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How effective content writing and searcher intent are interrelated

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Connection between effective content writing and searcher intent

Connection between effective content writing and searcher intent.

There is a direct connection between effective content writing and searcher intent whether you factor in search engine traffic or not.

Normally, searcher intent is always talked about when you want to improve your search engine rankings meaningfully.

Whenever someone searches for your content (whether that person is aware of your website or not) she has an intention. It is very important to know what that intention is because even slight differences in the search queries change the intention. I explain below.

Suppose, you go to Google and search for content writer. There might be different intentions or reasons for looking for a content writer:

  • You want to know what a content writer does.
  • You are looking for a content writer job.
  • You want to read some content writing tips because you yourself are writing content for websites.
  • You are working on a blog post or an article and you want to know what the others have written about the query “content writer”.
  • You want to hire a content writer.

Now, the example that I have taken above, though, is not an appropriate example because it is a vague term, many people may use this search term while having different intentions.

The problem is, Google knows that even if people use a wrong query, if they don’t find the right information they are looking for, they are going to blame Google and may end up trying out another search engine.

Hence, Google is constantly working at knowing, in best possible manner, what is the searcher intent. What is the intention of the searcher when she is googling something?

Even when a searcher is using a vague query, Google considers the other search terms used by the user.

For example, she first searches for how to improve my SEO. While reading a blog post on “How to improve your SEO”, she finds out that she needs a content writer or a content writing service to improve her search engine rankings.

Then, she looks up the term content writer. Now, Google knows that she is looking for a content writer who can help her improve her SEO, and shows her the results accordingly.

This is her searcher intent: she is looking for a content writer to improve her SEO.

A blog post or a web page titled SEO content writer or Content writer to improve your SEO, will be written targeting that user, or that searcher intent.

The searcher intent can be categorized in the following manner:

Informational search intent

When someone has informational search intent when googling, the person is simply looking for information. Examples:

  • Where can I bump into Bigfoot?
  • How can I grow my muscles fast?
  • What is a Java SDK?
  • Is it safe to invest in cryptocurrency?

As you can see, in these queries, the person is just looking for information. At least of now, she has no intention of buying something.

Navigational search intent

You do navigational search when you don’t know the exact URL. You know the name of the company or you know the name of the service, but you don’t want to either type the long URL or you don’t know it. Examples:

  • Credible Content Writing Services
  • Google Analytics
  • Huffington Post
  • The SETI project

You search for the company name and among the search results, you find the URL and you click it.

Commercial search intent

In this type of searcher intent, although the user wants to buy, she is comparing between different products and services. Examples:

  • Best content writing service
  • Handy Cam reviews
  • Top-rated sitcoms on Netflix
  • Top luxury resorts in Punjab

Anyway, in these type of search intents, you can see that the person wants to compare various products and services so that she can make a better buying decision.

Transactional search intent

This is where the real business happens. Examples:

  • Hire an efficient content writing service
  • Buy OnePlus 50t (just in case)
  • MailChimp prices
  • Grammarly cheapest package
Identifying searcher intent

Identifying searcher intent.

How does efficient content writing help you target searcher intent better?

I have briefly written above that through efficient content writing you target searcher intent not just for better search engine rankings, but also to improve your overall conversion rate.

In terms of writing content, on what does your conversion rate depend?

Primarily, on what you have written on your website.

That very first headline.

That very first sentence.

The very first paragraph.

The way your writing transitions from one sentence to another and one paragraph to another.

The way you use headlines to highlight the most compelling portions of your message.

The way you organize your information flow.

Your writing style.

The emotional connection that your writing makes with the visitors/readers.

All these things, and some, combined, contribute towards your conversion rate.

Writing content for searcher intent makes effective content writing

People are becoming savvy when it comes to using Google (or any other search engine). They know that vague terms don’t bring up the right results.

Almost 50% searches are voice searches: this means, people speak into their devices when they are looking for information.

One thing about voice search is, people don’t speak like robots when they are searching.

So, when someone is searching for a content writer to improve SEO, she is unlikely to speak into her mobile phone something like, “Hey Google, content writer”.

She is more likely to say, “Hey Google, find me the best content writer for my business,”, or something like, “Hey Google, who is the best content writer for my business consulting services?”

Voice search example-find me the best content writer for my business

Voice search example-find me the best content writer for my business.

When people are searching using voice, they speak longer sentences because they are talking like human beings and not like robots. In most of the cases, they use conversational expressions and they use lots of extra information which they avoid when they are typing.

Another interesting and worth observing aspect about voice search is that people are mostly asking questions when searching.

