In most online businesses it is vital to have a website well positioned in search engines. This implies having a good SEO policy and, in turn, this implies that we have to study what keywords we have to bet on our website. This is where the search intention of the users comes in.

But, as always, let's define well what the search intent is.

What is search intent?

It is about the intention (redundancy) of people who are searching for certain keywords in a search engine like Google. And why is the search intention of a user important? Because Google will interpret it and, based on it, will decide whether to show as a result some web pages or others.

In other words, Google cares about guess what a user intends when searching for certain terms. For example, if you type in Google....

leather shoes

...Google may think <<does this user want to buy leather shoes? Or do you want to know how leather shoes are made? Or are you trying to figure out what leather shoes are?>>. Through the terms that we have typed in the search engine, Google will try to interpret our search intent to offer us as a result some pages or others, trying to give us what we are really demanding.

What about the relevance or authority of our web pages? That is, if we have an e-commerce where we sell leather shoes and we have a high authority (we are very well valued), shouldn't Google take our store as one of the first results? Well, no, because if Google understands that the person who searches does not have an intention to buy, it will not show our product or our website, no matter how well positioned our online store is.

This is why it is very important to understand the different search intentions.

Types of computer search intentions

When we do a search on our desktop computer, Google categorizes the searches in different typologies, which will be used to decide which results will be displayed.

Informative

Google interprets that we are looking for information, whether it is about a person, a place, a thing or a topic.

Examples:

• Who is Elon Musk?
• What is nitrogen?
• Japan.
• Who is the President of the USA?
• Javascript.
• How to make lentils?

Google, here, makes a distinction within the informative searches. It considers that there are two types: general and specific. If you make a specific informative search, Google itself will answer you as a result. Imagine that you search for Donald Trump (general information). The result will be as follows:

However, if instead of looking for this, you are looking for something more concrete, such as Donald Trump age, Google knows that you only want a specific piece of information and it answers you itself:

Navigation

Google interprets that we are looking for a link to a web page. This is very typical: there are people who, instead of putting the web page in the browser, search for it by name and take advantage of the first link that Google offers. For example someone who wants to go to Facebook and types the word facebook in the search engine, knowing that the first result Google gives you will take you to www.facebook.com.

Other examples:

• Twitter login.
• Repsol Guide.
• Ali express.
• Yellow Pages.

Commercial Research

In this type of search intent, Google interprets that we are researching a product or service in order to decide, later, whether to consume it or not.

Examples:

• Best running shoes.
• Movie review The Lord of the Rings.
• Differences between airsoft and paintball.

Transactional

In this search intent, Google interprets that we want to buy some good or service. It is the typical search we do when we already know we want to buy something and we just need to find out where we can do it.

Examples:

• Buy cheap tracksuit.
• Book Zaragoza hotel.
• Buy Samsung Galaxy.

Types of Mobile Search Intentions

Google knows that, when we search through our smartphone, the search intentions have their own rules because it is very possible that the search context is different. It is not the same to search for a butcher's shop from our desktop or laptop while we are at home, than to search for it while walking down the street with our cell phone.

For this reason, Google has created a document that allows us to understand how they interpret the searches performed from cell phones. And when we talk about searches, they are not only referring to the fact that we go to google.com and search, but they are also talking about the voice searches that we do through the assistants that our smartphones have.

And what does this document say? It basically categorizes searches in the following ways.

Type Know

These are searches that try to find general information about something. For example, Rafa Nadal tennis player.

Type Know Simple

Like the Know type, these are searches that seek information about something or someone, but this time they are searches that try to obtain more specific information about that something or someone. For example, Rafa Nadal height.

