Moz’s own Tom Capper gave a fascinating talk on the critical importance of understanding how Google views search intent as a means of informing how we can support customer journeys. Search intent is typically broken down into four categories: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional. It was very confirming to see that Tom’s research found that Google commonly understands local searches as having a transactional intent, serving up local packs as actionable SERP features.

It’s been a historic challenge to pin down a single intent category for local searches. For example, if I look up “Pizza Hut,” I could theoretically be said to be making a navigational search because it contains a brand name. But the fact that Google will almost definitely serve up a local pack for this search means they understand that I’m probably on the verge of making a transaction, whether immediately for something like a quick slice of pizza or, eventually, like booking a hotel room for a vacation next month.

The takeaway for local businesses is to realize just how critical it is to support every step you can towards a customer’s transaction with an accurate and informative Google Business Profile, clear driving directions, great product descriptions, and smooth e-commerce functionality so that the customer sticks with you to the end of the journey instead of being disappointed and going elsewhere.