Ray L. Perry Consulting

Why Your Keyword Strategy Is Incomplete Without User Intent

Keyword research is finding the keywords your target audience is likely to type into search engines. Keyword strategy is using those keywords to get your website to come up when they do a search.

To begin with a really basic example: running shoes. Let’s say your eCommerce store sells running shoes. Specifically, these shoes come in larger sizes.

To help the people who would benefit from these runners find you, which of these two keyword options makes the most sense:

If you guessed option two, you’re right! The first term is simply too generic.

If you don’t have a large AdWords budget, it’s unlikely that your brand will come up when someone enters a keyword. This is because bigger brands like Nike are more likely to come up.

But option two, on the other hand? Wouldn’t it be great if someone who wears size 15 shoes could find your store when they search for places to buy running shoes?

While it is important to have a good understanding of your customers and what they are looking for, basing your keyword research solely on this could lead to inaccurate results. There is a lot of valuable data out there that can help you make informed decisions about the keywords you should be targeting. It involves…drumroll please…research! Yes, keyword research, like other types of research, involves the collection and analysis of data.

Keyword Research Tools

To find the right keywords for your website, you can use one of the many keyword research tools available.

To name a few:

There are several tools that can be used including competitor research, blog posts, or keyword ideas. The rest of this post will be dedicated to the best tools and strategies. Let’s discuss eCommerce keyword research specifically.

Keyword Research For eCommerce Stores

There are a few things to keep in mind when doing keyword research for eCommerce stores. You want to make sure you are writing for potential customers and not just using keywords that you think people will search for. This is also true for researching keywords for any business or industry.

For eCommerce, however, here are some of those special considerations:

Let’s look at each of these more closely next.

Keyword difficulty

The difficulty of ranking for a specific keyword in Google’s organic search results is known as keyword difficulty or SEO difficulty.

When keyword difficulty is extremely high, your chances of ranking before them in search engine results are very slim, if not impossible. It is very unlikely that you will be able to rank before Nike in an organic search.

However, you do not want to select keywords that are too easy to obtain. The low keyword volume might mean that people are not searching for it. And that brings us to our next point!

Keyword volume

Here’s a handy definition from WordStream that explains what keyword volume means:

For example, if a site gets 100,000 monthly organic searches for a particular keyword, that keyword has a search volume of 100,000.” Keyword search volume is the number of times a keyword is searched for in a given timeframe. For example, if a site gets 100,000 monthly organic searches for a particular keyword, that keyword has a search volume of 100,000. The average keyword search volume over a set timeframe provides marketers with an idea of a search term’s competitiveness and volume. This data can be used to see how traffic is influenced by certain keywords over time.

For instance, the monthly searches for “Super Bowl” increase significantly in February. As this keyword increases in popularity, you will notice that it becomes more difficult to rank for.

It is beneficial to start incorporating relevant keywords into your content as soon as possible as it will help increase your page and domain authority.

Domain authority

Authority is a measure of a website’s quality and reliability. Different ranking tools use different algorithms to measure authority.

Moz is the leader in all-things domain authority (DA) and here’s how they define it:

“Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). The DA score tells you the likelihood of your website ranking. The scale is from 1-100, with a higher number meaning a higher chance of ranking.

Domain Authority is a score (on a 100-point scale) developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engines. A website’s Domain Authority score can be improved by increasing the number of high-quality inbound links from other websites. Domain Authority is a score that predicts how well a website will rank on search engines. It is calculated using a machine learning model that looks at how well past search results correlate with our link data.

To give you an idea of the domain authority Moz gives to some websites you’ve likely used or at least heard of:

Page authority

DA is a metric that predicts how well a website will rank on SERPs, while page authority predicts how likely a single page is to rank.

Backlinks

Finally, before we explore keyword research even further, we need to talk about backlinks. Link building is a process by which you create backlinks to your website from other websites. This is done in order to improve your website’s search engine optimization (SEO).

Links from other websites to yours are called backlinks.

Let’s say your eCommerce store sells birdhouses. If a website that ranks different birdhouses links to your website, this means that your website is being considered as a valuable source by that other website. Backlinks are generally seen as a good thing by search engines because it means that your site must have some valuable content if other websites are linking to it. If you can get more high-quality sources, your ranking and domain authority will improve. Link building is the most effective way to improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages.

There are many reasons for this. One of the biggest factors that affects your website’s ranking is the number of links pointing back to your site.

User Intent

In the commercial space, user intent has enormous value. Although it cannot be seen directly in cyberspace, many SEOs still find it important. One of the most important content strategy metrics is user intent.

