Adopt anintent-first mindset

Chris says: "Adopting an intent-first mindset means using intent to map and guide everything you're doing from an SEO perspective. Primarily that's linking to keyword research, the application of keywords, how you're structuring the website, and the planning and mapping of your content. It's often something that feels quite obvious to a non-SEO. However, anyone that's been engaged with an SEO for any timeframe knows they can often get very constrained around the interface, and they get focused very heavily on pure search volume and what they want to rank. They're not actually concerned about answering the question that someone has, and what is the best content, or the best means, to do that.

The implication of this is not understanding when you cannot compete, or when you should not compete. You should be focusing your efforts where you can make the most gains. And intent - what your customer is trying to achieve - has to be at the centre of everything you do."

Are you suggesting that SEOs should stop thinking about reporting on keywords?

"I'm not saying abandon reporting on keywords, but abandon reporting without the intent lens. Progress and movements in certain keywords may equal commercial success, while others may further your customer awareness, retention, or customer service goals. Assessing which keywords are moving, along with the part of the funnel and what the customers are trying to do, gives a much more nuanced discussion as to what these movements mean. Also, think about what you are actually going to do differently, and what you could achieve with this knowledge."

What about if a keyword could apply at different stages of the funnel? Is it possible to deliver a different experience to people with different intents?

"It is. I think there'll be certain phrases that are always harder to distinguish, or differentiate, as clearly. The hardest ones are those keywords where the intent is really muddled. It's the really generic terms such as 'apple'. Are you looking for technology or a fruit? For these kinds of terms, I would determine the experience you deliver by looking at the SERP and what kind of results other websites are delivering. The specific experience the top-ranked websites are providing makes it very clear what stage in the funnel they are. Broadly speaking, that's a good indicator of what direction you should be moving in.

Now, if you've got split intent, or there's some ambiguity around that, think of your customers and where they are in the process. Which experience do you give first, and then how do you facilitate the second? You've always got to have a dominant target; you can't have your cake and eat it on every single occasion. I'm telling more and more people to look at the SERPs. They are a stronger indicator now of intent than they ever have been. Yes, Google sometimes gets it wrong, but there are a lot of tools out there that can run this kind of analysis. However, a Google search will get you 80-90% of the way there virtually every time."

What are the areas where SEOs get it wrong when signposting people for a branded search?

"The biggest areas are not owning all of the branded search that's available, or not thinking about what people are actually asking. Brands often say, 'We're not interested in that traffic', or 'We're not interested in answering that question, and therefore, we're not going to provide that'. If you're not owning that - someone else can. This is an issue mainly for larger brands, who have more brand equity and research around this.

There's a degree of being protectionist as much as answering the question. For example, if post-purchase customers are asking questions about your brand, and you're not answering them, you don't have control of that space and you're not going to be able to help them. Owning the brand should be simple in the vast majority of cases, so you need to take the opportunity while you can and get in there early."

What metrics do you use to measure success at different stages in the purchase funnel?

"What really helps with intent is your metrics. Each stage can be appropriate for the goal of that person. We want to measure traffic, but we also want to measure sales. We want to get the 'pound value' that this content is delivering, which is really appropriate at the bottom of the funnel because this is the point where people are ready to purchase. However, if you are judging on 'direct pounds earned' at the top of the funnel, you're going to be using an inappropriate metric. It will tell you that all of your top-funnel content is underperforming.

Top of the funnel

For the really early intent searches, share of voice is a good metric. That says how visible you are. The narrative here is about the likelihood that someone searching around the top funnel will find you. There's a number of tools that will calculate share of voice for you. If you know which keywords you want to rank for, and you know where you're ranked for them, you can establish what that is - and you could even look at average ranking.

Mid to lower funnel

Contacts and interactions on the websites are good metrics. This is about creating an idea of what micro conversions you want to see - such as live chat instigations, contact form fills, document downloads, and add-to-baskets.

