any search engine to be seen by live people. There’s an old SEO joke that says “Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? The second page of Google.” A little morbid perhaps, but when was the last time you kept searching for something until you got to the second page, much less past that?

So you really need to grasp the importance of the indexing phase of how the search engine works. First, is your content getting into the index in the first place? By the way, in Google you can do a simple search like this to check “site:whatever.com” (without the quotes) and that should show you if your site is included in the index in the first place. But equally as important, you must understand that just because you’re in the index doesn’t mean your site will actually appear for any results, much less the ideal search queries you want. The point of this isn’t to discourage you at all, it is worth letting you know that there’s a real skill and effort that’s required if you want to get maximum results for your website. 

Ranking - I touched on it above, but again, as I said, just because your page makes it into the index, doesn’t mean it’s going to rank properly for the searches that are most important to you or your organization. This is really where that all important question we started off with has to be answered honestly. And you have to make a real commitment to ensuring that whatever content you produce and feature on your site is actually the best version out there that answers the users question or need. I get it, the advice to “create awesome content” is pretty rah, rah. But to a large extent you really are going to have to commit to that if you want your content to stay relevant and found for the long term.

Fortunately, now that a lot of search results are delivered based on a searcher’s personal preferences and or localized in many cases depending on the specific search, it’s not like it is super crazy competitive or that one simply can’t hope to get found for the terms they’re relevant for. Here’s one such example, say I look for “steakhouse near me” -- years ago, before search results were more personalized in nature, I may very well have gotten primarily results for large, nationwide steakhouse restaurants only, or maybe even some results for a restaurant that wasn’t anywhere near where I was located. I know this sounds crazy in today's search environment, but believe me, I’ve been working with SEO & organic traffic long enough to remember when this wasn’t that uncommon :-)

All this to say there are plenty of opportunities to go around to rank for the right search queries. In order to do so you must create high quality content that truly does the best job of delivering on whatever the real intent is of what the person searching for is looking for.

Action Steps:

* What questions or keywords/terms would my ideal prospect for what I offer search for? Do the pages on my site properly communicate that I offer the answer to whatever those people are seeking?

* What specific intent am I communicating with the content I have on my website?

* Is someone visiting my site more likely to want information, or to actually perform a transaction, or is it a combination of both? For example, a person searching for “motivation” might just want some information on how to stay motivated, whereas a person searching for “motivational book” is likely searching with a lot more transactional intent, and surely a person that searches for “motivational book for sale” likely has a lot higher transactional intent and is pretty well ready to buy if they find the right motivational book in their search results.

* Can the web page stand alone in delivering everything the person is looking for? Notice, I’m not saying can I get everything if I cruise from page to page on the website. I’m talking on a page level. Why does this matter? Because, the search engine is not focused as much on delivering your total website for the result -- it is striving to give its user (the person searching) the most comprehensive answer possible. Get what I’m saying here?

Here’s my point. If I search for “How do you keep a squirrel as a pet?” (btw. that’s a totally random example. And no, I’m not planning to actually keep a squirrel as a pet :-)). That said, if I wanted to have content that showed up for that search question wouldn’t it make sense to have a page that included best practices and tips on how to care for a squirrel? Additionally I could include their diet needs and other important facts about squirrels. I’d be sure to include factual information that was relevant on the page.

If I happened to also offer squirrel food for sale, and included that on the page, it would certainly add value to the person searching the term. It shouldn’t be that far off base to assume that a person searching for such a thing would also want to know not only what squirrels eat, but would appreciate having the option to purchase items related to the care of squirrels.

The main point is that I’d want to deliver as much value as I can around the particular search that the person was asking about. Along the same lines if I only included the option to sell squirrel food without any other related & helpful content on the page -- at least around that specific question that involved how to care for them -- it might not be as great an answer as one that does touch on that topic too.

In the same sense, if the search query was along the lines of “buy squirrel food” or something to that effect, if I created a page that was specifically focused on selling food that’s fit for a squirrel, it would likely rank even better, perhaps than a page that’s more informationally focused in the way the question is asked. In summary, really try to keep the intent behind the searches you want to rank for in mind and create your content accordingly.

* Finally, as you’re looking over your website and answering that all important question of whether or not you are really delivering pages that are worthy of appearing for searches around what you have to offer, put the ideas above to work for you. If you do so, you’re going to put your organization’s site in a lot better position to be found, and thus in a great position (excuse the pun :-)) for long term success.

All the best in your pursuit of organic traffic,

Josh Hinds

P.S. If you’d like to discuss any of the ideas in the post, or just stay connected you can do so here on Linked @ linkedin.com/in/joshhinds

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