They avoid monosyllables. And since they are finding information, they find information in the form of asking questions.

Hence, most of the search queries begin with “what”, “where”, “how”, “when” and “who”. They also use “find” or “which” a lot.

Knowing these terms can help you a lot in deciding what sort of content you must write for efficient content writing.

For example, “what is a content writer” simply means that a person wants to know what a content writer does, but, if someone searches for “where can I find a good content writer” or “which is the best content writing service”, the person means business.

Effective content writing involves knowing searcher intent and then writing content for it.

Content writing for searcher intent is good for humans as well as SEO

Efficient content writing based on searcher intent saves you from publishing lots of unnecessary content.

You want to educate people, undoubtedly. Hence, I’m writing this blog post that explains how efficient content writing and knowing searcher intent are interrelated. This is mostly educational post. I’m not exhorting you to hire my content writing services.

A big part of my traffic comes from my blog posts that inform and educate. This helps me in brand building. When search engine rankings of these blog posts improve, since they are also linking to my main website, the rankings of my business pages also get a boost.

But, if I get traffic just for informational and educational purposes, I won’t get clients. I get clients when they search for a professional content writer who can write for their websites, blogs and email marketing campaigns. They land on my relevant business pages through search engines.

Having said that, you need to carefully draw a line between creating content that gets you business and creating content that simply informs and educates your visitors.

Above, in the section where I have explained various searcher intents you read that the searcher intents can be of the following types:

  1. Informational
  2. Navigational
  3. Commercial
  4. Transactional

You need to decide what type of audience your content must draw to your website. The differences can be subtle and big depending upon the approach you take.

For a business website, two categories of searcher intent are important: commercial intent and transactional intent.

For brand awareness, you can also write content about informational intent but maintain a balance.

On my website, I maintain a balance of 60:40 – 60% informational content and 40% commercial & transactional content.

There is a reason why I publish more informational content.

It is easier to rank well for informational content providing answers to questions. Google gives preference to those blog posts and webpages that provide answers to queries beginning with “how”, “why”, “what”, and such.

Informational content encourages people to link to my website.

It also acts as a showcase because my target clients are interested in such type of content for their own website.

When they see that I publish lots of informational content on my own blog, they feel reassured that I am experienced in writing informational content.

Informational content is also important for people providing technical services such as programming, online education, and mobile app development. They want to convince their clients that they are knowledgeable.

They also help consulting services.

Above I wrote that writing efficient content according to the right searcher intent isn’t just good for your search engine rankings, but also from the perspective of usability and readability.

When you focus your content writing on searcher intent, you provide content that is needed by your human visitors. They get the right information because you’re not wasting your time and their time, and publishing content that your target audience is looking for.

Hence, a big part of efficient content writing involves knowing which searcher intent to target, how to strike the perfect balance between different searcher intent types, and then write compelling content.

Should you put all your SEO eggs in the Google basket when writing content?

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When content writing to not put all your SEO eggs in the Google basket

When content writing to not put all your SEO eggs in the Google basket.

After very long time I have read this highly intriguing blog post on what direction Google is taking and how content marketing (in my case, content writing) must take a proactive stand.

Right now, when you write content, there is a more than 99% chance that you want to improve your search engine rankings on Google. The search engine has a 92.17% global market share, after all. The search engine that comes second is Bing at a measly 2.78%.

So, understandably, when you are investing in SEO, you would rather focus on 92.17% than 2.78%.

Google is unpredictable, though. Years of investments in terms of man-hours/woman-hours and money go down the drain with a single update.

Google is a private enterprise. It is capitalism machine. It is not a social service. It wants maximum number of people using its search engine so that it can monetize them.

Eventually, in near future, Google wants to give you information even before you realize that you need to look it up.

People use Google because they find useful information, fast and conveniently. “Useful information” is the keyword here.

Search engineers and hundreds of PhD’s in mathematics are working round-the-clock to make sure that the users get the most relevant information they need.

To achieve that, sometimes they need to change their algorithm according to new observations.

The point is, they are going to change their algorithm at their convenience, whether the new change wipes off all your listings from the search engine or suddenly catapults you to the top position for you every keyword.

SEO content writing while not getting influenced by Google’s whims

Frankly, there is no foolproof solution. The above Content Marketing Institute blog post concludes with

SEO becomes a long-term experiential development strategy, not a game of matching semantics. As content marketers we are ultimately NOT trying to simply understand how people search for content – and are served it via Google – but rather how people are finding and experiencing the solutions to challenges they may not even know they have.

What does it mean?

Provide value instead of writing content according to Google guidelines. Focus on people instead of SEO. Make it easier for people to access your content and it will be automatically accessed by Google and other search engines.

