What is the Focus of Your Company?
The local companies often prefer to rank for the local-intent keywords like “[service] + [near me]” or for “[service] + [city]” to attract potential customers that are searching for services or products within a specific area that they are offering. Yet, not all of the businesses will operate locally. There are many sites which don’t represent location-based businesses, but rather target users on either an international or national level.
Fulfilling User Intent
Rather than violating or ignoring these guidelines in your attempts to fool the search engines in order to rank higher, it is better to focus on first understanding and then “fulfilling user intent”. When people are searching for things online they expect a desirable outcome. Regardless of whether it is an image of a dog, concert tickets or for an answer, this desired content is known as their “user intent”. For example, if an individual searches for “bands”, is it the persons intent to find wedding bands, musical bands, band saws, or perhaps something else? Your role as an SEO is to provide users quickly with content that they desire in a format that they prefer.
The Common Types Of User Intent
- Informational- These searches are to gain information. For example: “What is the best Smartphone for photography?”
- Navigational- Searches for specific websites. For example “Apple”
- Transactional- Searches to purchase something. Example: “the best deals on MacBook Pros”
You can get an idea about user intent when you Google your desired keyword or keywords, and then evaluate the current SERP. For instance, if it comes up with a photo carousel, it is likely that the people that search for this keyword are searching for photos. It is also important to evaluate the type of content the top-ranking competitors are using that you are currently not. Now ask how you are able to offer 10 times more value when it comes to your own website.
When you provide high-quality and relevant content across your website it will automatically assist you in ranking higher in the search results. More importantly, it will also establish trust and credibility with your different online users. Before doing any of these tasks, you first need to understand the goals for your website in order to execute an SEO plan that is strategic.
