10% of searches bring half the visits
We sorted 431,227 searches by intent to buy. A small slice brought about half the visits. Why intent, not volume, should decide what you write and fix first.
Keyword lists are usually sorted by search volume. It is the wrong order for a site that earns from what visitors do next. A phrase searched 50,000 times by people who are only curious can be worth less than one searched 500 times by people ready to choose.
What we did
From 16 months of search data, 7.35 million rows, we took 431,227 distinct searches that brought the site impressions and sorted each one by intent:
- Learning: “what is…”, “how does… work”.
- Comparing: “best…”, “… vs …”, “… review”.
- Ready to act: the searches people make just before they sign up, buy or click through to a partner.
What it showed
About 10% of searches carried intent to buy, and they brought roughly half of the visits. Those are the pages where speed, accuracy and tracking matter most, and where a lost ranking costs real money.
How it changes the plan
- Fix first where intent is highest. Speed, structure and tracking work starts on the pages that serve ready-to-act searches.
- Protect those pages in every change. They are the first pages checked before any release.
- Write for the gaps. Ready-to-act searches with no good page on the site become the content plan.
- Measure them separately. Traffic growth from curious visitors is nice. Growth on high-intent searches is what pays.
Try it on your own data
Export a year of Search Console queries, tag the top few hundred by intent by hand, and look at what share of clicks the “ready to act” group brings. The answer usually reorders the backlog.
The examples in this article come from real engagements. Client details withheld; every figure comes from the client’s own data.
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