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Keyword Search Intent

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Keyword Search Intent is a powerful metric that is used to reveal more context on the purpose or goal behind a user’s search query.

Types of keyword search intent

What is the value of understanding search intent?

Understanding the user intent behind a keyword provides you with a fast way to research and qualify keywords for SEO, Paid, and content campaigns. Use these insights to better focus your efforts on targeting and optimizing the best keywords for use at different stages of the marketing content funnel.

You can use Keyword Search Intent in many different ways for SEO, PPC, and content marketing.

  • Discover search terms that best fit your audience’s intentions when they actively conduct searches.

  • Uncover the best tactic for targeting a keyword, ie. keywords with Informational Intent, that are suited to blog posts or FAQ pages.

  • Reveal keywords of high transactional intent (where users are ready to buy) to qualify keywords that perform better in SEO and PPC campaigns.

  • Expose your competitors’ content, SEO, and paid strategies by analyzing the intent of the keywords they target.

How are we measuring keyword search intent?

To measure Keyword Intent, we look at SERP features appearing on the Google SERP for a keyword in a particular country. We also analyze unique Similarweb metrics such as branded vs. non-branded distribution and % of transactional websites that appear on the SERP.

All of these signals are assigned a score of how much they contribute to each type of intent. When combined, we can assign a score of the % each intent has per keyword. If there is a significantly dominant intent for a keyword, only that intent will appear. If there is a strong secondary intent, it will appear as well.

How to use:

As you conduct keyword research, you can adjust your results to achieve a more detailed view by using one or more filters. To apply the Keyword Intent filter, follow these steps::

  1. From the Competitive Analysis tool, go to Website Analysis> Search.

  2. Go to the Keywords page and click the Keyword Intent filter to reveal the different options.

      Note: This metric is available in multiple modules. See Feature Location.

  3. You'll find keyword intent noted in the keywords table.

    Keyword Search Intent Tool

There are 5 different types of search intent:

  • Informational: The user is looking to learn something or get information. This type of search term might look like “how to prepare a smoothie”.

  • Transactional: Keyword that indicates an intent to complete a transaction or find information related to a transaction. This is considered a high intent because the user is often prepared to make a purchase like buy a product, book a flight or hotel room etc. (eg. “Sephora gift card”)

  • Navigational: The user wants to find a specific domain or page within a domain. For the search term, “CNN Business”, the user’s purpose is to find the business section within the CNN website.

  • Local: The user wants to find a physical location or related information ie, “nail salon in greenwich village”

  • Job search: This is a more niche intent where the user is looking for keywords related to a job search or careers, for example, “Bank of America internship”.

Using Keyword Search Intent and Keyword Difficulty

  Tip: Try the Keyword Search Intent filter alongside the Keyword Difficulty filter to gain insight on the most relevant search terms to target that will cost the least amount of effort.

Feature Location

This filter is currently available in:

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