Device Action

These are searches that try to perform something or interact with your phone, without going through Google's website or your web browser. The list provided by Google in this regard is as follows:

Type	Example
Calling someone	[call mom], [call Roberto], [call Roberto].
Send a message	Send a message to David], [Send an SMS to Lucía Martín], [Send an SMS to Lucía Martín].
Obtain information on a map	[Go to Silvano Street], [Show me the traffic], [Nearby restaurants].
Open web page or open/install app	[Go to Amazon]. [Open Facebook app], [Get Candy Crush].
Play music or video	[Play the songs from album X], [Watch the Lord of the Rings movie], [Watch the Lord of the Rings movie].
Schedule a meeting	[Meeting with David tomorrow at 5pm].
Set alarm	[Set alarm for 7 am] [Set alarm for 7 am] [Set alarm for 7 am] [Set alarm for 7 am] [Set alarm for 7 am

Type Website

These searches are the same as desktop searches of the Browse type, i.e. when a user searches for a web address.

For example:

• Facebook.com
• Facebook web.

Visit in Person

These searches refer to those that we search for specific places we are going to go to. For example:

• Subway station.
• Downtown Madrid how to go.

Multiple Intentionality

These searches are those that Google itself is not sure what your real intention is, so it will offer you results for different intentions.

For example, if we search for the word cave, Google will delight us with information about what a cave is, news about caves, a map with the nearest caves... Since it doesn't know what your demand is, it offers you a little bit of everything.

How Can I Take Advantage of the Search Intent?

We've already seen what a search intent is and how Google ranks them. It's time to take this knowledge and use it to our advantage.

First of all, we need to understand what our audience is looking for. Let's imagine we have a blog that talks about pens. If we make a study of the keywords that, a priori, could interest us, we would get the following results:

What we can see in the image above is that the term pens is searched about 37,000 times a month, of which almost 10,000 are made in Spain. Not bad, right? It is true that it seems to be a word that has a lot of competition, but it is certainly attractive.

Now let's go to Google and search pens. The result is as follows:

If you look at the Google results, all the attention is being given to the stores, that is to say, Google interprets that when you enter the word pens in your search engine, you want to buy one.

<<But, Pedro, wait a minute, our blog doesn't sell pens, it talks about them, their types, their history, which brands are better for which things?>>

Perfect, then we need to take into account the search intention of our audience, and it is focused on learning more about the world of pens and not on buying one.

With this in mind, we will analyze how many monthly searches the story of pens has, which is an article we are interested in writing and goes in line with the theme of the blog. The result would be as follows:

We already see here that this term is much less attractive. Only 20 searches per month. If we search for it in Google, we will see the following result:

See how the results now don't take you to websites that sell pens? Google has resolved that this is an informational search and does not consider it appropriate to try to sell you anything, so it shows you those results that answer your question or satisfy your need.

Now you know what you're dealing with if you make an article about the history of the ballpoint pen. You know it's right for your audience but, on the other hand, you're aware that it will never get too many hits. You can play with the terms to see if there are other ways people are searching for the pen story to reach a wider audience. But what's clearer to you is that if you had tried to go for the word pens You would have made a titanic effort and, in addition, Google would never have highlighted you, since the content of your article and the intention of the users is different.

The same thing happens if we want to make an article that talks about gel pens. If we work on a blog post that talks about what these pens are like but our keywords are simply gel pens, we will find that Google will consider that keyword to be a transactional intent and he will never position us decently because he will see that we don't sell those pens. If not, take a look at this image:

The screenshot makes it clear that for Google that keyword has purchase intent (transactional intent). That forces us to change our keyword to another one, for example to how gel pens work, which is considered to be a term with informative purpose.

As you have seen, you have to take into account the search intent if you want to position correctly those contents that you are going to write for your website. Google analyzes what its users do and assumes that certain keywords expect certain answers, and we have to be in line with them if we want to position ourselves correctly.

Conclusions

When we are creating online content, we must know in advance what search intent we are responding to. And, in this way, we must make sure that the terms (keywords) that we are going to use in our pages are interpreted by Google in the way that suits us, otherwise, we risk not appearing in the search results.