A practical checklist for search intent

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. Run through this the next time search intent comes up.

Technical fixes remove obstacles; content earns the position. Both are needed and they are not interchangeable. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

The checklist

• Match the format people expect for that query
• Informational queries rarely convert directly, and that is fine
• Look at the current results to see what the engine rewards
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

What it costs to ignore

Match the format people expect for that query. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

What this looks like day to day

Search engines are trying to answer a question, so the pages that answer questions clearly tend to do well. Three things worth confirming about search intent before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Informational queries rarely convert directly, and that is fine — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.