Chapter 4: Search Intent

Last updated: November 1, 2026.

When doing SEO, it’s not enough to look only at how often a keyword is searched. I think there’s something more important we need to understand before that:

Why are people searching for this keyword?

We call this search intent.

Let’s go through a simple example. Imagine you search Google for “coffee.” The person making this search might want to:

• Get information about coffee
• Learn about types of coffee
• Buy coffee
• Find a coffee shop nearby
• Research coffee machines

It’s a single word, but there’s more than one intent behind it.

Now let’s change the search a little: “how to make coffee.” Here it’s much clearer what the user wants. They don’t want to see a product page. They want to learn how to make coffee.

Someone searching “best coffee machine,” on the other hand, may not have reached the buying stage yet. They’re researching models, reading reviews and comparing options.

When they type “buy delonghi coffee machine,” the intent is very different. They’ve moved closer to taking action than looking for information.

Same industry, similar keywords, but users’ expectations are completely different.

Why doesn’t good content rank?

This is where one of the mistakes we often see in SEO begins. We find a keyword. It has high search volume. Then we create a long piece of content targeting that keyword. The title is good. The content is long. There are images. We even get backlinks.

But the page doesn’t reach the ranking we want. Sometimes the problem is none of these things.

We’re trying to answer Google with the wrong type of page.

The four types of search intent

We can generally think of search intent in 4 groups:

• Informational: They want to learn something. Example: “how to make coffee”
• Navigational: They want to go to a specific site, brand or page. Example: “instagram”
• Commercial: They’re researching options before buying. Example: “best coffee machine”
• Transactional: They want to complete an action like buying, booking or signing up. Example: “buy delonghi coffee machine”

Each intent type usually corresponds to a different page type. To sum it up with the coffee machine example:

This table isn’t a set of hard rules, it’s a starting point. In the end, what tells you which page type fits is the results Google shows for that search.

In my old training presentations, I used to split search queries into three groups: informational, navigational and transactional queries. Today it’s more common to treat the research stage before a purchase as a separate group. That’s also why I use four groups in this book: neither a product page nor a “how to” guide fully answers someone searching “best coffee machine.”

Google’s own classification

The guidelines Google prepares for the people who evaluate the quality of its search results (Search Quality Raters) group user intent in a similar way (Google):

• Know: Getting information about a topic. Queries with a short, clear answer are treated separately as a subtype (Know Simple).
• Do: Doing something, like buying, downloading or signing up.
• Website: Reaching a specific site or page.
• Visit-in-person: Going somewhere, finding a business nearby.

The names are different but the logic is the same. “Visit-in-person” isn’t a separate row in our table. It’s the equivalent of the local intent I mention below, when we see maps and local businesses on the SERP. One more thing to know: these ratings don’t directly change how a page ranks. Google uses this data to check whether its systems are working as intended (Google).

Mixed-intent queries

Of course, you shouldn’t think of these like a math formula. A search can have more than one intent.

For example, among people searching “macbook air,” some may want to learn its specs, some want to compare prices and some want to buy it right away. Google also tries to understand which of the users’ expectations is dominant.

For these kinds of queries, Google usually fills the first page with a mix. A few product pages, an official site, a comparison article, maybe a few videos. Here we can look at two things:

• Which intent is dominant? Whichever page type makes up the majority of the top 10 results is getting the biggest share.
• Which intent can our site answer? If you’re an e-commerce site, you’re closer to purchase intent. If you’re a content site, you’re closer to informational or commercial intent. You don’t need to try to answer every intent for every query.

Let’s take the search “coffee machine.” Some people want to look at products, some want to learn which machine to buy. In this case, instead of piling everything onto a single page, it may be better to put a short explanation that helps with choosing at the top of the category page and link from there to a detailed “how to choose a coffee machine” guide. That way each page answers its own intent and they support each other. I cover how we assign keywords to pages in Chapter 13.

