Tag Archives: Search Engine Optimisation

Why search intent is most important when writing content for your website

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Knowing searcher intent for better content writing

Knowing searcher intent for better content writing.

By now you have read a lot about search intent or searcher intent on my website and blog. Just came across another blog post on the importance of knowing the search intent before writing your next piece of content.

What is search intent? How does it affect your content writing?

When someone queries Google (searches for something) she has an intention. She wants to find a piece of information that she needs. What is her intention? Why is she looking for that information?

This is search intent.

Why is it important to know the search intent?

If you do not know the search intent of your target audience, how do you publish content your target audience is looking for?

For example, I want traffic for “content writing services” and not for “how to become a content writer”.

Sure, I’m constantly publishing blog posts on how to be a better content writer and how to improve your content writing skills, but these posts are to inform my prospective clients how much I know about content writing and how I can use this wisdom to write quality content for them. Yes, when I’m drawing traffic from my prospective clients, I’m also drawing traffic for people who just want to learn about content writing and have no intention of giving work to me.

Anyway, there are many benefits of getting people to your website who are looking for useful information but have no intention of giving work to you or buying from you (they can increase your brand visibility in many ways).

Searcher intent can be of the following types:

  • Informational intent: People are simply looking for information, such as “how can quality content writing improve my search engine rankings?”
  • Navigation intent: You look for “credible content writing services” on Google instead of typing the URL if you want to come to my website.
  • Transactional intent: You want to find out how much my content writing services are going to cost.
  • Commercial intent: You need a content writer for your business.

Google wants to provide you the best answers for your searcher intent and it is continuously improving its algorithm to make sure that you find what you are looking for.

For example, if you simply want information, you do not need to find information about the commercial aspects of any product or service related to that information. You just want information.

Similarly, if you want to buy something, you are more eager to know how you can buy that thing (for example, my content writing services) instead of wanting to know how to become a better content writer.

Subtle differences that can make big differences.

Knowing searcher intent can help you come up with targeted content.

Write content that provides useful information to increase your brand visibility and generate future needs.

Write content that tells people how they can benefit from your product or service to get more customers and clients.

Provide them commercial information so that they can make up their mind about doing business with you.

Knowing searcher intent helps you write targeted content.

Google says you can forget about SEO without good content

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Google says no SEO without quality content

Google says no SEO without quality content

Well, I have been saying this for ages on my blog that you cannot think of improving your SEO without good, quality content, but now, this is straight from the horse’s mouth.

Read: 5 Reasons Why Content Writing Is Important for SEO

A question was asked recently in a Google Webmaster Central hangout to Google’s John Mueller:

There are zero issues on our website according to Search Console. We are providing fast performance in mobile and great UX. I’m not sure what to do to improve rankings.

John Mueller responded that sometimes people get so engrossed in the technical details (improving SEO of the source code) that they forget the fundamental purpose of having a website – providing useful information to your customers and clients.

Just because you have created a technically sound website it doesn’t mean it is going to enjoy good SEO, he said.

Ultimately what matters is how relevant the content of your website is.

Of course, it is important that your website is technically sound and it is easier for search engine crawlers to access your content as soon as possible, but, it is like having a well-equipped office or shop.

Simply having a plush office doesn’t give you business. People should be able to understand what your business is and whom to approach if they need to do business with you. This job of communication is done by your content.

The real business happens when people find answers to their questions and when they can have all the information they need to be able to do business with you.

Google is in the business of providing information. It is not in the business of finding your website.

Google’s primary concern is to find the best possible content to its users.

To improve your search engine rankings, you have to convince Google that you have the content people are looking for and your content can solve problems.

Read: Do You Know How Google Actually Ranks Your Content?

To create quality content that ranks well on Google, John Mueller suggests that you prepare a list of all the possible questions that your customers and clients may have about your business and then provide answers to those questions.

Your rankings also depend on the competing content – the content that is already ranking well from other websites directly or indirectly related to your field of expertise.

You can’t do much about this. The only thing you can do is, be persistent with quality content. Offer something unique that your competitors don’t offer.

Source: Search Engine Journal

Content marketing, social media marketing and SEO are different but connected

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It is normally assumed these days that content marketing, social media marketing and SEO are almost the same thing. They are interconnected but they are quite different and you can execute your content marketing, social media marketing and SEO strategies separately.

