How to Extract Search Intent from Google Search Console Queries [SEO]
This post is a part of the Google Search Console Feature Engineering Series.
What is Search Intent?
Search Intent lets you know what the user is trying to accomplish when he or she is Googling something.
What can we Learn from Search Intent?
If we know a specific query’s Search Intent, we can see if search engines associate our content with specific types of searches.
We can also find Content Gaps if we see a particular search type isn’t performing well despite it having relevant content in your site.
The 4 Types of Search Intent
There are 4 different types of search intent that can be drawn out from keywords. They are as follows:
- Navigational: Search queries that are made to reach your site specifically
For example: 'ebay used cell phones' - Informational: Search queries that are made in order to find information.
For example: 'what to look for in a cell phone' - Commercial: Search queries that are made when a user intends to buy something but is still learning about the products available in the market
For example: 'best cell phones 2022' - Transactional: Search queries that show a user has decided to buy a product.
For example: 'iphone 13 pro price'
How to Categorize Keywords by Search Intent
There are better lists, but I used the one provided by aHrefs in their search intent blog post.
I’ll transcribe the keywords here in a Python list format for quick copy-pasting.
For navigational intent, I run a Regex match on the site’s brand name.
kwds_informational = [ ‘how’, ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘guide’, ‘tutorial’, ‘walkthrough’, ‘resource’, ‘ideas’ ,’tips’, ‘learn’, ‘examples’ ] kwds_commercial = [ ‘best’, ‘top’, ‘review’, ‘comparison’, ‘vs’, ‘or’ ] kwds_transactional = [ ‘download’, ‘buy’, ‘coupon’, ‘order’, ‘purchase’, ‘store’, ‘cheap’, ‘price’, ‘pricing’, ‘free’ ]
Conclusion
Search Intent is an open window to the mind of your users.
Make sure you have content that satisfies all types of intentions that way Google can show you in their result pages no matter what type of keyword is being searched.
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Happy rankings!
