Search intent: the questions we get asked most

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. The questions about search intent that come up most often on our calls.

Technical fixes remove obstacles; content earns the position. Both are needed and they are not interchangeable. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

Do we need to care about this?

Match the format people expect for that query. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge.

How do we know it is working?

Look at the current results to see what the engine rewards. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

How to tell if yours is fine

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
• Match the format people expect for that query — 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.