What It Is and How to Use It in Your SEO Strategy

But there is a practical difference to draw, and it changes how you use the idea.

Search optimization is about optimizing content to match search results. The keyword intent is the same concept used one step earlier. Think of it as a filter you use during keyword research to determine if a keyword is a good fit for your strategy at all.

If the objective does not correspond to something that your site can work on and convert in a practical way, the keyword is not in your plan, no matter how attractive the volume looks.

The four main types of keyword intent (and what to actually do with each)

There are four general keyword intent buckets. Here’s what they have to say about your keyword strategy.

Informational keywords

Keywords for information are searches for answers, explanations, or guidance. Think “how to grow tomatoes,” “why are my plant’s leaves turning yellow,” or “when should I plant bulbs.”

They make up the majority of search volume in many areas and form the backbone of many content strategies. They should be targeted where high traffic potential, topic authority is important to your strategy, and there is a natural way to present your product in context.

Skip information keywords if:

• The purpose is very broad: “what is farming” might get a search, but the target audience is too broad to be useful. You will be creating content for everyone and converting for no one.
• Traffic intensity is low: if the top ranking page for a keyword gets less traffic, there is no prize to compete for, no matter how well the title matches your site.
• There is no reliable product angle: if you can naturally present your product or service within the content without feeling forced, you are publishing for that. That narrows your topic focus without moving the revenue needle.

Marketing keywords

Marketing research keywords sit between research and purchase. Questions like “best garden hose,” “raised bed vs. indoor garden,” or “top fertilizer for vegetables” indicate that the searcher is exploring options but not ready to buy yet.

This is where most of the strategic value resides in ecommerce or affiliate marketing websites.

Whether these keywords make sense to target in your keyword strategy depends entirely on the products you are selling or promoting.

Ahrefs’s Business Potential score is a very useful framework for assessing these. It measures keywords by how naturally you can present your product as a solution.

Transaction keywords

Transactional keywords indicate immediate purchase intent, such as “buy garden hose online,” “greenhouse kits on sale,” or “Miracle-Gro potting mix price”.

They convert well but are competitive and expensive to scale organically. Because they live close to the point of purchase, they attract a lot of competition, both from other organic results and from paid advertisers who are willing to bid hard for the same eyeballs.

It’s worth targeting if you can’t measure it; it’s worth bidding on the premium if you can.

Keywords for navigation

Navigation keywords are searches for a specific product or destination, such as “Thompson & Morgan website,” “RHS plant finder,” or “Gardeners world magazine”.

The only navigation terms you should have are your brand names, such as “Ahrefs Login,” “Ahrefs Pricing,” or “Ahrefs Free Trial.” These are the people who are already specifically looking for you, and making sure you rank high with them is all about securing your presence.

Two types of keyword targets that miss the four-bucket model

The standard classification of keyword intent does not adequately account for two very common categories that behave very differently in practice (and that Ahrefs clearly sees as different filters in Test Keywords).

The first is the local purpose.

Local intent keywords aren’t just what you do with the local modifier. Keywords such as “dentist near me” or “Shoreditch coffee shop” trigger a very different type of search results page than a typical organic query:

• Map pack results
• Google Business Profiles
• Local directory
• Local Service Ads

Standard content-based SEO is irrelevant here. A local target keyword requires a local SEO response, not a blog strategy. That means improving your Google Business Profile, building local citations, and gaining reviews rather than creating content.

Another type of keyword intent that is often missing is branded intent. These keywords include a product or organization name. It could be your product, a competitor, or a completely unrelated organization in your industry.

For example, in the gardening space this might include a competitor like “Epic Gardening,” a retailer like “Home Depot gardening,” or an unrelated product that shares your audience like “Martha Stewart’s gardening book.”

These keywords are not always roaming, in the traditional sense. For example:

• Other {Brand}: A commercial inquiry question.
• {Brand} price: A question of commercial intent.
• {Brand} vs {Brand}: A comparative question of commercial intent.

There are many similar keywords that contain product names that all carry trading signals or transactions. Displaying these terms often requires a competitive approach and may be a valid option for paid search ads.

How to manage mixed-purpose keywords

Some keywords don’t fit neatly into one category. For example, “project management software” has both information and trademarks.

The “best deals on running shoes” sit between information, sales, and shopping, depending on how close the searcher is to shopping.

If you come across such keywords in your research, you can choose one target to target. Or, you can create different pieces of content that cover the same keyword from a different objective.

For example, say you sell clothes. Multiple purpose keywords:

You can direct this to your ecommerce pages, where people can fulfill the business and commercial purpose (which is compatible with the purpose of your ecommerce website). For most brands, that’s the standard approach.

However, you might also consider creating relevant blog content, such as DIY Halloween costume tips or a list of couples costume ideas with links to specific products in your store.

This way, you combine all the keyword objectives with content tailored to searchers at different stages of their shopping journey.

How to determine keyword intent with Ahrefs

There are several ways you can use Ahrefs to help you determine the intent of any keyword (either individually or in aggregate).

If you’re building a list of keywords in Keyword Explorer and you’re not sure if a keyword meets the goal you’d like to target, try expanding the SERP results and using Identifying the purpose of AI feature:

It gives you a breakdown of the percentage of search results and how many pages are ranking for a specific purpose.

You can also choose between these targets for any keyword in AI Content Helper. The content optimization report is customized based on which keyword objective you choose:

You can also monitor target drift for important keywords in Rank Tracker. Open the SERP overview of your targeted keywords, compare the times, and press “Inspect intent” to track shifts in search intent over time.

And finally, if you’d like to identify the intent of multi-word keywords across the entire keyword list at scale, you can try using Ahrefs MCP with your LLM of choice. Our team has had better success using Claude than ChatGPT, but your mileage may vary.

By connecting MCP to LLM, you can direct it directly (something like “from this list of keywords, group them by type of intent and flag any with the highest traffic potential”), and it will query Ahrefs data for heavy lifting in seconds rather than working on each one manually.

In addition to scalability. Another benefit of using MCP is that you can tell it to identify deeper, more subtle layers of keyword intent (often called micro-intents).

It’s especially useful if you’re researching a new niche and want a comprehensive objective map before you start filtering in Keywords Explorer.

The objective keyword is your first filter, not your last

Before you look at keyword search volume, check keyword difficulty, or plan a content calendar, ask if the keyword’s intent is something your site can serve searchers and convert.

If it doesn’t, no amount of traffic is likely to make it worth pursuing.

That’s what a discipline keyword analysis is all about. It’s a strategic filter that shapes everything that follows your keyword research process.