Navigational Queries vs Informational Queries: Why Many Blogs Target the Wrong One

Many bloggers are spending hours of time looking for the “perfect” keywords, looking at volume, and checking rankings. Surprisingly, very few stop to ask a more important question: Is this really the right search intent for my content? This is the actual reason why so many sites experience ebb and flow rankings, low engagement, and flattening organic traffic. In 2025, the real distinction in SEO is not between high-volume and low-volume keywords, but rather navigational vs informational intent. If you choose the wrong one, even the best content in the world will never rank or engage users! If you choose the right one, your blog will experience rapid growth and will require much less effort! In this article, I will share why blogs are often misaligned with intent, how the misalignment in blog traffic occurs, and how to actually align content to represent informational vs navigational search behaviour.

What Search Intent Really Means in Modern SEO

Search intent refers to the rationale behind a user’s search. This is not just about what they type, but what they intend. Google is good at figuring out intent. If your page does not fulfill the user intent, you won’t rank, regardless of how well you optimise.

There are various types of intent, yet there are two intent types that are particularly important for blog strategies.

1. Navigational intent (users who are looking for a specific brand, website, or page). 

2. Informational intent (users looking for answers, information, guidance, explanations, or solutions). 

Most blogs seek to rank for educational queries, yet they do not realise that they are optimising the wrong type of intent. This is the biggest source of blog traffic intent issues today.

To develop your content strategy process, you need to understand educational + navigational intent differences, understand the intent types and then align content to the appropriate intent types. We will further discuss navigational vs informational intent.

Navigational Queries — When Users Already Know Where They Want to Go

Navigational queries are simple in nature: the user knows the brand or page they want to navigate to. Some examples are: 

• “HubSpot login” 
• “Apple support” 
• “Asana pricing page” 
• “Canva background remover” 

These users are not there to browse. They are not there to explore. They are not looking for educational content. They are looking to get to one place—all are web properties owned by the brand.

That’s why we do not support blogs ranking for navigational keywords. Every time we have ranked for navigational keywords, we’ve witnessed: 

• Very low click-through rates (CTR) 
• Rapid exits when users realize they are not on the page they were seeking 
• Poor behavioral signals from the presenting visitor dissatisfaction that likely led to weakened general rankings 
• Most likely a clear instance of keyword intent mismatch 

Blogs are educational; navigational queries are directional. So anytime you try to hybrid or merge the two, no one wins.

Informational Queries — The Foundation of Successful Blog Traffic

When comparing informational vs navigational intent, informational intent is the core of any blog that centers on SEO. These are users looking to find out more, compare, understand, or solve queries as they pertain to the following:

• “How to select a CRM”
• “What is topical authority?”
• “SEO checklist for newbies”
• “Why sites need to cache”

These types of searches promote awareness and discovery. They also deliver a highly engaged traffic source that thoroughly appreciates and reads the content.

And that is the best way blogs perform — explaining a subject or topic, guiding users, assisting them in making informed decisions.

When you target informational vs navigational queries on purpose, you drive traffic that improves metrics, like, with proper content, as such:

• Longer time on page
• Higher scroll depth
• Higher share rates
• More inbound backlinks
• Better authority signals

All of which is why informational keywords should be the backbone of any solid SEO content strategy.

Why Many Blogs Target the Wrong Intent Without Realising

Does keyword intent change? The blog traffic intent issues start when creators place too much faith in search volume data. A high search volume keyword is often attractive, but many of them will have navigational intent. For example, “Notion templates” is an informational keyword — until you look at the SERP and see it’s all Notion pages.

Then you encounter the most popular blog traffic intent issues:

• High impressions but low clicks
• Good rankings but bad engagement
• Traffic spikes and then disappears
• Pages that attract the wrong audience entirely
• What is the issue? A simple keyword intent mismatch.

Your content may be strong, your optimisation may be optimised — but when you answer the wrong type of search, that content will never achieve its potential and that is a major reason for blog traffic intent issues.

