A large part of those who buy products online go through a research phase where they look for information about the products or services they want to buy.
When we talk about SEO, we are dealing with what in English is called search intent. In translation, we are talking about the intent with which the search was made. This can be: navigational, commercial, transactional or informational.
For example, an ecommerce site cannot satisfy all of these search intents through the categories and products on the site alone.
Browsing intent is when someone searches for your brand on Google to access the first result. In this case, there is no need to type the entire website address into the browser.
Transactional intent is very similar to commercial intent. Both presume that the person looking for a particular product or service is ready to purchase. However, transactional intent is when the user is 100% decided to buy, and commercial intent is when they are looking for very similar products to make a final decision based on price/specification.
Let’s take search intent for a mobile phone as an example. Transactional intent will be a specific search, such as Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G 128 GB price, while commercial intent will be more general: Samsung Galaxy S20, as the buyer still needs some commercial information to make a decision.
When we talk about informational intent, however, we mean content created to satisfy the searcher’s need for information about a particular product or service or the problem they want solved.
Continuing with the example above, an informational search for Samsung Galaxy S20 may end with a review, opinions, sample pictures, etc.
Other informational articles can be simply general: how to take good pictures with a mobile phone.
However, if an ecommerce site wants to get more traffic from informational content, it will insist on blog posts, where it will publish reviews and product information.
In conclusion, it is important for an SEO specialist to know what the search intent is for certain keywords because this will influence how pages will be optimized.
