How to use AI to diagnose and improve search intent alignment

Pages on your website can be well written, well laid out, supported by backlinks, and even meet E-E-A-T expectations – yet still fail to rank.

While there are many possible explanations, one common issue is a misalignment with search intent, and it’s often harder to spot than it sounds.

When the focus is on content, optimization, and usability, intent can easily be missed or misjudged.

This is where AI can become a useful review tool, helping guide things back in the right direction.

Get back to basics

Whether you’re starting work on a new page or updating something older, beginning with the basics of search intent can help set you up for success. 

A simple prompt asking AI for the likely search intents for your given keyword offers a framework to guide your content creation or optimization.

A list of this type will be comprehensive, and you don’t have to hit every variation of intent on the page you create. 

Yet it can highlight different user types, intent shifts, and needs you might not have considered.

Reviewing all these factors will help you create a more useful, well-rounded page that’s likely to satisfy real user needs.

Dig deeper: There are more than 4 types of search intent

Review what’s working

Nailing intent can be harder than it sounds. 

Using AI tools can help you get a feel for what’s already ranking and what those pages are getting right.

AI tools make it easier to get a quick overview of the primary intent of a page. 

You can check this at scale to see whether top-ranking pages all satisfy the same intent. 

Then you can ask the same questions about intent for your page, whether it’s a first draft of something new or an older page you’re optimizing.

If your primary intent matches what’s already succeeding, that’s a great starting point. If it doesn’t, you’ve got a quick answer on how to begin improving it. 

Either way, asking AI tools for suggestions on improvement can give you some useful ideas.

Areas to focus on refining intent can cover the following.

Language

The language you use can reinforce or undermine intent. 

Persuasive, sales-focused wording strengthens commercial intent. 

Descriptive, informative language adds clarity to pages designed to educate or fulfill informational intent.

Format

Even the layout and format of a page give intent signals. 

To offer a couple of examples:

• If it’s a sales page, where do the products sit? 
• What information about them is provided? 
• Does it support sales or product investigation?
• When you’re creating step-by-step guides, have you labeled steps, added visual guides or used video content? 

Calls to action

Giving clear, direct calls to action signifies intent. 

Aligning the action you’d like the user to take with the potential intent underpins the entire purpose of a page. 

Generalized, missing, or uncertain calls to action can dilute both user engagement and ranking.

Dig deeper: How to master user intent with SEO personas

Pricing signals

Have you listed pricing on relevant pages, VAT elements, and currency? 

These can all help send the right signals.

Available support

Is information on or links to pre- or post-sale support readily available? 

Do you have clear contact details for sales teams for user queries? 

Knowing assistance is available could be the difference between making a sale or losing one.

Trust signals

Have you mentioned product guarantees, return policies, reviews, and testimonials? 

All these factors help users make their decision.

Product or service comparison

Clear comparisons between similar products can help with commercial investigation. 

If users are weighing up their options, understanding pros and cons can help move them from research into decision-making.

Dig deeper: How to optimize for search intent: 19 practical tips

Improving with structure

As I’ve worked on pages with a specific focus on intent, I’ve discovered areas that try to do too much at once. 

Perhaps this depth of information has worked in the past, but today things need to be clearer, simpler, and more intent-driven.

This has led me to consider where the information really should sit and how it best supports the user journey with new eyes. 

AI tools can help recognize the intent behind specific pockets of information to suggest the best way to structure it. 

Breaking things down into specific guides for different stages of the user funnel can effectively satisfy intent, as well as provide supporting background information for key pages.

An ecommerce example

Let’s consider a sales page for internal French doors. 

The main page is struggling, even though on paper it has plenty of plus points. 

• Detailed copy. 
• Good navigation. 
• A wide product range.

Running the page through an AI tool, along with the top competitors, reveals a pattern.

Competitors are selling first. Your page is problem-solving.

While all the information is useful, it’s not directly addressing the needs of users who have primarily reached the page to purchase or to collect sales-driven information to make a future purchase.

With that in mind, you can adjust the structure:

• Move sales-driven copy to the forefront.
• Address buyer pain points, but keep things concise.
• Move pre- and post-sale information to supporting pages.
• Link all this information together to create a strong hub-and-spoke model.
• Keep the main product listing page sales-focused.

In this scenario, you’re using AI for clarity. It helps you identify the position in the user journey and better satisfy your visitors.

Dig deeper: How to drive SEO growth with structure, skimmability and search intent

Aligning intent for better results

Getting the human aspect of search intent right is the goal, but ranking should follow. 

AI’s biggest strength in this situation is to act like a second set of eyes, helping you interpret patterns and highlight mismatches you might have missed.

Used as a strategic tool, AI can help you:

• Sanity-check your intent alignment.
• Validate what’s working for top competitors.
• Identify structural issues that confuse or dilute intent.
• Strengthen your understanding of your users.

It doesn’t replace expertise, understanding, or skill. 

It helps direct your efforts and fine-tune your approach for better results.