How Wrong Search Intent Targeting Damages Your SEO

A discrepancy between the user’s search intent and the content of the page, which is called wrong search intent targeting, it can affect SEO in several ways: 

1. Poor Engagement Signals 

When a user clicks through to your page expecting one thing but finds another, they bounce. Fast. Google tracks that engagement and will adjust up or down accordingly. 

2. Mismatched Traffic Signals 

Your page may get impressions, but no clicks if your title does not match the user’s navigational expectations. 

3. Lower Ranking Stability 

Pages that target the wrong intent will often see extreme fluctuation in the SERPs. 

4. Eroded Authority 

If the user comes back to your page, only to feel disappointed with your results, that page may lose authority over time. 

This is why targeting navigational or informational intent properly is a very important factor in achieving long-term organic performance.

Optimising Blogs for Informational Intent — The Right Approach

For your content to rank well in search engines, your content must match the information behaviour. Here is a guide to optimize for intent: 

1. Read the SERP.

The first thing to do is to see what type of content a search engine shows with the result, i.e., the type of content, if any, is a featured snippet, and which of your competitors’ rankings has information content to better understand if it’s informational or not.

2. Use Informational Modifiers.

“How,” “Why,” “What,” “Guide,” “Best way to,” “Tips,” and “Examples,” all help to steer you away from guiding mode/intent or navigational intent in your word selection.

3. Format Your Blog Content For Learning.

Use headings and subheadings, lists, notes and annotations to provide spacing and line breaks to help anticipate the next question the user has.

4. Use Internal Linking For A Logical Progression.

Creating anchor text links from informational paragraphs to guides, or guide references, to comparatives, or to specific content topics, helps with intent optimization and user journey sequence flow.

5. Use A Consistent Content Framework.

Every student or user needs to understand from the title or text a clear and identifiable way to see intent, whether you are teaching, guiding, explaining, or helping.

Following these steps will certainly help you from drifting too much in the navigation for using informational content.

How to Avoid Creating Navigational Content Accidentally

Some keywords seem informational, but they aren’t. Here’s how to avoid the pitfall: 

• If the top results are all brand pages, it is a navigational keyword.
• If the autocomplete keywords include “official,” “login,” or brand names — don’t. 
• If the query includes branded modifiers, choose an informational variant with less of branded modifiers. 
• If the SERP is transactional or navigational, don’t try to shove a blog into it. 

Also, be careful not to conflate navigational vs transactional vs informational, which is also a common challenge during the planning stage. 

Just one mistake can lead to a mismatch in keyword intent that marks the end of the article.

The Grey Area: When Search Intent Isn’t Clear

Based on context, some keywords will fit between informational and navigational, and other times, the keywords will shift intent as trends shift or new products exist. 

If that happens, evaluate the following: 

• The dominant SERP pattern
• The freshness of competing articles
• Google’s preferred formats (guides, videos, brand pages, definitions)

If your content is not matching the intent anymore, refreshing the content will set you up for success, such as structure, title, flow, and details. By refreshing your article, you’re ensuring that your article matches how users search today—not what users searched for last year.

A Practical Framework to Map Keywords to the Right Intent

Prior to writing, go through the following quick process: 

• Collect keywords that you want to focus on.
• Check the SERPs for each one (what type of result/showcase dominates?).
• Put each keyword into one of the three categories – navigational, informational, or mixed.
• Assign each blog article one and only primary intent.
• After writing/developing content, check that it meets expectations. 

This simple framework will almost immediately improve content ranking.

Conclusion: Choosing the Right Intent Is the Secret to Consistent Blog Success

Many blogs fail not from the quality of the writing or the weaknesses of the SEO, but because they chose the wrong intent to begin with. At the core of modern search engine optimisation is the fight between navigational vs informational intent, but this is also one of the most neglected factors behind keyword planning.

If you want stability in rankings, better engagement, and visibility over the long term, you must align every blog with the correct search intent optimization. Navigational keywords should be avoided unless you own the company. Focus on informational topics; those are the types of blog posts where blogs thrive.

If you ever need help, a search engine optimization company in UAE can deliver expert guidance for you while you build an intent-driven SEO plan that works for you.