
-
ROAR
- 5 Min Read
- Blog, SEO
What is Semantic SEO?
Semantic SEO optimizes content for a topic area instead of a singular term. This strategy focuses on the topic’s meaning, context, and search intent.
Old vs. New Search
Once upon a time, search engines ranked and reviewed content based on the singular keyword value, but with the various algorithms, updates, and guidelines now introduced by search engines, it’s clear why keywords are no longer the be-all and end-all.
Let’s take a little trip down memory lane to look back at some of the updates that really affected content creation and boosted the value of semantic SEO.
Knowledge Graph, 2012
In 2012, Google announced the Knowledge Graph, which moved search away from solely keywords to entities and relationships.
This helped Google’s search understand different meanings based on one key term. The Google Blog has more examples.
Hummingbird, 2013
The Hummingbird update was described by Google as the biggest algorithm change since 2001.
A rewrite of Google’s Core Search Algorithm. The aim was to do a better job of matching user queries with documents, especially for natural language queries.
There was some misconception regarding what needed to change to help your site thrive under the new algorithm, but actually, it was simple. Hummingbird enabled Google to stop relying on matching keywords to webpages and instead focus on the query meaning.
BERT, 2019
Google released the BERT update in 2019 to help search better understand the nuance and context of words within searches and better match queries with helpful results.
The BERT algorithm was deep learning and related to natural language processing. It helped the machine understand what words in a sentence mean when all of the context was considered.
Helpful Content Update, 2022
The Google Helpful Content Update was released in August 2022. This update aims to “reward content where visitors feel they’ve had a satisfying experience, while content that doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations won’t perform as well.”
Introducing the people-first approach to content means writers must first focus on what readers are looking for and want to read.
Search Generative Experience, 2023
For this update, Google has harnessed the power of advancements in AI. With search-generative AI, users can expect an AI-powered snapshot answering the bulk of the question with links to dig deeper.
See the Google blog for more on how generative AI can boost search for users.
The New Search Engine
Not that it’s necessarily new, but let’s talk about search as we know it today.
Google and other platforms have transformed into semantic search engines, enhancing users’ search experience by understanding search queries, search intent, and human language.
This means that when it comes to search engine optimisation, to boost your search engine rankings, you need to consider much more than search volume and a singular relevant keyword.
What are the Benefits of Semantic SEO?
Using a semantic SEO strategy can improve your website’s search rankings, including the ones listed below.
Rank Widely Across Search Engine Result Pages
Semantic SEO can help you rank widely across SERPS by focusing on a range of relevant keywords. This means that one individual article can rank for more than one keyword on the SERPS.
Better Search Engine Understanding
By covering wider topics in your content, you’re giving search engine crawlers more content to work with as they try to understand your site.
This is especially great for service-based businesses with less content on their site than an e-commerce site would. Covering the topics around their services adds value to their site and adds value for the search engine crawlers to determine a better understanding of what the website is about as a whole.
Ranking for SERP Features
SERP features are an added bonus of ranking highly in search results. They place your website at the top of results but with added information. The most common example is a featured snippet, which includes a snippet from your site that answers the query the user is looking for.
However, there is a growing number of SERP features.
With 71% of internet users saying they prefer voice search over typing, voice search snippets are becoming increasingly competitive.
As the SGE rollout continues, it’s only a matter of time until becoming one of the featured articles is what search engine marketers are striving for.
By covering semantically related terms and topics within content, you can give search engines a wider range of what they can use for SERP features. This will also help you stand out as the authority on the topic, increasing the likelihood of your ranking.
How to Implement Semantic SEO
It’s clear that search engines are moving away from the keyword-only system they were initially built on. But this means marketers must shift to understand how to rank successfully in this semantic age. Let’s run through a couple of key things to try.
Topical and Relevant Content
The risk of not incorporating topical and relevant content is twofold. The first is that it feels completely disjointed for readers when they look at the rest of your site, leaving them thinking, ‘Why has a plumber written a long-form blog on the best places to eat in Venice?’ Avoid going rogue.
The second risk is that search engines will have very little understanding of what your website has topical authority about if it’s a little bit all over the place.
What you want to do is discover the topics and questions surrounding your product or service and connect them to your target audience. This helps search engine crawlers understand all the content on your site and how it’s connected, making your site the authority on that subject over competitors.
ROAR’s SEO Bomb®
At ROAR, we have a unique and tailored SEO content strategy, the SEO Bomb®.
This strategy method is based on the topic cluster model. It uses a pillar page, typically a service page or a long-form piece of content, with internal links supporting content covering all aspects of the topic.
Multiple Long-Form Keywords
Typically, if you’re writing one piece of content, you’d focus on one keyword. However, you’ll see that content can rank for more than one term simultaneously.
For example, our blog ‘How to Migrate to Google Analytics 4’ ranks for four different keywords. This means that searchers can potentially use four variations of relevant search queries and still find the ROAR article.
These related terms and multiple keywords are called semantic keywords. Hence Semantic SEO!
Semantic keywords basically connect all of the algorithm changes and updates from search engines to help them understand entities better, especially if they have a double meaning. So, things like synonyms, connotations, and connected phrases all fall within semantic keywords.
Schema and Structured Data
Schema markup and Structured Data are added bits of code that you can implement onto your site to give your content more context and help search engines better understand your site.
Longer-form content with plenty of headers throughout can use schema to target each question you answer. This is ideal for semantic SEO as you’re covering a broad range of content but also specifying the content of each niche section. This can support your rankings for those more niche questions and within SERP features.