Being a content writer my personal opinion is your social media presence and your SEO are by-products of how you do your content marketing. It all depends on your content. I’m not saying this because I’m biased towards the importance of content. After all, what is SEO? It is the appearance of your content in search engine results according to its relevance. Similarly, what is social media marketing? It is about posting quality content under your profiles and continuously engaging people who follow you or connect with you, primarily due to the quality of your content.

But if an online marketer packages all these online marketing tactics into one solution, I don’t think he or she is doing anything wrong. Although you can reap benefits from them as separate entities, when combined, they can give you far greater results. Take for instance focusing just on content marketing. It involves publishing high quality and relevant content on an ongoing basis and then making sure that you leverage the strengths of all the channels available to you in order to spread your content as far as possible, among your niche audience. What are these so-called channels that you use in order to distribute your content? These may be

  • Search engines
  • Social media and social networking websites
  • Blogs and websites that link to your content
  • Blogs and websites where your content is published, attributed to you
  • Paid advertising to promote your content
  • Your mailing list

In order to promote content you need to have content. In order to reap the benefits of content marketing and content promotion, the content must be such as it should instil confidence among people who are drawn to it initially. This blog post explains in detail what’s the difference between content marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization.

With no keywords [100% (Not Provided)], is SEO content history?

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Keyword data not provided

First of all, let me make it clear, there is no such thing as “SEO content”. You should always write content that is useful to your visitors, that provides the right information to your prospective customers and clients, and that is easily accessible. Stick to these guidelines and you have got “SEO content” on your website. Nonetheless, when you create content, you keep your primary keywords in mind while preparing the text. This is for obvious reasons. Up till now, the convention has been that if people are using certain words to find you, shouldn’t you be using those words? Suppose people are looking for content writing services, shouldn’t I use these three words as often as possible, while not overdoing it?

Recently Google has started encrypting every search – it means the various analytics programs that told you what keywords people are using in order to come to your website will no longer be able to do that. Here is an interesting take on this latest development:

Why does Google hide this valuable information in this awesome free tool called Google Analytics that they recommend you sign up for? Why do you think? My guess is it’s to encourage paid search engine marketing possibly through their Google AdWords product. I mean why else would you hide this useful information?

Whatever reasons Google has got, it is not going to show you the keywords for which you get traffic, and that’s that. It’s a big company, lots of businesses depend on it, and it can really take decisions that can wipe off smaller businesses just like that. Deal with it.

How do you deal with it? Most of my clients provide me a list of keywords when they want me to prepare content for them. Although more than keywords, what’s important is the message that is delivered through the content, but keywords are a big factor. You can use common sense to prepare content according to your main keywords. But how do you know that you are getting enough traffic for those keywords? If you are trying to optimize your website for multiple keywords, how do you know which keywords are already optimized for and which ones you still need some effort? In the absence of this insight, what sort of content do you create?

Google deciding not to show you keywords doesn’t mean that keywords no longer matter. After all it’s the keywords that people use in order to find the information they need. Although Google is shifting its focus on context rather than the words that you use – you may like to read my previous blog post titled Preparing your website content for Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. Despite that, keywords are going to matter and this is why…

The entire AdWords business depends on keywords because people bid on them. The advertisements on Google’s advertising network appear on the basis of the keywords people use to carry out searches. So do you want to know what keywords drive the most traffic to your website? Sign up for AdWords. Even if you are not interested in PPC advertising, you can use its PPC ad-creation tool to do research on keywords and find out the most relevant and the most widely used keywords in your industry. By spending some money you can also find out for which keywords people click your links the most.

The best thing to do is, stop worrying about keywords and start publishing content people find useful. In fact this can be a blessing in disguise. Almost since the beginning of the Internet businesses all over the world have depended on search engines for traffic. I’m not saying you completely start ignoring the search engines because millions of people use them to find products and services they need, but people are also using other sources like social networking websites, blogs, review websites and informative articles to make up their minds. In fact, trying to find good information on search engines can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. On the other hand if you ask your peers, friends and followers (whether face-to-face or through your social connections on the Internet) you can find exactly the sort of information and advice you need. Start networking with people. Build your clout and authority. Improve your author rank instead of solely focusing on page rank and keyword density. Let people send traffic your way rather than search engines.

If you are not publishing a newsletter, then perhaps this is the right time to start one. Have a signup box somewhere on your website and encourage people to drop in their email ids so that you can keep in touch with them. In fact, the conversion rate from your emails is much higher compared to the traffic that you get from search engines.

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