You will be able to classify a search by intent and explain why intent matters more than the exact words.
Three parents type into Google on the same evening. One types "PSLE maths tips". Another types "best tuition centre Bishan". The third types the name of a centre a friend recommended. All three searches are about maths tuition, and a tuition centre would love to reach all three parents. But each of them wants something different from the page they land on, and a page that suits one will disappoint the other two.
That difference is called search intent: what the person searching is trying to get done. Working it out before you write or fix a page saves more wasted effort than any other step in SEO, which is why it opens this module.
Marketers usually sort intent into four groups. Informational searches want to learn something: "PSLE maths tips", "how to check CPF balance", "why is my sourdough flat". Navigational searches want to reach a particular site or business: a brand name, "Singpass login", the name of the centre a friend mentioned. Commercial searches compare options before buying: "best tuition centre Bishan", "Ahrefs vs Semrush", "home baker vs bakery for birthday cake". Transactional searches are ready to act: "book trial maths class Tampines", "order birthday cake delivery".
Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which you met in lesson 1.3, Helpful content and E-E-A-T in plain words, sort intent a little differently. They describe know queries, where the person wants information, do queries, where they want to accomplish something such as buying or downloading, website queries, where they want a specific site or page, and visit-in-person queries, where they want a place nearby such as a clinic or a hawker centre.
You do not need to pick one system and defend it. The labels are tools for thinking. What matters is that you can look at a search and say plainly what the person would be pleased to find.
Take "best tuition centre Bishan". A tuition centre in Bishan might reasonably think its homepage is the perfect match: it has the words tuition, centre and Bishan on it. But the word "best" tells you the person is comparing. They want to see several options side by side, read reviews and judge. Their next click is likely to be a list, a map of centres with ratings or a page that helps them compare.
A homepage that simply says "We are a tuition centre in Bishan, call us" contains the right words and gives the searcher very little to compare with. Google's systems try to rank pages that satisfy the person, so a page that does not match the intent rarely does well, however carefully it is written.
Now flip it. A parent searching "PSLE maths tips" wants tips. A page that opens with fees and a booking form is the wrong page, even if the centre is excellent at PSLE maths. The same parent may book a trial class six months later. On the evening they searched for tips, they wanted tips.
A page usually serves one main intent well. When a page tries to be a how-to guide and a hard sales page at once, it tends to do neither. The guide part keeps getting interrupted by offers, and the sales part is buried under advice.
This is why many sites have separate pages for separate jobs. Priya's maths centre needs a P5 maths class page for parents ready to compare and book, and it might also need a guide to common P5 problem sum mistakes for parents who are still trying to understand what is going wrong. The guide can link to the class page. The class page can mention the guide. Each stays clear about what it is for.
In Digital marketing foundations, lesson 2.1, The journey from noticing a problem to telling a friend, you followed a customer from awareness through consideration and decision to retention and advocacy. Search intent maps onto that journey quite closely.
Informational searches usually come from people at the awareness stage. They have noticed a problem and want to understand it. Commercial searches come from people at consideration, who are weighing up providers. Transactional searches come at decision, when the person is ready to book or buy. Navigational searches can appear at any stage, including after purchase, when a customer searches your name to find your opening hours or log in.
This matters because each stage is worth something different to you, and each needs a different kind of page. A small business often gets the most from commercial and transactional searches first, because those people are closest to paying. Informational content earns its place when it answers questions your future customers really ask and leads them, in time, towards you.
Start writing the searches your customers might use. Draw on your enquiry messages, the questions people ask at the counter or on the phone, and the voice-of-customer file you may have built in Content and copywriting that people read. Write each search the way a customer would type it, typos and all, and not the way you would describe your service.
Next to each one, write its intent and the stage of the journey it fits. Some will be hard to call. That is fine for now, because lesson 2.2 shows you how to check your guess against what Google actually shows. The activity below asks you to build this list of 20 searches with both labels.
Write 20 searches your customers might use and label each with its intent and the stage of the customer journey it fits.
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