Search intent
Search intent is what someone really wants to achieve with a search. Not the words they type, but the goal behind it: understanding something, finding a brand, comparing options or buying straight away. Google ranks pages mainly on how well they fit that intent, not on how often the keyword appears in them.
- 2 min read
The four types of search intent
Informational
Someone wants to know something. “Wat is een warmtepomp”, “hoe werkt linkbuilding”. This is where explanatory pages and articles belong. Selling backfires here.
Navigational
Someone is looking for a specific brand or a specific page. “Marketingkenners contact”. There's little to win there, other than making sure your own pages are easy to find.
Commercial investigation
Someone is researching just before a purchase. “Beste dakdekker Arnhem”, “Google Ads uitbesteden kosten”. This is where comparisons, price indications and case studies belong. This is often the most underrated category.
Transactional
Someone wants to do something now. “Offerte aanvragen dakkapel”. That calls for a landing page with a form, not a blog.
How do you determine the intent of a keyword?
Type it into Google and see what comes up. If Google shows ten blogs, it's informational and you won't rank with a service page, however good it is. If Google shows product pages and ads, it's commercial and an explanatory article has no chance there.
That sounds simple and it's the step that's skipped most often. The search results are the answer: Google literally shows you there which type of page it considers suitable.
What goes wrong if you miss the intent?
Your page doesn't rank, or it does rank but brings in nothing. A service page that accidentally attracts informational traffic brings in visitors who never become customers. An explanatory article that targets a buying keyword wastes the enquiry on a text that doesn't sell.
One page serves one intent. If you want to both explain and sell, make two pages and link them to each other.
Search intent and AI answers
With informational searches, the chance of a click goes down, because AI answers answer that question themselves. With commercial and transactional searches, clicking remains the behaviour: nobody requests a quote in a summary. That makes it more important than ever to know which intent you serve.
Search intent is the starting point of every keyword research, and then determines how we write the copy. Also read about zero-click searches.
Frequently asked questions
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Wat is het verschil tussen een zoekwoord en zoekintentie?
A keyword is wat iemand letterlijk intypt. Zoekintentie is het doel achter die woorden: iets willen weten, een bedrijf vinden, vergelijken of direct iets aanvragen. Zoekwoorden die op elkaar lijken kunnen een heel andere intentie hebben, zoals “dakkapel kosten” en “dakkapel offerte aanvragen”.
Hoe gebruik je zoekintentie in Google Ads?
Adverteer vooral op zoektermen met een commerciële of transactionele intentie, zoals een dienst met een plaatsnaam of het woord offerte. Sluit informatieve zoektermen zoals “zelf doen” of “wat is” uit met negative keywords. Stuur de klik daarna naar een landingspagina die bij die intentie past.
Is zoekintentie belangrijk voor een klein vakbedrijf?
Ja, juist omdat je budget en tijd beperkt zijn. Door je te richten op zoekopdrachten van mensen die een klus willen laten doen, trek je bezoekers aan die een offerte aanvragen in plaats van lezers die alleen informatie zoeken. Dat begint bij een keyword research.
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