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<\/p>\nIt doesn\u2019t matter how gifted a wordsmith you are or how valuable your content is to your audience. If you don\u2019t have your copy optimized for SEO rankings, you\u2019ll never get it in front of as many eyes (not to mention the right eyes) as you want.<\/p>\n
Search engine optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, is what drives traffic to your website. Be it your blog, your homepage, or your portfolio of poems dedicated to your pet duck, strong SEO optimization is the only way to stand out in the vast, crowded world of the internet.<\/p>\n
For years, that meant flooding your copy with the right keywords and keyword phrases that people looking for your content would use to find it. For example, someone searching for waterfowl-inspired prose would type \u201cduck poem\u201d or \u201cpoems about ducks\u201d into Google. To capture that traffic, it would be in your best interest to include those keywords somewhere on your duck poetry page. This alerts Google that your page is the place to go for waterbird-themed sonnets.<\/p>\n
It used to be that simple, but as the internet is expanding and our virtual worlds become more and more intuitive, so does SEO optimization.<\/p>\n
Semantic SEO is the latest innovation in traffic-driving efforts, and learning how to use it will completely alter the way you approach your content.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Once marketers and companies got the hang of traditional SEO practices, they began what was called \u201ckeyword stuffing,\u201d which basically just means you\u2019re stuffing as many keywords as you can into a piece of copy to get it to rank higher on Google. As you can imagine, this practice did not make for high-quality content\u2014and Google noticed.<\/p>\n
Semantic SEO is moving the methods of driving online traffic away from specific keywords. It adds a new, complex layer to SEO by forcing the content creator and copywriters to add more meaning and value to their content. The more depth, length, and overall value the piece give to the reader, the more traffic Google will drive.<\/p>\n
So, instead of focusing on a single keyword phrase, like \u201cthe best laundry detergent,\u201d you would want to focus on the topic of laundry detergent as a whole. This means answering any and all questions about laundry detergent you can think of:<\/p>\n
You get the idea.<\/p>\n
Rather than simply searching a page for the right keywords, Google now searches the page to see which content is providing the most information about that keyword.<\/p>\n
The goal of this change isn\u2019t to make content agencies, creators, and marketers work harder (or write longer pieces). It\u2019s really all about the push to reduce spam and unuseful, inaccurate, and misleading information online. So while it will be a bit tedious in the interim, most of us contributing to the virtual space can agree that SEO semantics are for a good cause.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Using Semantic SEO in your content really comes down to a few key things:<\/p>\n
The first part makes total sense\u2014give the reader something that they can take home by the time they\u2019ve reached the end of the page. Don\u2019t waste people\u2019s time with nonsense or irrelevant information. Get to the point, and make your point a strong one.<\/p>\n
The second part is where things get a little complex because it requires what can often feel like an attempt at mind-reading: target market research.<\/p>\n
When Google, Bing, and other search engines scan copy for SEO semantics, they\u2019re doing so from the eyes of the user. Not only do they look for content that\u2019s providing the right kind of value, but they determine the results based on the person searching: where they live, what they\u2019ve previously looked up, the language they use, etc.<\/p>\n
Semantic SEO is more intuitive and focused on creating a richer user experience. And the best way your content can reflect that is by understanding who your user might be.<\/p>\n
In order to properly optimize your content for Semantic SEO, you have to uncover the meaning behind why someone would search for a specific keyword or keyword phrase. Because once you understand that, you can determine what else they would want to know about this topic.<\/p>\n
For example, let\u2019s say someone is searching for the \u201cbest first car.\u201d While the experience of purchasing a first car can belong to anyone, it is most likely a parent or guardian purchasing the first car for a teenager. If you have that user in mind, you can optimize your content to include other information this person would find helpful, such as:<\/p>\n
So even though the user might have been looking for a list of best first car options, they\u2019ve now stumbled upon some more important information to help them make their decision. Including additional relevant topics is not only valuable to the reader (and impressive to Google), but it also keeps traffic on your page longer and increases the likelihood that the user will poke around your site to see what other helpful content you have.<\/p>\n
A good way to start thinking about this concept in your content is to ask yourself this question: after the user has found the information they searched for, what else will they want to know?
\nThe more you can anticipate and answer the user\u2019s follow-up questions, the higher you\u2019ll rank on Google.<\/p>\n
While brainstorming your own answers to these questions helps, you can also utilize Google\u2019s \u201cPeople also ask\u201d section to uncover other questions you can answer. This box pops up on every search page, and it comes loaded with tons of additional, relevant questions you can address in your piece.<\/p>\n
Now that you\u2019ve mastered the basic concept for implementing Semantic SEO into your content let\u2019s go over some of the best practices for optimizing.<\/p>\n
First, you\u2019ll want to restructure your content strategy to be about one thing and one thing only: topically relevant content. This means thinking less about short-form blog posts that answer one question and more about complete guides that tell you everything you need to know.<\/p>\n
So instead of \u201c7 Tips For Starting A Paleo Diet,\u201d go for \u201cA Complete Guide To Starting Paleo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, this will require more work and time to create, but you\u2019ll have to create less content if the larger pieces are ever-green and ever-ranking. When you have that kind of highly valuable content, you can hold the #1 spot on a Google search page for a while.<\/p>\n
As you\u2019re writing these long-form guides, you\u2019ll want to make sure you include everything you can think of about this topic that the reader would find helpful and useful. So it\u2019s imperative that you create an outline before you ever start writing.<\/p>\n
Think of these posts less like articles or blogs and more like eBooks designed to teach someone everything there is to know about XYZ.<\/p>\n
In your topic outline, you\u2019ll want to use those additional, follow-up queries (like the ones from the \u201cPeople also ask\u201d section as your subheads to increase your visibility with Google.<\/p>\n
Another formerly great SEO practice that has since died is creating multiple pages for different variations of the same keyword phrase. For example, if you were targeting the best fertilizer, you\u2019d want to create a second page optimized for \u201cbest fertilizers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read:\u00a0Do You Fear to Ask These SEO Questions? Here are the Answers<\/a><\/p>\n That is no longer a thing, but what does help is using those different variations across your page. So, with this example, you could include:<\/p>\n \u2022 Best fertilizer<\/p>\n \u2022 Best fertilizers<\/p>\n \u2022 Top fertilizers<\/p>\n \u2022 Fertilizers that work<\/p>\n \u2022 Best fertilizer 2021<\/p>\n Using the same variation of keywords in your copy not only prevents you from keyword stuffing but also helps you grab traffic from people who are searching for different variations of the same thing.<\/p>\n And finally, you want to make sure your content is long. While we touched on this initially, it\u2019s important to have some word-count goals you should short for when writing.<\/p>\n The 500-word blog post is no longer going to get you the high rankings you want. With Semantic SEO in mind, you\u2019ll want to craft pieces that are at least 1,000 to 2,000 words. But don\u2019t be afraid of getting as long as 4,000 to 5,000 words.<\/p>\n For Semantic SEO, the more valuable content you can give the reader, the better. Implementing these practices will take more time and effort, but your energy is well worth the results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It doesn\u2019t matter how gifted a wordsmith you are or how valuable your content is to your audience. If you don\u2019t have your copy optimized for SEO rankings, you\u2019ll never get it in front of as many eyes (not to mention the right eyes) as you want. Search engine optimization, commonly referred to as SEO,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":885,"featured_media":11237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[1724,1725],"class_list":["post-11236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo","tag-semantic-seo","tag-seo-for-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/885"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11236"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11563,"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11236\/revisions\/11563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milesweb.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}