In case you missed it, SEO has changed. The way search engines process queries has evolved from the keyword-driven days of the past. Fortunately, sites no longer rise to the top of the pie simply by stuffing certain keyword into their text as many times as possible, without thought to the readability of the text.
Yet things has also developed in terms of being more subtle with your keyword spread. And this relates to how search engines reply to a query. In short, it now all boils down to semantics: the real meaning of the words that you type into the search box. Here’s all you need to know about semantic SEO:
What is Semantic SEO?
Semantic SEO is a much more sophisticated way of running results to a user’s query. The major search engines realized a few years back that context was important in understanding what a user was really looking for, and taking the words literally was certainly bringing up all manner of random results that were far from relevant. This meant that concepts became more important that the keywords themselves.
Semantic SEO is all about understanding the real meaning of words, and this was boosted by the schema.org vocabulary initiative, which was set up in 2011 and introduced commonality in the way that webpages were described in regards to their data schema.
This event was monumental in the evolution of how search engines worked and responded to requests. The fact that the likes of Bing and Google were immediately on board was proof enough that this approach was exactly what the marketing industry had been searching for all along, and sure enough, the impact has been far-reaching.
Why was it done this way?
The challenge was to answer queries in a way that removed ambiguity and irrelevance. Context was key, but context can only be ascertained through combinations of words and the use of expressions that are commonly found in official tombs of text, such as in encyclopedias.
The idea is that of that combination appears elsewhere, then the relevance will be better than when individual words appear. For example, in an English idiom, such as ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’, the relevance of the cats and dogs is negligible.
Semantic SEO therefore was a system which arranged words in the different contexts that they could be used, with the relevance to each context a priority when a query is entered into the search engine. Using machine-learning techniques, computers are then able to ascertain the relevance and uniqueness of articular searches each time they are entered.
What is the semantic SEO writing approach?
Keywords have evolved. Whereas in the past, it would have been a handful of keywords that would have flagged the relevancy of a webpage to a search query, not marketers and SEO writers think more broadly in terms of topics.
So, if you run a particular niche business, it is important to think of all of the categories that relate to that niche, and the likely queries that are entered into the search engines in order to find what you offer.
That means context, relevancy, and a whole host of words and subjects that may relate indirectly to what you do. Clearly the evolution from single keywords has been major.
What are the benefits of SEO?
The benefits of this relatively new approach to SEO are manifold. More users, increases in organic traffic, higher-ranking webpages, webpages that rank for longer, subsequent increases in page views, and a decrease in bounce rate.
A huge decrease in bounce rate is obvious, because the relevancy of your site to specific search requests is that much greater with this semantic SEO approach.
Semantic SEO: Conclusion
Semantic SEO is not the future, it is the here and now, and it has been for some time. If you are still running keyword-based marketing approaches to your content, then you are clearly missing a trick, and could be missing out on a huge portion of the search engine queries that are actually aimed at what you do.
Think how you can add relevancy to your pages, and think carefully about those more specific requests that which actually see your page ranking higher for longer.
- What is Semantic SEO? All You Need to Know - January 31, 2020