Understanding SEO Like a Professional Data Scientist

Keyword intent

SEO professionals lose hair trying to figure out keyword intent.

Sure, you can invest time in ranking a “How long does first class mail take” article for the “send first class mail” keyword. If you don’t match the intent, Google will ignore your content piece.

Search intent is off in the above example. Both keywords contain the “first-class mail” keyword” but don’t answer the same query.

“Send first class mail” is a keyword with strong transactional intent. And our article falls under a different category —  a category that’s miles away from people who’re looking for a mail provider today.

Google constantly changes its algorithms to improve how they serve user-search intent. If the search engine thinks you’ve nailed the intent and have enough domain authority, Google may push your page in front of relevant eyes — aka people searching for your solution.

Search intent is broken down into four major categories:

1. Informational (I.e., What does “In Transit, Arriving Late” Mean?)
2. Navigational (I.e., Postalytics direct mail login)
3. Commercial (I.e., 12 Places that Sell Postcards in the United States)
4. Transactional (i.e., Postcard Advertising Tool)

Fractioned, overlapping, and local intent can be added to the mix as your understanding of search intent grows. For now, the four main categories are more than enough to launch your content strategy.

Let’s look at data. We’ve fed Ahrefs-generated keywords that include the term Direct Mail to Google Data Studio.

The Direct Mail classifier segments direct mail topic clusters. It  can help you:

• Understand topics in the direct mail niche
• Discover exciting content opportunities
• Find relevant keywords
• Create relevant content

The above classifier (developed by LazarinaStoy and modified by MadX) will evolve over time as we feed more keywords and refine the intent filters.

Bookmark the data studio link. And every time you need inspiration in the direct mail niche, come back to check the latest version of the direct mail report.

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