Insights, experiments, and ideas gathered from the workbench.

What Are High-Intent Keywords?

High-intent keywords are search terms with a specific intent that often lead to business transactions, such as purchasing products or services online. These keywords have a higher conversion rate because they indicate the user’s intent to act.

For example, a user searching for the keyword ‘Nike men’s running shoes size 10’ shows the user is not just browsing but is ready to purchase a particular product.

High-Intent And Low-Intent Keywords

High-intent keywords are classified into transactional and commercial keywords, also called low-intent keywords. Both types are found at the ‘conversion stage’ of a digital marketing sales funnel.

Let’s see some examples to understand the difference between the two.

Commercial Intent

Users searching for “best digital marketing courses” are currently in the process of finding a good course to enroll in. It’s not certain that they will proceed to a purchase, but they are comparing options.

Other examples of commercial intent keywords include:

• “top SEO software”
• “best email marketing tools”
• “digital marketing agency reviews”

Transactional Intent

On the other hand, users searching for “buy digital marketing course online” or “reliablesoft digital marketing course register” are ready to make a purchase.

These users have done their research and are now looking to complete a transaction.

Other examples of transactional intent keywords include:

• “buy iPhone”
• “hire a digital marketing consultant”

Importance of Buyer-Intent Keywords

As you might have guessed, transactional and commercial keywords are important because they drive conversions to a business. Conversions can be anything that helps a business achieve its financial goals, which is what digital marketing is all about.

Besides conversions, high-intent keywords bring other benefits to a business:

• Higher ROI: Since these keywords target users ready to take action, they often result in a higher return on investment (ROI) compared to informational or navigational keywords.
• Customer Trust and Credibility: By targeting keywords that satisfy the specific needs of users, you present your business as a reliable and trusted resource, which builds credibility, leading to more conversion and repeat business.
• Competitive Advantage: Targeting high-intent keywords can help you capture market share from competitors and establish your brand as an authority in your niche.
• Better SEO Rankings: Pages optimized for high-intent keywords can perform better in search because they align closely with user search intent. This leads to higher click-through rates and positively impacts your SEO efforts.

The big problem with high-intent keywords is that everybody is going after them, making them too competitive for small businesses to target. We’ll see below some alternative ways to deal with this problem.

How To Find High-Intent Keywords?

Finding high-intent keywords is not difficult. It’s as simple as putting yourself in potential customers’ shoes and thinking of what searches they might use before purchasing.

1. Understand Your Customers’ Search Behavior

The first step is understanding your audience, conducting Google searches, and examining the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Start by using these keywords, followed by the type of products or services.

✔ Buy — for example, “Buy wireless headphones”
✔ Cheap — for example, “cheap engagement rings”
✔ Best — for example, “best laserjet printers”
✔ Deal — for example, “best deal running shoes”
✔ Free shipping — “buy wireless speakers free shipping”

When examining the SERPs, you can skip big websites like Amazon, Target, etc., and analyze the content of websites considered your competitors.

While performing your searches, leverage Google Autocomplete to get more suggestions on other search terms you might have missed.

2. Use Keyword Research Tools

Doing Google searches will give you a pretty good idea of the high-intent keywords in your industry. To get more details on the traffic potential and keyword difficulty, you need to use a keyword research tool to perform keyword research.

In the examples below, we’ll use Semrush to examine each keyword’s organic potential and Google Keyword Planner to get more details about paying for ads.

Go to the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool and enter your primary keyword in the search box. This is usually the product or service you’re selling.

Check commercial and transactional from the “Intent” dropdown and hit the Apply button.

This will narrow down your selection to buyer-intent keywords. For each keyword, examine the monthly search volume and keyword difficulty to decide if this is a keyword to include in your SEO strategy.

Google Keyword Planner

You can use Google Keyword Planner to find high-intent keywords for your PPC campaigns. The tool is free for Google Ads customers (if you don’t have an account, you can create one for free to use the tool).

There are two ways to use Google Keyword Planner:

• Enter your website URL or products, and Google will suggest keywords
• Use keywords identified through research and analyze them further

Whatever the case, it is important to check the competition and average CPC for each keyword to determine whether it is suitable for your paid campaigns.

3. Analyze Competitor Keywords

Another way to find which keywords are more likely to result in conversions for your business is to analyze competitors.

By entering a competitor’s domain into a keyword research tool, you can see their SEO and PPC keywords.

While this is a great method to see what’s working well for them, it’s something that everybody does, which means that the keywords will be too competitive and expensive.

You must pay more attention to the manual keyword research method to find high-value and low-competition keywords.

Best Practices For Using High-Intent Keywords

Now that you have a list of keywords that can satisfy your business goals, the next step is to optimize your existing content or create new content to target those keywords.

Here is a list of the best practices to get the best possible results:

Add Keywords to Page Titles, Meta Descriptions, and URLs

1. Page Titles

Page titles are among the first things search engines and users see, so it’s crucial to include your high-intent keywords here. Make sure the title is compelling and clearly reflects the page’s content.

For example, if your high-intent keyword is “buy running shoes online,” a good page title could be:

“Buy Running Shoes Online — Fast Shipping & Best Prices.”

The page should list several running shoe models grouped into categories (men, women, etc.).

2. Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions summarize your page’s content and are displayed in search engine results. While they don’t directly impact rankings, they influence organic click-through rates.

Ensure your meta description includes the high-intent keyword and a call to action, like:

“Discover the best deals on running shoes. Buy online now for fast shipping.”

3. URLs

URLs should be clean and descriptive. Avoid long, confusing URLs with too many characters. Instead, include the high-intent keyword naturally.

For instance:

example.com/best-laptops-for-students

Create Content to Match Search Intent

The most important SEO factor when optimizing a page for any keyword is having content that matches search intent.

Search intent refers to the user’s goal when typing a query into a search engine. For high-intent keywords, users seek content that helps them perform a specific action, such as purchasing, signing up for a service, or requesting more information.

For example, if someone searches for “buy an underwater camera,” their intent is clearly to purchase a camera.

They want product options, descriptions, pricing information, and clear calls to action — not lengthy explanations.

For example, a page ranking for “best laser printer” provides product comparisons, features, summaries, and links to detailed reviews, helping users make purchasing decisions.

Group Keywords Into Topic Clusters

Grouping keywords into topic clusters helps create a structured website and improves SEO performance.

For example:

Main topic: best printers

• example.com/best-printers/ (pillar page)
• example.com/best-printers/brother
• example.com/best-printers/hp

Supporting pages link back to the pillar page and each other.

This structure helps search engines understand content relationships and improves navigation for users.

Use Digital PR to Get Links and Mentions

Following the above techniques increases your chances of ranking. However, when many websites follow similar strategies, backlinks and brand mentions become the deciding factor.

Getting links directly to transactional pages is difficult, so alternatives include:

• Getting links to blog content and internally linking to product pages
• Digital PR campaigns
• Influencer marketing
• Brand mentions

Additional link-building resources:

✔ Link building for SEO
✔ Ecommerce link building techniques

What To Do If You Cannot Rank For High-Intent Keywords

If you cannot rank for competitive keywords despite optimization, focus on long-tail keywords with lower competition but strong intent.

For example:

Instead of “running shoes,” target:

• “best running shoes for flat feet”
• “affordable women’s running shoes for marathons”

These keywords attract more specific audiences and improve ranking chances.

To find long-tail keywords:

• Follow the same research process
• Analyze forums and social media discussions
• Use Google “People Also Ask” suggestions

By targeting specific high-intent long-tail keywords, you can capture qualified traffic and improve conversions.