Remember that content is all about experience. You already know that every instance of purchase is an emotional decision. Hence, your content, whether you write that content or publish a video or audio recording, must invoke an emotional response.

Your content must be a part of a journey. A bigger customer journey that does not begin and stop at your search engine rankings.

Rankings matter, yes. Keywords also matter.

But, your content is more than that. Keywords are just a guideline. For example, when you read a book, let’s say “Jude the Obscure” by Thomas Hardy, you know that the theme centers around a character called “Jude” who is always making “obscure” decisions about his life and people around him.

So, when I create a web page about “best content writing services”, instead of repeating the phrase multiple times in my content, I must focus on explaining to you why my content writing services may be the best for your need.

Create the context. Weave a narrative. Deliver value. Touch people emotionally. Then you don’t need to constantly worry about your Google rankings. You content attracts people due to its own, inherent quality.

Use SEO tools along with content writing to improve your search engine rankings

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Using SEO tools along with content writing

Using SEO tools along with content writing.

I have personally experienced that content writing in itself can improve your search engine rankings. But with so many people competing for limited space on the SERPs, you need to take extra measures to highlight your content and make it easier for the search engine crawlers to make sense of it.

When you are regularly publishing content on your website or blog, I am assuming that you have a CMS or a blogging platform. Most probably you are using WordPress.

You may also be using something like Drupal or Joomla! but the basic thing is, when you are regularly publishing content, you need a publishing software. You can’t be creating and uploading independent HTML pages.

Every CMS gives you a GUI to write and publish content. Within your content you can have HTML elements such as <h1> and <h2> tags, images, hyperlinks and bulleted lists. You can also have page title and description meta tags.

In most of the cases, these are more than enough to improve your search engine rankings and there shouldn’t be a need to use an extra SEO tool.

Nonetheless, as I have mentioned above, to make sure that your quality content is crawled, indexed and ranked by Google and other search engines, you use SEO tools to analyze your content and incorporate keywords.

Do I use SEO tools along with content writing to improve my own search engine rankings?

Yes I do.

What SEO tools do I use along with optimized content writing?

In the very beginning I used the All-In-One WordPress SEO plug-in. Oh yes, I have been using WordPress since time immemorial.

Although WordPress allows you to create the title of your blog post or web page, per se, there are no or little provisions for adding meta tags. Besides, sometimes, you want your blog title and the actual HTML title to be different.

The blog title is the main headline that you see atop every blog post. Normally, it comes between the <h1></h1> tag.

The title of a post is the meta tag <title></title> and so is the description <description />.

WordPress by itself does not have provisions to add these bits of information. There are important for your SEO. To add them, you need an SEO tool.

As I have mentioned above, in the very beginning I was using the All-In-One WordPress SEO plug-in but later, I don’t know when, I started using the Yoast SEO plug-in. Both these plug-ins allow you to enter title and description information. The advanced version of Yoast SEO also analyzes your text for keywords.

For a few years I have been using SEOPressor. This is also a WordPress SEO plug-in. Along with giving the usual stuff like deciding separate title and description for your posts and also for Facebook and Twitter postings, you can enter three keywords and it analyzes your text.

Sometimes, when you are using your keywords, you may end up overusing them. SEOPressor warns you if you are overusing or under using your keywords and then makes suggestions. It also makes LSI keywords suggestions – alternative keywords that you can use to improve your SEO.

If your text-image ratio is low, it advises you to add more images.

I don’t use SEOPressor often (although I pay for it every month) because I find it constraining. To mark your blog post “optimized” you need to score beyond “75”. Since lots of effort is involved to reach the mark of “75” and beyond, instead of focusing on the quality of the content, you may end up trying to reach that mark.

Besides, reaching that mark isn’t a guarantee. Many times, I have been able to feature my blog posts among the top three results on the SERPs despite scoring below “60” by the SEOPressor analyzer. Conversely, even after crossing “90” the posts appear on fourth or fifth page.

But, anyway, whenever I want to make an extra effort at creating an optimized post, I use it.

Do I use another SEO tool along with content writing?

Not necessarily. Being a content writer, I am more obsessed with creating quality content rather than worrying about the SEO features recommended by the SEO tools.

I believe, or rather, I have experienced, when basic SEO needs are taken care of, such as having your keywords in the title and description, having your keywords in the first 100 words of the blog post or web page and then scattering them with different alternatives throughout the text, you begin to get higher search engine rankings.

I also use the Google Search Console regularly to submit the newly created blog posts or the old blog posts that I have just updated. You don’t need to wait for Google to come and crawl your content. You can submit your link and ask Google to crawl it. This way, your link is crawled, indexed and ranked comparatively quickly.