Bottom of the funnel

This stage is squarely revenue generated.

You can even create your attribution - you can look at your funnel and not just the last click. You can look at first click, bathtub - or whatever model you want - to see where people are discovering you, and how many times organic is featuring in their journey. That can all be done pretty easily through Google Analytics. It's having an appropriate set of metrics at each stage but also telling people the narrative. You need to know what success looks like, and what you can expect when this content is working well."

Where does an SEO start with matching pages to intent?

"The first place an SEO starts is looking at the top pages that are delivering traffic, googling those phrases, and investigating what the rest of the top 10 are doing. Unless you're in positions 1-3, there's a good chance there are other people on page one who are offering a better experience. What content experience are those pages offering, and does that differ from your own? You need to be really clear on that, because sometimes you won't be ranking because your intent is not right. You're literally not offering what Google thinks is the best response.

It can get cloudy around split intent queries, and you have to be careful what it is you're actually doing there. You need to stress test when looking at those top-ranking pages and explore the queries that are driving traffic to those pages. Are they appropriate? You have to try and remove yourself from the position of working in that company. If you landed on that page, and that was you query, would you be satisfied? If the answer is anything but a resounding yes, then there's potential for work to be done around that.

The other side is if you were working on a massive keywords set, and you could only hope to analyse the top 5% of keywords from a manual perspective. You need to look at some of the tools out there that classify keywords with the intent similar to how Google does. Then you can establish if that page provides knowledge or if that page drives action. At scale, you can see any clear mismatches relatively easily using Excel."

Can it be a challenge to work closely with a content marketing team to ensure the correct content is created to match the intent you've identified?

"Most content teams will come skipping towards you with open arms if you approach them saying that this is how you want to achieve it. I've worked very closely with content teams my whole career, and the biggest objection with SEOs is often that the content doesn't fit, or they're being asked to put keywords in content, and they don't understand why or feel it's correct.

If, as an SEO, you're adopting that intent-first mindset, you can explain that you're doing it for the customer. Most content teams will want to work very closely on that, because your goals should align with theirs. The only times where they might not, is when the content team's KPIs are wrong, or misaligned. Training content teams to use Google Analytics effectively is probably one of your biggest routes to success because they can see what you are measuring."

How do you decide on the type of content that needs to be created?

"That's when I turn back to what the SERP is showing. For example, if they've got a knowledge box with a video embed, or a video carousel, that tells me that video content is what people are looking for. However, I'd also provide a transcript, and text is the best way of getting indexed and returned quickly. Just make sure your content is well-structured with clear headings, good internal linking, and enough textual content to actually explain what's going on in there.

I would always gravitate very heavily to textual content for getting indexed but use the SERP to help establish what other media ranks well, and what content length properly answers that query.

The final consideration is: What is the best piece of content, and how do you make it better? That's where the content team and the customer hat can be really useful because you need to know what good content looks like for this query. This is something that not all SEOs are great at - because that's not their job. You need to rely on a content marketer to work out what the best content is and make sure you have the best result."

How often does this fit into an SEO strategy? Should it be done on an annual basis or more regularly?

"It makes sense to instigate this at key events, such as site migrations and site changes - when you are making lots of changes anyway. Also, the timing will depend on how well you are doing. If 40-60% of your traffic is organic, you've got enough to know that Google is valuing what you write - but there's always room to grow. I'd suggest every three to six months depending on the size of the site."

What's one thing an SEO should stop doing to spend more time adopting an intent-first mindset?

"Stop wringing your hands so much about the vanity terms - the ones that drive high traffic and low intent. It's those really ambiguous queries, where even if you made it into position one, and got thousands of searches a month, what is that going to achieve? From a commercial perspective, the biggest wins mainly come from pivoting to longer-tail terms that convert better, and usually are less competitive. This will free up an awful lot of time."

We can find Chris Green over at TorquePartnership.com.