Content Optimization Based on Search Trends

Adapting content strategies to shifting search intents, real-time demand, and seasonal consumer trends.

Speakers: Ozan Ketenci

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Ozan KetenciinSEO on Board

19 Apr 2017

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⏱ 9 min read• 1,508 words

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Hey everyone. Today I want to talk about search types. How do we understand them? And how do we optimize our content for them? So what is search intent? When a user types something into the search box, why are they typing it? If we can make sense of that reason, we win. If we understand what the user is looking for, we can optimize our content better. Because Google cares a lot about user intent. Especially after Hummingbird. And now with RankBrain, search intent matters even more.

There are 4 search intent types here. The first one is Navigational. With navigational queries, think YouTube or Amazon. The user already knows where they're going. But they still type "Google" into Google. Or you type "Facebook" into Google. Then you land on the Facebook page. We call these navigational queries. Then we have informational queries. Informational has the biggest volume of all 4 types. Some studies say it's nearly 80%. So what falls under this? Honestly, most of our daily queries live here. Things like "how do I delete my Facebook account?" Or "how do I do this?" Or "how do I paint a house?" And when you check the weather in Istanbul. That's an informational query too.

Or you're curious about someone. You type "who is Elon Musk?" That query counts as an Informational query too. Here's the thing. Normally some sources split this into three: Navigational, Informational, and Transactional. But some sources add a separate query type called Commercial. So what's a Commercial query? It's basically the query type that describes the move toward Transactional. Any query that hints at a future Transactional query counts. Any query that could lead to a purchase. We call those Commercial queries. Take iPhone 7 prices. When I search iPhone 7 prices today, I might not be ready to buy. I might just be doing research. But the fact that I'm searching iPhone 7 prices says something. It shows I'm in the market for a smartphone.

And maybe a day or two later, I find the price I want. Then I can finally move to Transactional. Same goes for searches like laptop models. A lot of these land on e-commerce category pages. They can turn into a purchase later. So we call them Commercial queries. Transactional queries are things like get an insurance quote. Or making a purchase, booking a reservation. All of those. Even creating a new Gmail account. All Transactional. They're conversion-focused. They get you to complete an action.

So how do we know which of these 4 queries our user will actually type? How can we figure that out? We can't talk to every user one-on-one. We have to analyze a few things. What are they? For example, we can start by looking at the SERP'i. Because the first page a user hits after searching is the SERP. The search results page. And Google's goal there is simple. Give the user the most accurate information it can. So the smartest move is to study that page. It's where we assume the best answer lives.

For example, are there ads on this page? Are there AdWords boxes? How many? There's a study on this. As you know, the ad count was bumped up to 4. Right now, 4 ads show up on 23% of searches. And on those searches, purchase intent for that keyword is 6 times higher than the rest. That's a serious statistic. So when we see 3 or 4 ads on a search, we know something. There's likely commercial intent here. Maybe even transactional intent. Beyond that, we can look at the featured snippet answers for our query.

Or sometimes we'll see a widget show up directly. For example, search the weather in Istanbul. Or the weather anywhere else. Google will automatically pull up a widget. Same thing if we search for a calculator. A widget shows up automatically. So if we see this, what's it good for? For example, maybe we stop targeting it. It'll sit way down the SERP anyway. And the user already got the answer up top. Why would they click through to us? Why burn extra effort building that page?

That way we can point our resources at smarter targets. Another thing: is the keyword image-heavy on the results page? You know how images sometimes show up as a carousel. Usually below the second or third spot. Other times they show up way up top, much bigger. Search for hairstyles and you'll see huge images. But try something like a toaster instead. When you search something with more commercial intent, it shifts. Same with something like dress styles. The images show up further down. So adjust based on that. If images or video show up, the user wants that format. That tells you to put more images on your page. Or more video. And it tells you those images need proper optimization.

Beyond that, check the news intent on our search. Are a lot of news sites showing up? Because if they are, our content might not be evergreen. It might be something that changes daily. So competing here can be really tough again. Especially for a normal content site. And finally, we can look at the local pack. The local pack has become way more common in the SERP'i. Pigeon really pushed that. If there's a local pack, our pages get pushed further down again. If we're going to do something about the local pack. How do we show up on the map? We can optimize our My Business page with that in mind. So instead of our page, or on our page, we can do local optimizations. We can use local schema markup.

We can get our address indexed. I actually gave a talk about this at Meetups before. You can watch that too if you want. So we can try to optimize for local on our page. Okay, we've analyzed the SERP'i. Now we get it. Our user shows up. We know why they came. Once we understand that reason, we can do what I just talked about. We build a content optimization and a content strategy for that piece. And this changes with every piece of content. Because with Informational searches, you sometimes get short answers.

You might run into a Knowledge Graph. Or you run a search that's way more curiosity-driven. Something more scientific. And suddenly you're looking at three or four page articles. You need to analyze all of this really well. Say the general trend is 2,000-character answers. Long, detailed explanations. That's how the query gets answered overall. If you answer it in three paragraphs, Google probably won't rank your content well. Say we already have content. We wrote it. But we're still unsure about search intent. We want to optimize. What can we do here? We can check Search Console. How are we doing for that query in Search Console?

What's our average position? What was it when we published? How did it shift over time? How did our CTRs change? We look at that. Maybe we're an e-commerce site. But we just can't crack the top spots on transactional queries. Or we rank, then we drop. So maybe our keyword targeting is off. Or we're targeting the wrong keyword entirely. Here you can rethink targeting in the title and description. That's what catches the eye first in the SERP'i. So it lifts our CTRs, and our rankings along with them.

Same goes for Analytics. Look at the URL there, or link Analytics with Search Console. Then watch how bounce rate and time on page shift for that query. Those are your user metrics. What does that tell us? Again, if a page has a high bounce rate, it won't stay on top for long. So we need to figure out why that bounce rate is high. For that keyword. If we target it right, our bounce rate shouldn't be way above our site average. But if it's way above, something's clearly missing. Or we made a mistake. So we come back here. How should we target this? What belongs on the page? Maybe our content doesn't have enough visuals. And people bail when they can't find any.

So bounce rate climbs. Time on page drops. We have to keep all of this in mind. Finally, you can use Keyword Planner real quick. Especially to see how to approach Transactional searches. The equation is simple. High CPC means high commercial intent. That part's pretty clear. Take the keyword "insurance." Compare its CPC to "get an insurance quote" or "get an online insurance quote." You'll see the CPC is much higher there. And here's more proof. Search "insurance" and you get 3 AdWords ads. Search "get an online insurance quote" or "get an insurance quote," and Google shows 4 ads. Just like we talked about. That alone shows the gap between these two keywords. Two very similar keywords.

That's all I've got for today. Got questions? Drop them in the comments. Thanks for watching.

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Ozan Ketenci

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Ozan Ketenci

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