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.

Is your content writing sabotaging your SEO?

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Is your content writing sabotaging your SEO

Is your content writing sabotaging your SEO

Content writing isn’t all SEO.

Although 99% of my clients approach me to write content for them so that they can improve their SEO, sometimes, search engine optimization is their least concern.

In fact, they even feel awkward about talking about writing content for improving their rankings. Recently I worked on a landing page copy that explains visitors why it is important to focus on keywords. But that’s a different issue.

The connection between content writing and SEO

To understand how your content writing has a direct impact on your search engine rankings, you must think from the perspective of search engine algorithms.

What is the purpose of a search engine algorithm?

It wants to find the best possible information for the user.

Now, a typical user isn’t concerned about how a search engine like Google manages that.

If she doesn’t find the right information, she is going to assume that Google isn’t good at it, even if she herself is not using the right search terms.

For example, there is a big difference between searching for “content writer” and “I need a content writer”.

When you search for “content writer” what do you mean?

Do you want to become a content writer?

Do you want to know how a content writer works?

Do you want to know what the term means?

How does Google know what you want?

Although it shows you the results, these results are not going to be precise because the search term may carry different meanings for different people (intention).

On the other hand, if you search for “I need a content writer” or “looking for a content writer for my business”, or “SEO content writer for real estate website”, Google knows what you’re looking for and accordingly, shows you the results.

Hence, as a professional service providing content writing, although “content writer” is a search term that represents what I do, it doesn’t exactly help my clients find me when they need me.

What I write and publish on my website, consequently, has a direct bearing on my SEO.

How your content writing may be sabotaging your SEO

You harm your SEO when you are constantly writing and publishing content your customers and clients are not trying to find.

As explained above, for my own website, I’m not interested in optimizing for “content writer” because one never knows what the searcher is searching for.

I’m not saying that people searching for “content writer” are definitely not looking for a content writer for their business, but it is such a high-competition keyword that it is not worth my time.

One of the biggest mistakes people commit is that they don’t do the needed research when preparing a list of their keywords.

The bulk of your traffic doesn’t come from your primary keywords such as “content writer” or “web designing” or “mobile app development” or “running shoes”.

I’m not saying these terms are not good. It would be excellent if you could rank on the first page for these terms.

But bigger companies, or individuals and organizations who have already built a considerable quantity of high-quality content around these keywords, are way ahead of you.

Even if you try to catch up with them, since they have already had a head start, you will be spending all your resources on these keywords, with little success.

This is one reason: focusing on primary keywords.

The other reason is, assuming that your target customers and clients are going to find you anyway, no matter what you publish.

Remember that search engine algorithms don’t have feelings.

They depend on artificial intelligence. They depend on machine learning. They analyze your words. Hence, if you don’t use the right words, they’re not going to pay attention to you.

So, even if your messaging is correct, if you are not using the right keywords, you are going to sabotage your SEO.

When does content writing improve your SEO?

When you are writing content for your website, you must focus only on those keywords and search terms that are going to fetch business for you, directly or indirectly.

I have used the caveat “directly or indirectly” because you also need content for brand building.

Not all traffic converts.

For example, if more people know about the fact that I’m a content writer, it is better for me.

When they need a content writer, they will know how to find me.

If they like what I constantly publish, when someone they know needs a professional content writer, they may recommend my website.

Hence, when you are writing content for your website, focus on two possibilities:

  1. Content writing for brand awareness.
  2. Content writing to get customers and clients.

Make a list of topics that will help you raise brand awareness. Then write content on those topics.

Make a list of topics that can fetch you customers and clients. Then write content on those topics.

Easier said than done, I know.

This is where you will need to spend time on research.

You cannot simply assume that people are going to use certain keywords and search terms because you feel that they should be using those keywords and search terms.

Pay close attention to Google suggestions.

Use Google Analytics to know what keywords and search terms convert better compared to the others.

Use your own logic.

What is the intention of people searching for content on your website?

Although you are writing and publishing content to improve your SEO, you also want to inform people, to educate them, so that they can make a better decision.

Hence, if I create a web page or a blog post on a topic like “looking for an SEO content writer”, I may be writing something like How to hire the best SEO content writer to improve your rankings, but my purpose is not to educate you and then send you somewhere else.

No, I tell you how to hire the best SEO content writer and then also tell you why I am your best SEO content writer.

This is brand awareness as well as selling your business.

Focus on precise keywords as much as possible. It may mean generating more content, but it also means reducing advertising costs. And of course, improving your conversion rate.