Understand the Link Between Searcher Intent and Landing Page for SEO Success

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Originally Posted On: https://websitestrategies.com.au/search-intent-and-rankings/

Getting a closer look at searcher intent can assist you with getting more targeted traffic to your website. This sounds complicated, but it is really just digging into some concepts and having a better understanding of them.  First of all, you need to understand searcher intent. This is the goal of the person who is conducting a search. Through Google’s algorithms, what the person is searching for is translated as their “intent”. These are the keywords that a person enters into a search box and the results can be different depending on where the person is as a customer in a conversion funnel.  The way in which these searches are interpreted are very important when it comes to SEO and digital marketing.

These are some broad descriptions of search intents:

• To find out something: User is looking for an answer to their question. Such a query will generally include words such as “what is” “how to” “why do” or “where is”.
• To do something: User is looking to complete an action – also known as a conversion. These include things such as filling out a form, looking for a phone number to make a call, looking for an address so they can visit a store or signing up for an email list.
• To go somewhere: User is looking for a page or website. The more detailed the keywords they add the more targeted the result. If a single word is used, the results are usually very non-descript and contain many branded keywords.
• To get something for free: Any time a user searches with “freebie keywords” it is not very likely that they will convert and pay for a product or a service. Instead they are looking for a free resource, product, or service.

Intent optimization is basically something that means you need to create pages which will answer questions of users or allow them to achieve the transaction that they seek.  The idea is simple and there are some good guidelines which help webmasters to optimize their pages to match a wide range of intents. On page content needs to be optimized to answer the questions that people have. This is generally accomplished with the use of “h” tags, in other words, surrounding your on-page content with tags that will be returned in searches, i.e.  <h1> tag contains the query and <h2> tag contains the answer. After each point contained in the <h2> content, the writer/creator of the content should expand on the point.

To optimize for transactional search intent, one needs to make it easy and extremely clear for a user to understand how to convert and what it means if they do.  A landing page that is designed to be transactional needs to follow some basic principles including:

• A Clear Design: When a visitor lands on your website they will decide in less than one second and nearly 95% of their decision is based on the visual design of your web page. You want to deliver your message with as few words as possible and utilize pictures and infographics to get the benefits and the value of your offer across.
• Call to Action: Your call to action or “CTA” should be obvious, clear, and able to catch the eye of any of your visitors. It needs to draw the eye of your users and make it clear what their next step will be and what will happen if they click a button on your page.
• When product descriptions are created with the intent of obtaining a transaction, it is important to focus on building up trust. You want to create an emotional tie between you and your user which will help them to simplify their decision process.

It is important to ensure that the conversion process is short. Forms should be limited to the information that is needed to help you to get the conversion. You should consolidate information, where possible, including where a file can be downloaded, how to create an account on your page, sign up for a newsletter, etc.

You should not always be thinking about the end game of making a profit when it comes to search intent. Search intent presents your business with opportunity, no matter what it does. When it comes to informational searches (most searches on Google), you should not ignore these. Think about how you can obtain leads which can later be converted and try to establish your brand as an authority in your niche. This can help to raise awareness of what is offered on your page.

Navigational optimization is extremely important and can also be one of the simplest things you do. Optimize your product landing pages with your brand name in the title tag and meta description and include it in the HTML headers. Transactional optimization is where you make the money by creating landing pages which allow users to convert on your landing page by making a purchase. This is the type of page which needs to have lead submission forms, sign up forms or add to cart buttons.

If you are offering free services and or products, then you need to create pages that target specific search queries. You will still get some value from users even if you do not get a purchase from a user looking for a freebie they still are exposed to awareness of your offer and your brand.

Searcher intent is a massive piece of relevant search results are delivered to users through semantic SEO. When you have better on page optimization it ensures that users are delivered better and more qualified traffic to your webpage. When users are directed to more targeted pages for their searches it boosts your website’s statistics in the following ways:

• Lower bounce rate: visitors are seeing the results they want after being directed to your page so they will stay on the page and explore it/read what you have on offer.
• Answer Boxes: if your content is relevant, it may be selected in the snippets that Google features when a search is made – it puts your page in the 0 position about the first result on page 1 of Google.
• Higher page view rate: When you match a user’s intent it is more likely that they will engage with the balance of your website and explore more of it.
• Widened reach: Intent optimization means that your page will show up for more queries.

When you optimize your page for searcher intent you will see a larger audience and more qualified traffic to your page. If you have not already started to optimize pages for searcher intent, now is the time to get started. An SEO audit incorporating analytics and data from Google Search Console will assist in determining which content on your page is already seen by Google to match searcher intent and offers you many opportunities to optimize your existing content.