Use intent and user experience to grow revenue and increase success

Duane says: "SEOs need to focus on truly getting down to the nuts and bolts of user intent and user experience. These things are critical. We've been talking about them for years, and everyone thinks they're doing it - but keyword research doesn't give you user intent. It just gives you volume on keyword activity.

User intent comes because you actually connect the dots all the way through, from what somebody is thinking about to their actions, such as researching something on the internet. In addition to the keyword volume, you'll also discover all the things related to the search - when they learned something new on the topic and went slightly to the left, or to the right, to learn a little bit more. These are opportunities for you to pop up again and prove your value to them.

The customer journey, that takes the user into the conversion funnel to complete the transaction, is so incredible. Studies have repeatedly shown that consumers are willing to pay more for a better user experience. They trust brands that give them a better user experience and now expect better user experiences. You can't fail at these things because these people are on the internet, so they will simply click to someone else. Brand loyalty isn't what it used to be.

You have to understand that understanding what this journey looks like is an intrinsic part of the daily life of an SEO. And you won't get a good view of that journey by just looking at keyword data."

Why are user intent and user experience often spoken about but underutilised? What can we do to get SEOs more interested and active in these areas?

"We have a history of siloing things, whether it's topics or teams within an organisation. For example, the UX team may be separate from the SEO team, and they don't really work together. Yes, they try to accommodate each other, but these elements should be intrinsically linked. It should be very clear that you don't build a website and populate it with content without a clear understanding of the best usability.

Does the consumer want video to answer this question? Is it a list of items they want or is it long-form paragraphs? You have to understand these things because it informs the users' experience and the usability of a website. This opens up the entire world of the technical side of the work you have to get done.

Core Web Vitals is right at the top of your priorities here, and you had better make sure you're getting those technical elements nailed down. These are mission-critical today. Every company that scores better than you is ultimately capable of taking your market share. We're talking about the core metrics like page load speeds, time to first contentful paint, and how long it takes a clickable element to load up. These are the key user experience scenarios, and consumers will choose a competitor if you don't get them right.

If you're going to work, you have to be talking about usability and user intent. If you're already doing this, have you truly built programmes that outline how you build a better website to improve usability? Or how you actually define what user intent is? Many don't have an overarching corporate understanding of what this means and how it impacts the work you do. This means you are missing an opportunity to bring more people together.

The importance of your search box

I'm going to dig way back in the archives for a little tip for you because it's still valuable today. We live in a world where consumers have been taught how to search - go to a box, type in your words, you get an answer. It's very straightforward. Now most websites also have a search box. If you're an SEO, and you're not combing through the logs of your website's search box to see what the user's Intent is, you're missing an opportunity. It's huge.

Every website should have a search box. When a consumer shows up to research a problem they have, the first thing they do is ask Google a question. We are trained to do that. I ask Google, I get an answer to my question. Everybody uses a search box because they've been trained by Google. If you put words in the box, you get an answer to your question. People ask for things because they don't want to navigate. That's how we expect to get our answers now. If you don't deliver this, that's a massive missed opportunity.

Get into your search box, dig around and see what consumers are asking you directly. Remember Google filters out a lot of words, puts them in the 'not provided' category, or won't give you the information in your Google Analytics. Yes, you're left with some keywords, but you're unsure if it was a question or a statement. All of this information is available to you directly in your search box."

Many people suggest going for higher authority articles with longer-form content that solves everything in the same article. Should an SEO optimise for multiple intents or the optimum intent?

"Let's take YouTube as an example here. If you ask for certain things in Google right now, they will give you an answer that is a YouTube video and tell you that the answer is at two minutes and 36 seconds. It's very clear from Google that they're looking for the answer - not the amalgamation of all information that might also include the answer. They're trying to take you directly to the answer you seek.

While there is definitely a place for these larger authoritative articles, because they allow you to demonstrate authority on a topic, that value starts to erode when someone has a quick question that isn't easily consumed. If you're not a featured snippet (you're a link that someone's going to click to) and the answer to their question is difficult to find - you've failed. The user is moving on. For the average consumer with an average question in their daily lives, they are not interested in hunting around and looking for anything."

Can you have longer-form content for the acquisition part but use short-form for the consideration phase, when people are typing in longer keyword phrases and want exact answers straightaway?

"Yes, I like the way you're layering it there. My approach would be to create long-form content because there's value in it for the people who want to do research. Maybe they're not sold on the idea and this walkthrough - with everything to consider - gets them there.

However, for somebody who's asking me a long-tail question with four-plus keywords, they clearly have an understanding of the one thing they want to know. My goal is to get them to the one thing they want to know and answer their question as clearly and cleanly as possible, with my call to action immediately in front of them. You don't necessarily know where they are in the conversion funnel in their own mind. If your answer to that question is the only thing stopping them from buying the new product, then you've got a sale. There's no point trying to get that person to the much longer-form page where you're more likely to lose them to information overload.

There is value in both of these approaches. My foundation is the big, long-form article where I lay everything out. Now I'm going to put up my walls, which are these other smaller pages that will go around it. Eventually, I'm going to put a roof on top and invite people in. That's how I'm building a successful web business today."

Do you think that many pages are like a bad salesperson: they don't see the buying signal when someone's actually ready to purchase and instead direct customers somewhere else?

"Yes, and it's not a formal direction. We're not talking about providing links and telling people to explore on a page that bypasses a call to action or conversion. No. People are simply saying, 'You're not making it easy for me, you're not making it obvious for me - I'm just going to abandon you.'

Google released a white paper called 'The Messy Middle', and it's a really important read. It reveals how we are trained to think that the customer journey is a linear path. Actually, it's a crazy ball of yarn that kittens have been playing with for a week. The consumer comes in at one point, and they pop out at a number of different places. Then they come back in again, and eventually, they convert.

Your job is to orbit around this scrum and literally provide value anytime the consumer pops up. That is your goal. By doing so, when they come out, instead of forgetting who you were because you confused them, you are the thing they remember as being most useful on this journey. This means they'll immediately go deep with you, and you own them. It's very eye-opening."

What's one thing that SEOs should stop doing to spend more time on user experience and Intent?

"Stop blindly doing keyword research. I believe in keyword research, and believe it's foundational, but if all you're doing is keyword research every week trying to discover the next phrase to wrap inside some content to produce another page - you're doing it all wrong. There should be no metrics for success around how many pages you produced, and how many keywords you targeted. It's all about bottom-line revenue and conversions. If you're an SEO, and you're not focused on that, make it your focus, even if it's not formally your remit. Make it your business to know that side of the business and understand how you're impacting it.

Get cosy with all the information available to you, including reviews. You're going to find competing products that people have mentioned because they were upset with you. They might say, 'I should have bought X', and then you'll know exactly what the intent is. The intent for you becomes making sure your product is better positioned than the competing product that was mentioned.

If you're daily SEO is Core Web Vitals, technical SEO, keyword research, and all the basic tenants of historical SEO, you need to broaden that. You need to find at least 30 minutes a day where you're taking information from the review management team, and you're working with the content team to figure things out. Find out who owns access to your search box on your website and get access to it. Now you're starting to see a real-time thread of what the actual commentary is that you're seeing. Now you can start unlocking some of those keyword research mysteries, which helps you prioritise what you're going to be telling the content team to work on. Now all of these pieces start to become interlinked."

You can find Duane Forrester over at Yext.com.