The intention behind every Google search is to find something. The user is looking for answers to questions, information on resources, reviews of products, and much more. The content will connect with the user if it meets their expectations. Content that is not relevant to what the user is looking for is not as likely to be successful.

User intent is important to understand not just for conversion purposes, but also to improve SEO and provide more value to visitors. This will help establish your brand as a trustworthy source of content that your audience can rely on.

Why Use Intent is Important

User intent is valuable for SEO because it helps you understand what users are looking for when they search for something. You can start evaluating user intent by looking at the search results and looking for patterns.

User Intent Tells You What Users Are Looking For

User intent refers to the reason why someone is searching for something online. When you start focusing on user intent, you will look at real-life examples of searches that people type into search engines like Google every day. This text is discussing how the keywords being used are related to questions that are being asked in Google.

For example, popular keywords include “iPhone cases under $20” and “iPhone case reviews.” However, “iPhone case reviews” only reveals that users are searching for reviews of any iPhone case. It’s not clear what kind of case the user is looking for. Use generic information that can be applied to any type of case.

“iPhone cases for under $20” is much more specific and allows the user to know what the individual’s intentions are. The person is looking for iPhone cases that are less than $20. iPhones are expensive, so if you want to sell phone cases, design them to fit a lower price point.

Try to evaluate what the user wants instead of looking at popular search terms. There are several ways to find keywords, but I recommend using the Keywords tool in HubSpot software or Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool.

Your content should be relevant to your company’s products and services. If your company only sells accessories for Android devices, you shouldn’t be creating content about iPhone cases that cost less than $20, because the search volume for that term is high. If you make false or misleading claims in your marketing, it can damage how customers and potential customers see your brand. It can also lead to legal problems.

Looking at your marketing analytics is a great way to learn about user intent as it relates to your audience. This will give you insight into the types of people who are visiting your site and what they are looking for. Search for keywords that are being used to find your website using a keyword analytics tool like HubSpot’s. Scan through each keyword to find elements of user intent. By taking this action, you will gain an understanding of what your audience is hoping to find, and recognize chances to develop and provide the kinds of content and resources they want and need.

You can also use your data to see if the resources people need are easy to find once they arrive at your website. Visitors who come to your website from organic search are likely looking for something specific. You can see what they’re looking for by comparing the keywords they use in your organic search traffic with the search terms people are using in your website’s internal search tool. The search queries match up. This data can be used to help identify what your audience is looking for that might not be readily available on your site. It is important to understand what your users are searching for in order to provide them with the best possible experience. This can be done by analyzing your data to see what users are searching for, both on and off your website.

User Intent Supplies Unique Keyword Suggestions

When researching keywords, many SEO professionals neglect to identify high-value, long-tail keywords with clear user intent. Why? We limit our ability to look beyond something if we’re guided by it. In this case, we’re being guided by keyword popularity, which is just the shiny “search volume” count. When you focus on “user intent,” you are considering what users are trying to accomplish when they input something into the search field. This way of thinking is more user-friendly than SEO-centric.

For example, “how to get rid of bed bugs” is a popular keyword. The target keyword has a great search volume (33,100 local exact/per month), and most SEO professionals stop their search there.

But what about the user who wants to figure out how to get rid without any help from a company? Or by using a pet-safe product? You don’t have to buy any new products. This user is looking for a way to get rid of bed bugs without having to buy a product. This shows what the user is trying to achieve. Your article titled, “How to Get Your Kids to Clean Their Rooms,” could have a high conversion rate if it provides readers with valuable and specific advice.

User Intent Highlights Clearer Demographics

It can be profitable to tailor your mobile and local search to a particular demographic. Location-based keywords tell us what the user is looking for.

An example of this would be if someone was searching for “inexpensive furniture in Dallas”, which would tell us that the user is looking for furniture within a certain price range and location. This type of information allows you to easily design content, product positioning, marketing, and PR that is consistent with this particular demographic information.

THE PROBLEM: YOUR BUSINESS ISN’T GROWING AS FAST AS IT SHOULD!

Your sales have stagnated or decreased, and you can’t figure out why. Discover what’s holding you back from achieving predictable sales growth in your business.

If you want to grow your business, you need a proven plan and framework. That’s what you get with the 2X Your Sales Discovery Session.

Want to learn about a formula for Predictable Growth that will put your business on a 90-day path to 2X Your Sales?

Join our 90-minute one-on-one virtual workshop.