SEO changes all the time and this is why it is important to keep up with what is happening in the SEO world. One thing that has been happening for quite some time that some people have not noticed or overlooked is the rise of semantic SEO. As Google has become smarter at understanding content and context, semantic SEO has become much more important. This article tackles what semantic SEO is and how to build a semantic SEO strategy.
Semantic SEO
Semantic SEO has to do with how search engines understand the content on your website in its entirety, not just single posts and pages. In the past, single and multiple-keyword approaches worked to help webmasters and SEOs rank websites and pages higher. With the rise of natural language processing and deep learning technologies being used by search engines like Google, this approach no longer produces great results.
The Role Google Plays
Google has always understood that there is more to language and information than the individual words we use. Context and different body language cues are also integral parts. Even though Google cannot replicate other parts of language, it has endeavored to understand context and take a more semantic and human-like approach to understanding and ranking web content.
An Overview on Crafting a Semantic SEO Strategy
Crafting a semantic SEO strategy requires that you, first of all, understand it requires building topical depth and more meaning into your content. Your content should be geared towards helping search engines understand your content in addition to ranking it.
Full-site semantics entails using internal linking to link related content together. These links form bridges that help search engine crawlers understand specific content topics on your website as well as its semantics as a whole.
To do both of the above, content creators, marketers, and website owners have to create content that answers user queries rather than trying to create content that ranks for specific keywords. By creating content like this, they end up including content that provides semantic value which in turn helps them rank better.
Why Semantic SEO?
Google has always said that it intends to provide useful, relevant, and helpful search results for humans that are written by humans. This is its way of making search much better for all of us. The search engine understands that users are typically not looking to answer a single question but will often instead have follow-up questions.
In Google’s view, a user should find answers to their primary question and any secondary questions they have in one place rather than scattered on different pages and posts. Ensuring this happens is a massive part of semantic SEO and improving user search experience. Users can find all the answers and information they need without having to keep going back to their search bars.
Proven Semantic SEO Strategies
Semantic SEO, like other SEO strategies, encompasses various other strategies that come together to make up a whole.
Optimize Your Content for Keyword Clusters
What are keyword clusters? There are groups of related keywords that share semantic relevance. For example, the cluster link exchange can have related keywords such as, ‘how can I do link exchange’, ‘link exchange for SEO’, ‘benefits of link exchange’, and so on.
The reason optimizing for keyword clusters is so important is that Google does not only use single words to index and rank pages. A page can rank for multiple keywords, which means content and marketing teams have to optimize their pages for keyword clusters to rank better for each keyword.
Keyword clusters are not only great for adding more meaning to convert, but as explained above, they improve the total number of keywords you rank for. This is why it is possible to find a single page that ranks twice for the same search query even though the highlighted keyword for each result is different.
Google already does this, but it is up to you to find more meaningful keyword clusters to leverage Googler’s semantic capabilities.
Lengthen and Deepen Your Content
A debate on whether content length affects rankings has been going on for the better part of two decades. Google says length is not a ranking factor, but there is enough evidence to show that longer content produces much better ranking results. Longer content, typically over 2000 words, makes up for about 70% of first-page results, generates more revenue and social shares, and ranks higher.
A more comprehensive exploration of a topic, which can only be achieved by increasing content length, is massively beneficial for semantic SEO. An obvious reason for this is that it allows you to fit more semantic keywords in your content.
Creating longer content can lead to repetition and this is why it should also be accompanied by improving the depth of your research and the resulting content. Increasing depth allows you to create longer content without diluting it with repetitions or being forced to resort to keyword stuffing.
Answer Questions People Have
Another semantic SEO strategy you could use is answering people’s questions. Find questions people have about your primary keyword and answer them within your content. A secondary benefit of doing this is that it will help you increase your content length and give you more opportunities to include semantic keywords.
If you don’t know which questions to answer, search your keyword and then look at the “People also ask” section. You will find about five questions to start, and you can find more by exploring those already available.
Use Related Terms and Synonyms
With the increased use of natural language processing models, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and new algorithms, there is no need to use the same keyword to rank better. Using your primary keyword in your content is great, but also use its synonyms and related keywords. Google has become smart enough to understand related terms and synonyms and how they relate to the rest of the content.
Semantic SEO is a cluster of strategies and techniques used to improve semantic signals so search engines can better understand your website’s content. It centers on search intent, language and meaning while also ensuring content is useful for those who visit the website. A semantic SEO strategy takes all of these into consideration and helps your pages and posts rank much better.