Reading intent from the SERP

So how do we figure this out? I think one of the simplest methods is Google itself.

Search for your target keyword on Google. Study the search engine results page (SERP) that comes up. What’s in the top 10 results?

• Product pages?
• Category pages?
• Blog posts?
• Comparison content?
• Forums?
• Videos?
• News?

Google is actually giving us a very important clue here:

“This is how I interpret this search.”

For example, if most of the results on the first page are category or product pages and you’re trying to compete for the same keyword with a 3,000-word blog post, you may have a hard time.

We see the opposite a lot too. On a query where Google shows informational guides, we try to push a product page that sells directly up the rankings. Then we say “Our content is longer,” “We have more backlinks,” “Our site is faster,” but the rankings don’t come.

Because sometimes the problem isn’t quality.

The problem is that the search intent and the page we created don’t match.

On top of the types of results, other areas on the SERP also give clues about intent:

• If there are Shopping results and product listings, people are most likely close to buying.
• If the People also ask box and videos stand out, there are a lot of people looking for information.
• If maps and local businesses show up, the search has local intent. I cover this in Chapter 37.
• If the first result is a brand’s own site with that site’s subpages listed underneath, people want to reach that site.

The query itself gives clues too. Words like “how,” “what is” and “why” usually point to informational intent; “best,” “comparison” and “review” to commercial intent; “price,” “buy” and “discount” to transactional intent. As a query gets longer, the intent usually gets clearer too. With someone searching “coffee machine,” we’re trying to guess what they want; someone searching “automatic coffee machine with grinder for home” is largely telling us already. I cover long-tail keywords in Chapter 8. But again, the SERP has the final say. I cover how I study the SERP in detail in Chapter 5.

Understanding the person, not the keyword

That’s why when creating content, before asking “What do I want to write for this keyword?” you need to think “What does the person searching this keyword want to see?”

In the SEO courses I used to teach, I spent a lot of time on the subject of target audience. Because even two people buying the same product can have different reasons for buying it. In SEO, too, we need to understand not just the keywords but the people using them.

I think search intent is exactly about that.

Two of the questions Google suggests for “people-first content” point to the same place (Google):

• Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful?
• After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?

The first asks about the target audience, the second about search intent.

Another important point is this:

Search intent can change over time.

Let’s think about a phone model that hasn’t gone on sale yet. Early on, users might search for things like:

• When is it coming out?
• What are its specs?
• What will it look like?

After the product goes on sale, queries like these may come to the fore:

• How much does it cost?
• Where can I buy it?
• What are the user reviews like?
• Which model is better?

The keyword stays the same, but people’s expectations change.

So when a page that used to rank well starts to slip, you shouldn’t always think “Did we lose backlinks?” or “Did Google’s algorithm change?”

Sometimes it’s just that the type of page Google wants to show for that search has changed. I cover what we can do with older content that’s slipping in Chapter 19.

One of the important habits to build in SEO, I think, is this: when trying to understand why we can’t rank for a keyword, don’t look only at your own site.

Also look at who Google is showing and what types of pages.

Because the search engine results page (SERP) is one of the most valuable sources we have for understanding how Google interprets that search.

Practice

• Write down your 5 most important pages side by side with the keyword each one targets. Which intent type does each one answer?
• Search for these keywords on Google. Is the page type in the top 10 results the same as your page’s type?
• Pick a page that’s struggling to rank. Is the problem quality, or does the page type not match the intent?
• For a mixed-intent keyword, which intent is dominant? Is it the intent your site can answer?
• If you have a page that used to rank well and has slipped, search the keyword again today. Has the page type Google shows changed?
• Read your page through the eyes of someone searching that keyword. Can they find what they’re looking for and achieve their goal?

Previous: Chapter 3: Ranking · Contents · Next: Chapter 5: The Search Results Page (SERP)

This chapter was first published in Turkish on X (September 1, 2026).