Creating successful digital marketing and SEO strategies relies heavily on the psychology of online search and search intent. By understanding the reasoning behind how people search online, you can develop more effective strategies that put your customers first. We explore the psychology of online search and search intent to help you create better customer-focused strategies.
What is search intent?
Search intent (or user intent) is the main goal a user has when entering a query into a search engine. This could range from finding a simple answer to a question to looking for a specific product to purchase.
Every search has some kind of intent behind it. Understanding the different types of search intent is one of the first crucial steps to understanding the psychology of online search. It also helps you create much more customer-centric strategies that are likely to rank higher.
Google places a strong emphasis on delivering the most relevant pages to match the user’s intent. As such, you need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes to develop high quality content that aligns with the search intent.
There are four fundamental reasons why understanding the user’s search intent is crucial for your SEO strategy:
- You are better able to fulfil your customer’s needs
- Users are more likely to stay on your site for longer
- Set yourself as an authority within your niche
- Increases your brand awareness.
The different types of search intent
To better understand search intent, you must be familiar with the four different types. These are informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial. Generally, most keywords and searches can be attributed to one of these search intents.
Informational
Informational intent is the most common type of search intent and involves a user conducting a search to learn information on a particular topic or subject. Keywords with an informational search intent will have the largest search volume.
Typically, informational searches will be the initial phase of any buyer’s journey or decision-making process. Once the user has identified a problem, they will search to find a suitable answer to their question.
Navigational
Online searches can also have a navigational search intent. Unlike informational searches, a user is seeking a particular page or website from a company or brand they know. As such, navigational searches are more about finding a specific product, service, or blog page.
Navigational searches will mostly start with a brand name at the beginning. This is most commonly the case for finding a specific product online and will tend to be early in the buyer’s journey or decision-making process. The user is aware of the problem and how to address it. They are now seeking out the best options to solve their problem.
Commercial
One other type of search intent is commercial. At this stage, the user is nearly ready to purchase but is seeking out the best option from their research. Commercial searches will often involve seeking out specific products or solutions with the intent to purchase.
Compared to transactional intent, the searcher is evaluating their options by seeking out information, features, or reviews before making a decision. As such, commercial searches will often take place during the consideration phase of the buyer’s journey.
Transactional
Transactional searches are another type of search intent. Compared to the previous two examples, searches with a transactional intent have the highest commercial value. At this stage, the searcher knows what they want and is ready to purchase.
As such, transactional searches will be very focused, often including terms such as ‘buy’, ‘order’, or ‘sale’. These searches will appear towards the end of the decision-making process after carefully evaluating the options available.
The psychology behind search
Now you understand what search intent is and the different types, it’s time to look into the mind and explore the psychology behind the search.
Cognitive bias
One element to the psychology of online search and user intent is cognitive bias. This refers to unconscious and systematic errors in reasoning which can influence decision making.
Cognitive biases play a significant role in underpinning the searches a user makes, heavily influencing search behaviour. Many different cognitive biases can influence users’ search:
- Affect heuristic – relying on emotions when making quick decisions.
- Ambiguity effect – preferring options we are familiar with.
- Anchoring bias – comparing everything against the first piece of information.
- Choice overload – making it harder to choose when many options are available.
- Confirmation bias – favouring our existing beliefs.
- Decision fatigue – making worse decisions at the end of the day.
- Framing effect – influencing decisions based on how they are presented.
- Lag effect – increasing the likelihood of remembering something by spacing out the repetition.
- Mere exposure effect – preferring things we are familiar with.
In many instances, this can lead to subconscious bias in users’ search, often focusing on search results that will provide results they expect to find as opposed to providing a more balanced view.
As such, it’s important to develop content around the cognitive bias searchers are likely to have. One method of achieving this is by diversifying your content to include different perspectives or challenging dominant opinions.
Incorporating different perspectives into your content can also help make it more trustworthy and authoritative. This not only has a positive impact on your search rankings but also helps engage users more with your content.
Emotional triggers
Another significant psychological factor behind the search is emotional triggers. Emotional factors can have a big influence on the keywords a user enters into a search engine, how they interpret the results, and how they act upon their findings.
The user’s personal experiences and cultural content are two influences that impact a user’s search. Combined with the words and imagery used in your content, there can be a big difference in click-through rates and engagement.
Typically, a search that has stronger emotional intent will lead to much greater engagement. Content that aligns with the user’s emotional state or triggers is far more likely to deeply engage a searcher.
As such, incorporating emotional appeals into your content helps it to stand out more and resonate better with searchers. Not only does it help make your content more persuasive, but it also creates a much stronger impact by building trust and being more relatable.
Personalisation
Another element that heavily influences how a user searches is personalisation. Search engines, such as Google, use personalised results to provide more relevant search results based on a user’s previous activity.
Algorithms develop a user profile based on what results the user previously showed interest in, their click behaviour by prioritising content that a user frequently engages with, and social signals where results are influenced by recommendations and shares from social networks.
In some instances, this can restrict the content a user will see in a search engine unless it conforms to the beliefs and preferences that their search profile has identified. Despite AI systems becoming more adaptable at this, personalisation doesn’t heavily impact search results.
The only instances where personalisation has a significant impact on search results are location-based information, search ads, and the user’s previous search for contextual information.
Considerations for adjusting content based on intent
If you want to achieve higher rankings and better success online, you’ll need to adjust your content based on the user’s search intent. Ensuring your content is optimised for this outcome will help give you a competitive advantage.
Keyword research
Keyword research is still a crucial element in your SEO strategy. However, the focus of keyword research needs to change. Traditionally, keywords were chosen based on search volume and how easy it is to rank.
However, you’ll need to switch the focus towards intent-driven keywords. Selecting the keywords that match the needs, desires, and problems of your users is an effective method to create highly appealing content.
Gaining a deep understanding of your users can help you to better identify the keywords that are more likely to appeal to your customers. Creating buyer personas is an ideal method to help gain a deep understanding so you can select the most relevant keywords.
Content optimisation
Once you have found the most appropriate and relevant keywords, you need to create and optimise your content to align with the user’s needs. The content you create must provide value to your users as well as targeting the keywords you previously identified.
Every piece of content, whether it’s a blog post, product listing, or service page, needs to provide value to the user. This will help to satisfy the search intent goals.
Featured snippets
Another consideration for adjusting your content based on intent is featured snippets. These are small, select snippets that appear at the top of results pages to provide a concise answer to a search query. However, these snippets are chosen by Google meaning you can’t automatically get one.
However, there are some methods you can use to help you achieve a featured snippet. Implementing schema markup or structured data is one of the most effective. Implementing relevant schemas for each page, such as FAQs, how-to, or recipes, increases your chance of gaining a featured snippet.
The structured data you add to pages provides search engines with details about the page content and purpose. This makes it much easier for search engine algorithms to then display the relevant information within these small snippets.
Understanding search intent and the psychology of online search is crucial for helping you grow your business online. By better understanding your customers, you can ensure the content you create highly appeals and provides value. That way, you can be sure of higher organic rankings that will help your business to stand out.