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January 16, 2025 | 8 min read
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Search becomes ever-more complex, says Alex Moran of Space & Time. And the most important thing currently to understand is intent analysis.
Sometimes people want to know about a product and sometimes they’re lookign to buy, explains Moran / Will via Unsplash
The search landscape continues to change, with AI at the forefront of people’s minds as the most visible variation in the search results. Appearing in AI overviews is not magic – it’s based on fundamentals that have existed in SEO for years, including technical, content, and off-site optimization, as well as the ranking systems of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) and helpful content.
If you want to appear in AI search results, your approach shouldn’t be to ask the question: “How do I appear for AI overviews?” But, rather: “How do I appear for this search term, which shows AI overviews?”
And this is where intent comes in.
Understanding intent is understanding: “What type of results does Google want to show here?” This isn’t about Google CEO Sundar Pichai cherry-picking results but rather Google’s ranking factors identifying contextually relevant pages (content), indexable (technical SEO), and authoritative (off-site SEO). Even then, positioning often comes down to what users choose to click on – worked out by a Google algorithm called Navboost.
Users have influenced search results for years through what I call “the lazy searcher.” Some terms clearly are questions (e.g., “How do you fit a car wheel?” is informational), while others are queries for products (“buy new tires” is transactional). Then there’s the messy middle, where monitoring and complexity are needed.
Take an example like “E-E-A-T.” I’ve not asked a question, but all the results provide guides or definitions. This shows users searching for “E-E-A-T” are looking for information. Even if your page offers a great E-E-A-T audit, it’s unlikely to rank for a broad search like this, as Google sees the majority of searchers clicking on informational results.
Another key takeaway here is the prevalence of videos. Since Google updated its algorithms to favor YouTube-hosted videos, it’s become harder for users to rank with self-hosted videos. Recognizing the user preference for videos in informational content is critical, and brands must invest in this medium to remain competitive.
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Looking at the more transactional examples of searching for a product such as tires (or ”tyres“ to use the UK spelling), while I’ve not added “buy” or “for sale” to my search, it’s clear from the results that users want to buy tires, as the pages are all purchase-focused. These results often include local listings, as buying tires locally is common. Another clue to the transactional nature of this query is the absence of a “People Also Ask” box, which appears frequently for informational searches but less so for transactional ones.
Mixed-intent results show a diversity of content types. For example, here I have searched “long distance tires” and the top results include informational guides as well as prices for services, blending commercial and informational pages.
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If you sell tires long-distance but also want to provide a guide, it’s essential to create separate pages. Overlapping content (e.g., a detailed guide on a product page) can confuse algorithms and hurt rankings. Linking the product page to the blog ensures clarity and serves both intents.
Mixed intents are more common than you might assume and require ongoing monitoring. With seven Google algorithm updates in 2024, search results can shift dramatically. Don’t panic – wait until updates finish rolling out, which can take weeks, before making major changes.
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Intent for terms is now categorized in tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush, which can identify mixed-intent terms. Ahrefs’ cannibalization tool also helps detect when different pages from your site compete for the same term.
Google Search Console provides insights into clicks for specific queries by page. You can see if one term drives clicks to multiple pages. Digging deeper, analyzing click-through rates (CTR) can help prioritize user engagement, which plays a crucial role in Navboost and rankings.
It’s important to remember that there are many queries where optimizing for intent is quite natural, for informational terms like ‘how’, ‘who’, and ‘what’ or transactional terms like ‘buy’ and ‘deals’. But if you are selling products that are ‘shared ownership’ or ‘long distance,’ for example, it’s often the case that half of users are looking for an explanation, while the other half is looking for a product or service.
This is where the expertise of the SEO community comes in, to truly understand and adapt the intent of these pages with the users, and the brands both accounted for.
Space & Time
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