User intent
User intent, otherwise known as query intent or search intent, is the identification and categorization of what a user online intended or wanted to find when they typed their
Optimizing For User Intent
To increase ranking on
Google can show SERP features such as featured snippets, knowledge cards or knowledge panels for queries where the search intent is clear. SEO practitioners take this into account because Google can often satisfy the user intent without having the user leave Google SERP. The better Google gets in figuring out user intent, the less users are going to click on search results. As of 2019,[update] less than half of Google searches result in clicks.[citation needed]
Types
Though there are various ways of classifying the categories of user intent, overall, they tend to follow the same clusters. Until recently,[
See the major types with examples below:
Informational Intent: Donald Trump, Who is Maradona?, How to lose weight?
Navigational Intent: Facebook login, Wikipedia contribution page
Transactional Intent: Latest iPhone, Amazon coupons, cheap dell laptop, fence installers
Commercial Intent: top headphones, best marketing agency, x protein powder review,
Local Search Intent: restaurants near me, nearest gas station,
Many search queries also have mixed search intent. For example, when someone searches "Best iPhone repair shop near me" is transactional and local search intent. Mixed search intent can easily happen with homonyms and such SERPs tend to be volatile because user signals differ.[citation needed]
User intent is often misinterpreted, and thinking that there are just a few user intent types is not giving the complete picture of the user behavior.
It is also a term to describe what type of activity, business or services users are searching for (not only the user behavior after the search).
Example: when you write 'Spanish games' in the search engine (your browser settings in English) you have results for learning Spanish methods, not a real games with Spanish origin. In this example, the user intent is to learn Spanish language, not to play typical games. This intent is reflected by Google and the other search engines, and they strive to display their SERP results based on the user interest.
See also
- Keyword research
- Intent marketing
- Search engine result page
- Principle of least astonishment
- Mobile marketing
References
- ISBN 9781107011977.
- ^ "How to Create a User-Intent SEO Strategy". 28 September 2018.
- )
- S2CID 207602540. Retrieved 27 December 2016.
- ^ "The Rise of Mobile Search: From 2012 to 2015". Texo Design. Archived from the original on 6 July 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
- ^ KhudaBukhsh, Ashiqur; Bennett, Paul; White, Ryen (2015). "Building Effective Query Classifiers: A Case Study in Self-harm Intent Detection" (PDF). CIKM '15 Proceedings of the 24th ACM International on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management: 1735–1738. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
- ^ Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (PDF). 28 March 2016. pp. 61–74. Retrieved 26 December 2016.