In order to convert potential customers into successful and loyal customers, you need to deliver on their needs. That’s exactly what intent marketing achieves when done correctly. Intent marketing takes SEO a step beyond, ranking for specific non-branded or branded keywords and harnesses it to provide a far higher conversion rate. Here are 5 intent marketing hacks to help you crack intent marketing, and use it to power more conversions and better revenue on your site.
1. Optimize Your Content for Deep Intent
Content that is based on deep intent is content that converts. Search terms that have ‘shallow intent’ are generally answered by Google right on the SERP page itself. These shallow intent searches are questions that have simple answers that don’t change. For example, ‘What is the speed of light?’ is a shallow intent question, and whoever asks it isn’t likely to click through to any page.
But ‘What is the difference between warm light and cool light?’ is a deep intent question that identifies a potential customer for new light bulbs or a new light fitting. This type of query is the ideal starting point for great content—content which answers the question clearly, in depth, and in an engaging manner.
When you plan your next piece of content, make sure to follow 3 guidelines:
- begin with locating a deep intent query
- Structure your content to answer that query in the best possible way
- Don’t force any SEO keywords into your content
When you identify and succeed in answering a deep intent search query, you’ve hit on the winning method to rank high on the SERP and attract high-converting traffic.
2. Optimize Your Site for the Right Intent
To use intent marketing correctly in any context, you need to make sure that you’ve fully understood the customer’s intent. That means taking time to think deeply about your target audience, their interests, buying habits, and needs.
Let’s take this example:
A user runs a search for ‘new bulbs.’ Are they looking to upgrade their lighting fixtures? Plant spring flowers in their garden?
You can work it out by thinking about their complementary keywords, such as ‘warm light’ or ‘spring bulbs.’ It’s important to optimize your website with complementary keywords as well as deep intent queries so that it’s clear to Google and to the users which type of bulbs they’ll find here.
Are they looking to upgrade their lighting fixtures? Plant spring flowers in their garden?
You can craft your blog or site content to cater to more than one type of customer, as long as you understand their unique intent. If someone searches for a ‘wireless mouse,’ is that because they are advanced computer users who need a high-level piece of equipment or children who’ll get tangled up in the cord? Google Analytics data from your site can help you answer this question since it will show the path that visitors take to reach your site, and what action they take once they arrive.
3. Use Branded and Non-Branded Keywords
There’s a debate about whether or not to use branded keywords in your intent marketing. First, we need to review the different types of intent. Generally, intent can be:
- Informational
- Transactional (also called ‘commercial’)
- Navigational
Informational intent keywords and queries indicate that the user is looking for information. Search queries like ‘what is warm light’ are informational. They tend to be high in volume, but have a low conversion rate because not everyone who asks about warm light is ready to buy a new light bulb. If you can attract users at the beginning of their buying journey—informational-intent searchers—they’re more likely to recall your brand name and come back to you when it’s time to make a purchase.
Transactional intent queries indicate that the searcher is ready to make a purchase, like ‘buy warm light bulbs online.’ Transactional intent queries convert at a much higher rate because the searcher is already interested in making that purchase. However, they are lower in volume.
Navigational intent queries are run by users with the intent of finding a specific service or brand. For example, the search query ‘warm light bulbs IKEA’ is navigational because the intent is to buy or get details on a specific product from a specific vendor.
Branded keywords are often navigational keywords because the user uses the name of the brand to go straight there to make a purchase. Returning customers, or potential customers who received a recommendation to try your brand, would use your brand as a keyword. But if you’re a small brand, fewer potential customers would know to use your brand name as a navigational query. They are more likely to arrive at your site through a non-branded query.
On the other hand, branded keywords can fill a role in between informational and transactional intent—customers are already looking for your product, but they aren’t yet ready to buy. When you consider intent as part of your keyword strategy, you’ll find that both branded and non-branded keywords have a role to play.
4. Turn Your Keywords into Intent-Driven Queries
It’s recommended to use questions as your SEO keywords for intent marketing because this reflects the way that people use search engines. When you weave together questions and answers in your content, it keeps it on-topic, making your content much more relevant and thus higher-ranking. ‘Why is warm light bulbs different?’ will rank higher in the SERP and drive better-converting traffic than ‘warm light bulbs.’ By using queries as your keywords, you’ll capture the internet users who really want to know the answers and convert at a higher rate.
By using queries as your keywords, you’ll capture the internet users who really want to know the answers.
5. Use Paid Ads – the Right Way
Pay per click (PPC) keywords have an important role to play in intent marketing. When you use a keyword search to identify a user’s intent, you can then utilize PPC ads to maximize this insight. With PPC ads, you can focus your bids on high-intent keywords in your vertical that are more likely to convert. Higher-intent keywords also tend to have a higher cost per click (CPC) than low-intent keywords, which gives you another clue to where deep intent lies.
A high-intent user who wants to buy light bulbs now is likely to click and purchase from the top relevant search result, whether it’s paid or organic. Using PPC ads correctly puts your website in front of searchers with deep intent. Similarly, paid social is a good choice to bring your product or service to groups of people who are likely to have the right intent.
Hack Intent Marketing Today
When you use intent marketing, you upgrade your marketing to far more relevant and targeted campaigns. By understanding your customers’ intent, needs, and queries, you can use PPC campaigns and content marketing to drive higher conversion and better revenue.
Contact Natural Intelligence’s specialists to learn how you can optimize your marketing strategy for high-intent users.
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