sel logo
Search Engine Land » SEO » An SEO guide to understanding user intent
User intent is the foundational piece of strategic SEO efforts. It’s the tool that can help your brands move beyond chasing consumers to delighting them with your content. 
This article what exactly user intent is, why it plays such a pivotal role in search, and how you can incorporate it into your SEO strategy. 
In the context of SEO, user intent refers to the goal or objective a user has when they type a query into a search engine. In simpler terms, it’s the “why” behind the “what.”
This is the pain, need, want or desire driving the user to take that first key action, entering a query into the search bar, no matter the platform.
There are distinct ways to approach user intent.
Understanding the user’s search journey stage is vital for effective SEO. 
Aligning your content to meet their expectations creates positive experiences and meaningful audience engagement.
Spotting journey stages isn’t easy, but users provide signals through their search behavior. As a content strategist or SEO, identifying these signals is crucial. 
Here’s an example use case to help spot funnel position signals.
Pain conscious
A user is likely conducting a wide search that is quite short-tail and very top-level. 
The user is aware of their pain, need, want or desire but isn’t necessarily aware of what or who will get them to a solution, and they search accordingly.
Gain conscious
A user has now moved on to having a general understanding or awareness of the solution they seek or need in order to ease their pain.
Their searches begin to narrow down, although they are still relatively open and remain top-level. 
They are now aware of what is required but remain unconvinced or unaware of who can get them toward the desired solution. 
Product conscious
As a user continues to explore, looking to ease their identified “pain.” 
A user will become aware of product gains/solutions. 
These represent a shift in search behavior as the user moves toward solving their initial issue, researching the product solution they believe can assist them in easing their pain. 
Typically, searches become narrow, represented by the specificity and long-tail nature of the query that facilitates their search. 
Dollar conscious
Dollar consciousness applies when a longer tail query is accompanied by considerations around the cost, price or financial implications of their “product conscious” query. 
This stage indicates that a user is continuing to explore the options available as they search to discover a solution that correlates with their available budget for investment.  
This is the first step in understanding the potential impact of leveraging user intent when developing your content strategies. 
Tailoring content to user journey stages fosters connections and builds relationships, converting potential customers into loyal ones.
Dig deeper: How to create and execute a buyer journey-based content strategy
So how do we confirm where users are in their search journey? 
Users send clear signals through:
Recognizing and acting on these signals within your SEO strategies is crucial. Simply acknowledging journey stages isn’t enough.
We must understand users’ content expectations in how they want to receive information. Leveraging these signals is vital for creating valuable content at each stage.
When a search includes phrases such as “who,” “what,” “learn,” and ideas,” users are telling us they want to learn more.
Therefore, your content should focus on sharing knowledge and educating your audience about their problems. 
These signals are typical of pain-conscious users looking to learn about an issue they are experiencing.
Users commonly adapt their searches as they move toward being gain or product-conscious.
“Who”, “what,” and “why” are replaced by “best,” “compare,” and “for” queries. 
Users are looking for brands to display their expertise as they seek help with the pain they now acknowledge they have.
As the journey progresses, users’ product-conscious searches begin to feature specific products and categories.
Brand terms and product names will emerge within queries at this stage, so this needs to be reflected in your content. 
When users search for specific products, brands and categories, highlight them in your content. This helps users at this stage, especially as searches become more focused and specific.
And finally, as users reach the end of the search journey and look to spend their money on a solution to their pain, expect searches to become focused on that purchase. 
At this stage, key drivers are “buy,” “discount,” and “price.” Content should focus on these signals, guiding users to product, comparison, and other “money” pages.
Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.
See terms.
Keyword research has typically informed strategic SEO decisions.
But it should no longer be seen as a standalone solution. SEOs can’t depend on keywords alone to rank on a SERP, never mind ranking effectively. 
Keywords need to be used in the context of user intent to be truly effective.
Historically, it seems that SEOs focused on terms with significant search volume or favorable seasonality. However, we must dig deeper into the “why,” as discussed above.
When conducting keyword research, prioritize delivering value to your audience and addressing brand needs in the search journey.
Focus on pain-conscious and dollar-conscious content. 
Go after intent-based strategies rather than a random collection of terms with favorable search volume.
This will enable you to deliver a more focused content strategy and develop a more effective web of knowledge for a brand. 
Some brands may opt to focus the entirety of a strategy on an identified weakness in product-conscious content. 
A different brand may notice a need for more pain-conscious content.
Another brand may notice gaps across the entire journey. 
By adopting this user intent focus as a foundational piece of the puzzle, strategists will be able to see a wider landscape for their brands to inform strategy.
Canva, the design tool, leveraged user intent to improve their image rankings on Google.
Instead of solely focusing on keywords and search volume, they recognized that users searching for “color palette” sought inspiration and ideas. 
By creating inspirational content aligned with this intent, their page now ranks favorably at the top of Google’s search results. 
This shows that understanding and matching user intent can lead to higher SERP rankings.
Knowing your target audience will give you an idea of what they might be searching for. 
Demographics is the basic start, but dive much deeper here and get into the nitty gritty of psychographics for the best results. 
The more you understand your target audience’s behaviors, habits, interests, and lifestyle, the more effective your SEO strategy can be.
Once you grasp your audience’s psychographics and tendencies, you can use this knowledge to assess whether a keyword is relevant to them. 
