SEO is so different today than before.

Many of you remember the old days of SEO, pick one keyword create an optimized web page for that keyword and send a bunch of backlinks to that page.

This has all changed today with Vincent’s Change (The Authority Model) and RankBrain (Chrome –> ClickeStream Technology –> Heat Maps –>RankBrain (Google’s Artificial Intelligence) to make sense of it all).

What we know and what Google is not telling you.

Today first thing Google will show in their search results by default are trusted authoritative websites related to the search query. In particular if your webpages have anything to do with a product most times the results shown in Google search will show Amazon, eBay, Branded Companies and similar.  All trusted websites that promise to satisfy a visitor looking for products to buy.

This is a pretty simple observation on what gets displayed in Google’s Search Results.

What most do not factor in is RankBrain and the behavior it displays.

In my opinion and the research I have done about RankBrain as the driver of relevancy for displaying search results that are meaningful is lacking a key component for RankBrain to be successful.

Any time Google releases any free tool it is always in the interest of collecting data to feed the engine of Google search results.  Without this data Google makes no money, they are in the business of selling data to the highest bidder.  If you believe otherwise you are not reading between the lines.

This has never been a secret to those who understands Google’s business model. News about Google collecting information whether approved or not is out there.  They even have admitted to still collect information from you after telling you point blank they don’t.

So pay close attention to what I am about to say about Google’s little secret hiding right in front of your face.

The secret that very few make a connection is the relationship of RankBrain and the Chrome Browser.

The Chrome Browser is being used by over 70% of the world last time I checked and the other web browsers are split up among the other 30%.

Google even came up with the Chrome book not free but very attractively priced and a no brainer for some.

Folks the Chrome Browser feeds data using ClickStream Technology and Heat Maps that feeds RankBrain!

If you don’t know, Click Stream Technology and Heat Maps collect data about mouse movements, clicks, physical eye fixations (either fixation volume or duration), scrolling patterns, and more.  The Chrome Web browser and their notebook feed the Google machine of information gathering. There is no better way of knowing what people do when visiting the search results for delivering relevant content.

Google never creates anything for free unless it benefits it’s bottom line for information gathering.

For the purpose of this post I’m going to focus on the positive side of what this means for all of us who want to show up on page one of Google.

There is no better time to setup an Authority website than now because of RankBrain.

Got to move fast others are catching on about Topic relevancy and lack of relevant websites delivering content people are looking for.

Before and after results

SEO is the practice of getting your website higher in search results, search intent SEO is the practice of optimizing your content to match the most common commercial intents associated with your target keywords.

So, how do you figure out the most common keyword intents related to a keyword? You take cues from Google.

Here’s a rule of thumb: the higher up a piece of content is in Google search results, the more common the intent it’s answering. This intent-to-position ratio is your golden ticket to writing content that ranks.

How do I know this?

The research and data I’ve been collecting over the years with Authority Snooper now NOOOLOGY has exposed how little low Domain Authority websites are killing the big Authority Websites out of their top positions on page one.

Let me show you an example using Government Grants as an example.

The obvious authority for Government Grants is .gov types of websites

Image above is a collection of 1000 keywords gathered and graphed low to high by Domain Authority going from left to right.  Domain Authority values are broken up into 3 ranges, Green is 0-39, Yellow is 40-59, and Red 60-100.

The line displayed in the graph is how many PPC ads were displayed for all the keywords.  I firmly believe in following the money.  Ad counts sometimes help in understanding if a niche has a lot of money flowing into it.  In this niche lot’s of money flows into it because of limited access to organic listings being mostly .gov sites.

The graph above the data was collected at the end when Google displayed ppc ads to the right of the search results.  The majority of page one results were .gov websites.  No surprised there. This was in the time frame of implementation of Vincent’s Change the Authority Model.

If you were not a .gov website, ranking on page one was next to impossible and ppc was just about the only way you could reach your audience.

Image below same keywords results collected after RankBrain is implemented.

Notice more yellow and green low Domain Authority websites are on page one for the same exact keywords the pre RankBrain graph above displays.  This is a 417% gain for lower Domain Authority websites to be on page one once RankBrain was fully implemented.

In those 1000 keywords tested many of the keywords tested proper and relevant content could not be answered by the .gov websites so RankBrain started ranking non .gov websites that could deliver relevant content visitors were looking for.

By having legacy data showing the before and after affects it was easy to inspect the relationship of content to keywords.  The trend of lower Domain Authority Websites out ranking Authority Websites is happening all over the place because of relevancy..

This brings up another interesting observation – backlinks.  By default Domain Authority has built in if a website has little to lot’s of links.  For many years Google had been working on how to skirt the popularity vote of linking to websites.  We all know unnatural linking is a blackhat event, it is a unnatural way of trying to skew the search results.

I think Google has finally kicked backlinking as the primary force in their ranking algorithm.  Now its the time to pounce and be an early mover if you are looking for exposure in Google search.

This brings us to why today in my opinion is one of the best times to capitalize on what Google is doing behind the scenes for the search results.

Search Intent Optimization: Your Ticket To More Engagement

Now – how to leverage what is happening. Google is on the hunt to find content and display search results with content that really matters.  There is no better time to take advantage as a early mover.

