The benefits of writing content for informational search intent.
Most of the people on the Internet are searching for information. This is their search intent.
Broadly, there are four categories of user intent or searcher intent, namely
- Informational search intent
- Navigational search intent
- Commercial search intent
- Transactional search intent
To better understand these categories of searcher intent or search intent, you may like to read How effective content writing and searcher intent are interrelated.
But the focus of this blog post is informational search intent.
There are benefits of content writing for all Google searcher intent in varying degrees, but you will be surprised to know that 50-80% of the search that happens in Google originates from informational search intent.
As explained in this detailed Moz post on the “People Also Ask” section on Google, most of the suggested queries in this section are from informational search intent.
These queries are normally in the form of
- What is content writing?
- Why is SEO content writing important for search engine rankings?
- How to improve your copywriting skills?
- How can I hire the best content writer for my business?
- A guide to creating the perfect content publishing calendar for your content marketing campaign.
- Tutorial on copywriting best practices.
and so on.
Of course, I have given you these examples from my business, but you can apply the same on your business, for example:
- Which is the best project management tool online?
- What are the mobile app development trends during the Covid-19 pandemic?
You can easily make out that these searches are to gain some information. They are longer. They are also precise.
These are longtail keywords in their purest definition.
Does content writing for informational keyword intent translate into more sales
Does content writing for informational search intent increase sales?
Indirectly, yes. Directly, maybe not. I will explain.
It is like your sales funnel. Your customers and clients are often at different stages of your sales funnel.
You don’t want to just target people who are ready to buy from you. In most of the cases they don’t need targeting. They are already about to buy from you.
To generate more leads, to get more customers and clients, you want to target people who may want to purchase from you.
There are clients who immediately need my content writing services.
Then there are clients who know that an efficient content writing service can help them, but they haven’t yet made up their minds.
Then, there are clients who are struggling with all the difficulties that businesses normally have due to the lack of quality content, but they don’t know why they are having these difficulties.
They need to be educated.
They need to be enlightened.
For example, if someone is unable to improve his search engine rankings, he may search for “How can I improve my search engine rankings?”
When he uses this query on Google, if he comes across What is the importance of content writing in SEO?, this will be a revelation for him.
He learns that it is the lack of good content that is holding him back.
Whether he decides to hire my content writing services or goes with another service, is another matter, but I have educated him.
There is a great chance that he is going to hire my content writing services.
This is informational content that he found. This was informational search intent.
Nonetheless, it ends of generating business for me.
For every business it is very important to give the right information to customers and clients.
These days I’m writing for an accounting service that wants to help people reduce their taxable income.
They need to target people who are looking for such a service, and they are also targeting people who yet don’t know that their taxable income can be reduced through legal accounting and other procedures.
Hence, a searcher intent query such as, “How can I reduce my taxable income?” can bring such people to the website of this accounting service and this can result in more clients.
The SEO benefits of writing content for Google query intent
SEO benefits of writing content for informational search intent.
This is a very, very, very old post from Search Engine Land that says that 80% of searches are informational searches on Google.
Even if in the past decade this number has changed, there is a great possibility that it hasn’t changed much, although, another website claims that in 2018, 37% searches were informational searches. I’m not citing the source because I couldn’t find one.
The point is, Google gives preference to question-based queries rather than business type queries.
It is easier to get higher search engine rankings for informational search intent content rather than commercial or transactional search intent content.
It is also easier to write content with informational search intent.
You know the question. Once you know the question, you can write the answer.
Since, in your answer, both the question and the answer get covered, you get highly optimized content.
This content gets higher search engine rankings.
Since most probably, this content may also contain links to your main website content, the higher search engine rankings of this content also have a positive impact on your main website content.
You develop readership.
You educate and inform your visitors.
This tells Google that your content is worth ranking higher.
Your overall SEO gets better.
The brand building benefits of publishing educational and informative content
Content writing for informational search intent helps you build your brand.
To build your brand you need authoritative, informative content.
Brand building includes recognition, presence, and authority. All these attributes can be generated when you publish lots of informational content.
High-quality, informational content gives you
- Audience retention: More people come to your website and stay longer to educate themselves and be more informed.
- Better social media traction: Your social visibility is important for brand building. Social visibility isn’t just about Facebook and Twitter. Most of your clients are on LinkedIn.
- Trust among your audience: It is very difficult to distrust a coach who shares lots of insights and good information with his or her visitors.
- Higher conversion rate: People who are familiar to your presence are more likely to hire you as their business coach.
- More leads: Even if right now they don’t want to hire you as their business coach, they would like to keep in touch with you and hence, leave their email ID or phone number with you.
Suppose you are looking for a business coach. You come across two websites.
One simply states the name of the business coach, his qualifications and what sort of coaching he can provide you.
There is a contact form in case you want to contact him.
The other has lots of information about not just the coach, but also other aspects of business coaching.
She’s continuously writing and publishing useful business coaching tips.
You want to closely follow her blog for the great advice she is giving on it.
This is an incentive for you to visit her website regularly and retain the maximum amount of information about her.
She publishes a newsletter through which she broadcasts highly valuable information people can use.
She also has some e-books for you that you can download and apply the advice to immediately experience improvements in the way you do your business.
People share her content on their social media timelines. They discuss her methods and unique ways of providing business coaching.
For many search queries related to business coaching her name comes up on Google.
You begin to relate good advice and good content with her name.
This is brand building through writing content for informational search intent.
Who are you going to hire as your business coach if you really want to hire one?
Obviously the one who publishes lots of information on her website.
How can you write content for informational search intent?
Now we come to the meatier part. What sort of content writing qualifies as informational content?
As described above, the informational search intent is for gathering information, education and insight.
In fact, this is my favorite form of content writing. It is based on solving particular problems.
When writing content for informational search intent you need to keep in mind that you are providing valuable information to your visitors.
Don’t mislead them.
Don’t write content just to get them to your website.
People are way too smart for such shenanigans.
This is a sure shot way of sending them away and helping them remember never to come back to your website.
Even the Google search algorithm can make out if you are tricking people into visiting your website.
When people don’t find valuable information on your website or blog but nonetheless, they find your content on the SERPs, they immediately leave your website, indicating to Google that your content doesn’t deserve the rankings it is currently having.
Anyway, the best way of writing content for informational search intent for your industry is build a long list of questions that people may have about your industry.
I will give you my own examples to start with:
- How much does content writing cost?
- In what different ways content writing improves search engine rankings?
- Why does Google prefer high quality content?
- What is the difference between SEO copywriting and normal copywriting?
See the pattern? This sound like the FAQs section. In fact, your FAQs section is a good example of informational search intent content.
Conclusion
You cannot do without high quality content on your website or blog.
Whether you realize it today, tomorrow or after having spent lots of money and many months, ultimately, your online presence depends on high quality content.
But, beginning to publish high-quality content, in the beginning, can be puzzling, even intimidating.
The best way forward is, begin with informational search intent.
Start publishing content for people looking for information.
Once you have made a presence for yourself you can start pitching your products and services.