Compile a list of keywords and analyze them in relation to your target consumers and the stages we’ve discussed (i.e., pain, gain, product and dollar conscious). 
This will help you understand how your audience searches specifically.
Next, you can understand the user’s search journey, potential deviations, and the different stages they might be in. 
This helps you identify the most critical stages to focus on for your brand.
Analyze the SERPs for your target keywords. Well-ranking content can provide insights into the platform’s understanding of the current user intent. 
Monitor the SERPs if rankings change, as intent might evolve over time. Studying the SERPs helps you grasp the broader landscape, which is always beneficial.
Look at your competitors’ well-ranking content. How do they address user intent?
Consider how you can improve upon it. 
SEO is a race to the top, where brands strive to create better results and compete for SERP ranking supremacy. 
For many brands, content creators are closer to your audience than you. Leverage this! 
Explore if a creator has created content that could assist your brand and develop relationships with them to benefit your SEO content. 
Often, content creators have valuable insights and expertise in speaking to your target audience, making it a perfect match.
Here are essential tool recommendations that I rely on, with user intent as the foundation of my strategies:
Google Trends
This tool gauges term/topic popularity over time, offers related queries and reveals user intent and community trends. 
It helps you identify emerging trends before changes in search volume occur, allowing for more effective content iteration. I call this “proactive reactivity.” 
Google Analytics
Use Google Analytics to analyze your site’s traffic, identify driving keywords, and pinpoint areas of struggle. 
By mapping this data to user intent, you can prioritize your efforts and allocate resources effectively.
Answer the Public
This tool generates keyword-related questions, revealing user queries. Many tools now do this. 
Even SERP’s People also ask feature offers quick insights into users’ questions.
Semrush and Ahrefs
Ah! The OGs. 
These SEO tools offer detailed keyword analysis, showing top-ranking pages for specific keywords and providing insights into user intent.
Now that you’ve learned how to get into the minds of your users, it’s time to use this knowledge to optimize your content. Here are some techniques to consider:
If the intent is pain or gain-conscious, provide comprehensive and valuable information. 
If it’s product or dollar-conscious, ensure that your product descriptions, images, and CTA are persuasive and clear.
Content experiences are crucial in your SEO strategies. 
Use internal links to relevant content, not just product pages, to move people through the journey. 
Focus on guiding users through your available web of knowledge on a topic and strategically link to product or dollar-conscious pages when appropriate. (This is an art form in itself!)
Include long-tail keywords that match the user’s intent. 
For example, if the intent is dollar-conscious, phrases like “buy online” or “free shipping” could be useful to include, but they wouldn’t be effective uses at the pain-conscious stage. 
To improve underperforming content, identify user intent and update the content accordingly.
Stay updated on recurring trends to optimize older content that becomes a key point of discussion for your audience.
Don’t make these common mistakes that brands and marketers make when incorporating user intent into their SEO strategies.
It’s not enough to assume that all users have the same intent when they use similar search terms. 
User intent can be incredibly varied and context-specific, with the same query sometimes implying different intent based on subtle variations in phrasing or the context in which it’s used.
How? 
Sometimes, brands focus too much on attracting users to their sites and fail to consider the different stages of the user’s journey. 
This tunnel vision approach can lead to a mismatch between the user’s intent and the content they find on your site. 
As a result, you could get lots of traffic but no conversions, for example. 
How? 
Just because a keyword brings in a lot of traffic doesn’t necessarily mean it aligns well with the intent of your target audience. 
High-traffic keywords can sometimes be too broad or vague, leading to lower conversion rates because they’re not attracting the right audience.
How? 
There’s a tendency to aim for those short, popular keywords that seem to bring in the most traffic. 
But these often overlook the value of long-tail keywords, which are typically more specific and often more aligned with a user’s specific intent and journey stage.
How? 
Incorporating user intent into your SEO strategy isn’t just about getting more users to your site.
You want to attract the right ones – people who will engage with your content, buy your products or use your services. 
The focus is on developing an engaged community of ideal customers from your target audience. Intent is a fantastic way to ensure this. 
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
Related stories
New on Search Engine Land
About the author
Related topics
Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.
See terms.
Learn actionable search marketing tactics that can help you drive more traffic, leads, and revenue.
March 15-16, 2023: SMX Munich
Online Aug. 16-17: SMX Master Classes
Start training now: SMX Next
Start training now: SMX Advanced
Discover time-saving technologies and actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges.
April 15-17, 2020: San Jose
Decode the Future of AI and Privacy with Metadata Mastery
Maximizing Marketing ROI With a Composable Stack: Separating Reality from Fallacy
Upgrade Your 2024 B2B-Marketing Game With This Powerful Ad Channel
Enterprise Marketing Attribution and Performance Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Enterprise Account-Based Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Enterprise Marketing Work Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide
Demystifying Inbox Deliverability Changes Coming in 2024
Meet your new AI-powered marketing assistant!
Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.
Topics
Our events
About
Follow us
© 2024 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Third Door Media, Inc. is a publisher and marketing solutions provider incorporated in Delaware, USA, with an address 88 Schoolhouse Road, PO Box 3103, Edgartown, MA 02539. Third Door Media operates business-to-business media properties and produces events. It is the publisher of Search Engine Land the leading Search Engine Optimization digital publication.

source