The search intent

The term relates to a reason why someone conducts a specific search in Google (or any other search engine, for that matter)

That reason determines what type of information would satisfy it.

Being aware of it, Google has put an enormous amount of work to be able to determine the search intent. And in turn, promote pages promising to deliver that information in the SERP.

There are three basic types of search query:

  • Informational – searches performed to answer questions or learn something
  • Navigational – searches performed to locate a specific website
  • Transactional – searches performed research and buy something

The search intent definition is the consumer’s intent, or real meaning, behind Google searches—the “why” of the keywords. It’s also known as a commercial or buyer’s intent. Over time, Google’s algorithms have identified four main types of search queries:

This plays into what a marketing funnel does for the Transactional search query.

Informational

  • Know query, where the user wants information about something. Ex:
    • “What is commercial intent?”
    • “How many planets are in the universe?”
    • “Why is Jon Snow so moody?”

Navigational

  • Website query, where the user wants to go to a specific website or webpage. Ex:
    • “YouTube”
    • “Gmail”
    • “Wells Fargo login”
  • Visit-in-person query, where the user wants to find and visit the physical address of a location. Ex:
    • “Closest Trader Joe’s”
    • “Bed Bath and Beyond near me”
    • “Liquor store within walking distance” (hey, we all have our days…)

Transactional

  • Do query, where the user wants to take action on something. Ex:
    • “Buy new iPhone”
    • “Best emergency plumber near me”
    • “Christmas presents for people I hate”

Simply, what goal does someone searching on Google have?

Leveraging keyword intent for intent-driven marketing, can not only increase traffic to your websites, but also attract more qualified prospects, driving more sales and generating more leads.

Understanding why someone would search for information helps you decide how to approach your topic.

Should you write a blog post? Or maybe create a long-form content? Focus on describing your product or focus on its features?

The catch? They’d all expect Google to deliver relevant and valuable information nonetheless.

How do we give visitors and Google what they want?

The evidence lays right in front of us, there is no secret list of ranking factors we need to follow other than common sense.

Google shows us what it wants to see on page one.

Remember the days in school when our science teachers taught us the scientific method

7 Steps of the Scientific Method
  • Make an observation.
  • Conduct research.
  • Form hypothesis.
  • Test hypothesis.
  • Record data.
  • Draw conclusion.
  • Replicate.

The most important step is Replicate!

Choosing the proper keywords is key to achieving the desired outcome.

For purpose of this post I am focusing on “BUY” type of keywords you can download a list I’ve compiled here.

Buyer keywords

Other keyword types can be compiled and do the same it all depends on what your outcome is desired.

We have the “How To”, “Local” etc… you can do this method. The important thing is to use them in a consistent manner so you can see consistent ranking results.

This brings about correlation by itself does not imply causation which is true. Below is an example and definition what this means.

“Causation, or causality, is the capacity of one variable to influence another. The first variable may bring the second into existence or may cause the incidence of the second variable to fluctuate.

Causation is often confused with correlation, which indicates the extent to which two variables tend to increase or decrease in parallel. However, correlation by itself does not imply causation. There may be a third factor, for example, that is responsible for the fluctuations in both variables.

A statistically significant correlation has been reported, for example, between yellow cars and a lower incidence of accidents. That does not indicate that yellow cars are safer, but just that fewer yellow cars are involved in accidents. A third factor, such as the personality type of the purchaser of yellow cars, is more likely to be responsible than the color of the paint itself.” Definition Source

For what we are trying to accomplish and lack of accurate insight from Google the method I have devised has done well for my students and myself using this method.

Originally when testing groups of keywords downloaded from the standard places such as Google Suggest, Google Keyword Tool etc… the intent was never focused enough to get consistent results using the NOOOLOGY method.

When I focused on a limited but powerful group of keywords such as buyer keywords, what Google was doing and looking for totally opened up and became obvious.

Depending on what niche you are in getting visitors to engage on your website varied.

To illustrate what I mean here is a few examples.

APPAREL

These types of niches intrigued me.  I did some consulting for a client for clothing.  What we found is these types of products were all image based.  Makes sense how much text can you add when your looking for clothing?  It is a pretty obvious assumption, when you actually do the research it becomes apparent.  What we found in this niche we found is a tiny low domain authority website killing all the other websites for page one rankings.  Their secret was to show 100 tiny images you had to click to enlarge and scroll.  All the other high Domain Authority Websites had large images and very few items on a page.

The assumption by comparison was that a visitor could see immediately they did not want to be on their pages, while the tiny website you had to click on something to see what they were offering.  This immediately signaled to RankBrain relevancy because of the clicks their pages received.

REAL ESTATE

Real Estate types of sites one of the most important factors is getting an immediate click.  Page One websites generally have some form of search box at top of their pages.  This is designed to get immediate clicks, signaling to RankBrain relevancy.

AFFILIATE PRODUCTS (AMAZON)

Review sites are very image and text based types of websites.

This is a tiny example of what NOOOLOGY finds.

Getting the search intent correct is important for getting user actions on your webpages today.

Pretty soon UX is going to be the new SEO new mantra instead of backlinks.

Google has signaled this is their goal downplaying not eliminating backlinks.

So there is not better time to realign your Google organic search goals than today.