About the Author
Corey Morris is the President and CEO of VOLTAGE, a search marketing and website agency for expertise-driven organizations. He has spent more than two decades in digital marketing and SEO, and he wrote the book on the Digital Marketing Success Plan® (DMSP), the planning process VOLTAGE uses with clients. Corey has published more than 150 articles and expert contributions across Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, and Forbes over nearly a decade, and he still writes regularly for the first two. His Search Engine Journal articles alone have been read nearly 1.7 million times. He has spoken at SMX, Digital Summit, and SMPS. He's also a sought-after podcast and media guest, with more than 75 speaking, podcast, and media appearances. He served as an officer on the board of the global search marketing trade association, founded a Kansas City search marketing conference, and was named the 2019 KCDMA Marketer of the Year.
Updated October 2026
Search intent is the reason behind a search, meaning what the person hopes to find or do. SEO teams usually sort it into four types: informational, navigational, commercial and transactional. Those four are a useful start, but real searches are more specific. A sub-intent is the narrower goal inside one of those types, like comparing two products, finding a local provider or troubleshooting a problem. Planning content around sub-intents is how you match what people actually expect to see.
The four main types of search intent.
| Type | What the searcher wants | Example search |
|---|---|---|
| Informational | To learn something or answer a question | how does design-build work |
| Navigational | To reach a specific site or page | VOLTAGE blog |
| Commercial | To research options before a decision | best warehouse management software |
| Transactional | To act, like buy, sign up or contact | request a quote for office space |
The four types describe broad stages. They don’t tell you what format a page should take, how deep it should go, or what would make someone choose you.
What a sub-intent is, and why it matters.
Two searches can share a main type and still need very different pages. “Best noise-cancelling headphones” and “Sony vs Bose headphones” are both commercial. The first wants a broad list. The second wants a head-to-head comparison and is closer to a purchase. “How to fix a leaky faucet” and “plumbers near me” both start with the same problem, but one wants a tutorial and the other wants a provider today.
Sub-intents capture that difference. The SEO community has pushed this idea for years, and Lily Ray’s MozCon talk on expanded search intent is a well-known example. Common sub-intents include:
- Compare options: products, services, vendors or plans side by side
- Find a local provider: services near a location, often with reviews and hours
- Learn how to do something: tutorials, guides and step-by-step help
- Troubleshoot a problem: a fix for something that isn’t working
- Check a price or cost: pricing, quotes or budget ranges
- Get directions or plan a visit: maps, routes, hours and parking
- Vet a company: reviews, case studies, credentials and leadership
- Find a job: open roles and what it’s like to work somewhere
The same person can move through several of these in one week, or even one session.
How to identify intent for any search.
The search results are the best evidence. Google shows what it has learned people want.
- Search it yourself. Note whether the top results are guides, lists, product pages, local listings or videos.
- Look at the features. An AI Overview or featured snippet points to a question. A map pack points to local. Shopping results point to a purchase.
- Read the modifiers. Words like “how,” “best,” “vs,” “near me,” “cost” and “login” each signal a different goal.
- Check People Also Ask. It shows the follow-up questions your page should answer.
- Watch for mixed results. When the results are a blend of formats, the intent is split, and one page rarely wins every version.
Intent in AI search.
AI tools change how intent shows up. A prompt in ChatGPT or Google AI Mode is often a full sentence with context, like budget, location or role. Follow-up questions narrow it further. That makes sub-intents easier to see and more important to serve.
It also raises the bar. When an AI answer covers the basic question, the pages that get cited or clicked are the ones with depth, comparisons, first-hand experience or a clear next step. We cover more of this in SEO vs GEO vs AEO vs LLMO.
Map your content to intent.
A site that serves its buyers well usually has a page for each major sub-intent in the journey:
- Learning: guides and explainers that answer early questions
- Evaluating: comparisons, case studies and “how we work” pages
- Deciding: service pages, pricing context and clear calls to action
- Supporting: help content and resources for current customers
When one page tries to serve all of these at once, it usually serves none of them well. When several pages target the same sub-intent, they compete with each other.
How our team uses intent.
When we plan content or a new site structure, we group keywords by sub-intent, not just topic. We check the live results for each group to confirm what format wins, then assign one page to each group.
For B2B companies in fields like AEC, commercial real estate and logistics, many types of searches can produce leads, but the intent behind them differs. In our team’s experience, service and location searches, like “commercial general contractor Kansas City,” bring in the large majority of leads by a wide margin. Searches that vet a firm can look promising, but in AEC they often mislead. Project pages earn a lot of impressions from people looking for the building, stadium or venue itself, not the architect or builder behind it.
Cost, pricing and comparison searches, like one delivery method versus another, are more informational. People are still weighing their options, so these searches tend to produce fewer leads, even though they help buyers build a shortlist. We recommend putting your strongest effort into service and location pages first, then supporting them with project, cost and comparison content.
The bottom line.
The four types of search intent are a starting point, not a plan. Look at the sub-intent behind each search, check what the results show, and build the page that best fits that need. If you want help mapping your site to how your buyers search, see how our SEO and content teams approach it, or read whether keywords still matter in SEO.