How to Find the Right Keywords that match user search intent

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Do you also sometimes feel that you should have studied psychology to understand user behavior better or in SEO terms – User search intent?

My question will be very relatable to all the SEOs who are having a hard time making their keywords work in today’s scenario. 

Well, friends! Acceptance is the key! 

  • Google will keep on making changes to its algorithm.
  • Accept that Digital Marketing is a very dynamic field.
  • And you will have to become adaptable and stay in-sync with these changes.

Hate to break the bubble, but it’s not just SEO, but every industry is talking about empathy and users. Everyone is trying to understand the user intent and modify their products.

With voice search taking over a more substantial portion of search queries, understanding the user tone along with user intent is what you have to aim at. 

Which brings us to the question – “How to find the right keywords that match user intent?”

Well, read on to find out!

What is user intent?

User intent can be defined as the motive or the reason a user makes a search query. Or it can be explained as a goal that the user tries to fulfil by making a search query. Therefore, user intent becomes the why, how, and what searches are done.

User Intent
User Intent

Types of User Intent

Let’s take a look at the six types of user intent classified by Google and start our journey to frame optimized keywords.

  • Know simple: Users with the ‘know simple’ intent lookout for brief answers to their search query. Example – “What is the capital of India?” Or “Height of Narendra Modi”
  • Know: User with ‘know’ intent looks out for comprehensive answers to their query. Example – “All about Article 375” or “Best places to visit in Bangalore.”
  • Do: Users with the ‘do’ intent make a search query to interact with a website. Example – “Calculate BMI” or “Play Candy Crush”
  • Device Action: Users having a ‘device action’ intent use commands like ‘Hey Siri,’ ‘Ok Google,’ or ‘Alexa’ to make a search query. Example – “Hey, Siri! What is the temperature today?” or “Alexa, play the top 50 Hollywood charts online.”
  • Visit Action: Users with the ‘visit action’ intent make a search query to find or visit a place or location. Example – “Chinese restaurants in Bangalore” or “Coffee shops near me.”
  • Website: In this type of intent, users make a search query to visit a particular website like keywordcountry.com or Zomato.com, etc.

Importance of user intent in SEO

If you understand what is user intent, you can probably sky-rocket your SEO campaign. User intent is all about understanding what the user wants and how they ask for it. With the advent of voice search, you shall keep in mind to frame your keywords, keeping both – voice and traditional search in mind. 

Let’s look at the difference in user tone in both types of searches: –

Traditional search: Best coffee shop nearby

Voice Search: What are the best coffee shops near me?
See the difference. This is what you have to master. If you understand user intent, you can coin relevant keywords that will boost your SEO.

Know what the users want

By studying user intent, you can find out what information users are looking for and identify pages on your website which carry such information and boost them. This can also help you in doing your site introspection and creating relevant content which is driven around user intent.

User intent and long-tail keywords

With the introduction of Google’s RankBrain, the theme of how SEO is done has changed. It has become challenging to get a good SERP rankings and boost your site’s click-through rate. This is because exact match or short-head keywords no longer bear fruits for you like old times. 

And this is where long-tail keywords come into the picture. Search queries now revolve around broader topics that center around user intent. This makes your keywords high-value long-tail and high-intent driven and attracts more target audience to your site. 

Another excellent characteristic of long-tail keywords is they are business-specific, which means it doesn’t take much effort to rank well for them. As compared to short-head keywords, these long-tail keywords consider alternatives and synonyms, which give you more flexibility while preparing your content. And they work for both – traditional and voice searches.

User Intent makes your site more personalized.

Did you know that 74% of users feel frustrated when a site’s content is not personalized? This is because the world has gotten faster, and users don’t have all day. They expect relevant information and nothing extra. 

This is how user intent study helps in knowing what the user is looking for through which you can form appealing and user-specific content. This will enable you to gain credibility and faith of the users.

Personalization
Personalization

As per estimates, 40% of the users are willing to buy your product at the end of their search journey if they feel your content relevant.

User intent helps in knowing the user’s geodemographics.

Users often use location-based keywords to find businesses near them. Such keywords can help you fathom where exactly your target audience is located. You can use such information to optimize your website, product, and content, which will help drive more traffic to your site.

SEO tools for generating keywords that match user intent.

You can use tools like Google Trends, Keywordcountry, Ahrefs, Semrush, etc. to generate keywords that can boost the click-through rate to your site.

Keywordcountry is a new tool in the market which uses a machine-learning algorithm to understand user intent and generates keywords using 600+ databases. As per google estimates, 40% of the keywords it generates are new and never used before. This could prove to be an excellent tool for creating a list of keywords that match user intent and boost your SERP ranking.

What if you avoid user intent?

If you don’t form your content-driven around user intent, it can have a terrible impact on your Google ranking. It can increase the bounce rate of your site and may even lead to pogo-sticking. And believe us, Google despairs site, which has a high pogo-sticking rate.

Having a reasonable bounce rate can be considered a good thing. Reason being, users visit the first page of your site, stay there for some time and go back to SERP. 

It might mean they got the answer to their search query on the first page itself. While on the other hand, the study of bounce rate can help you find what the users are looking for and why they didn’t explore deeper. You can use this information to form relevant content and reduce the bounce rate.

While on the other hand, pogo-sticking can impact your Google ranking very severely. People often think that bounce rate and pogo-sticking are the same things, but they are not. In pogo-sticking, users visit your site and immediately, within 5 seconds, go back to the SERP. This is a piece of bad news and high alert that you need some really serious revamping of your content and SEO strategy. 

Well, studying user intent can surely help you find out where you are going wrong and make amends. 

Conclusion

By the above discussion, we may conclude that syncing your content with user intent is very important for your digital campaign. We don’t suggest dumping all the traditional approaches of doing SEO but inculcating user intent in your campaign will definitely bear you great results.

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