In recent times, you may have been hearing the words “semantic SEO” a lot, and it may be a bit confusing if you don’t exactly know what it is. The word “semantic” is a bit of an intellectual and literary term that you may hear in English 101. What does it mean in SEO?

Well, that is the question that we're going to be answering in this post. We're going to be exploring the meaning of semantic SEO, its history, its benefits, and how you can do it easily for your own website.

Ready to jump in? Let’s get started.

What is the meaning of semantic SEO?

The meaning of semantic SEO can be defined as follows:

Semantic SEO refers to creating and optimizing content in such a way that it describes and explores the meaning and intent of a particular topic rather than containing relevant keywords and following rigid, traditional SEO practices.

Note: If you want to learn more about SEO, check out this post that we've written on "What is SEO?"

When did semantic SEO become relevant?

When SEO first got started, Google would simply look at a webpage and see the keywords that it contained. If the webpage had a lot of keywords in it, along with their LSI variations, it would be ranked high in the search results. This applied even if the content itself was terrible.

People made use of this basic ranking algorithm to quickly get their websites high up on the SERPs. They would stuff keywords all around the content and Google would recognize it as relevant and helpful.

But that is not how things work nowadays.

In 2013, Google released the Hummingbird update. And then, there was a whole slew of updates that came one after the other. These updates changed the way Google analyzed content. Instead of looking at just the keywords placed in the content, Google now sees the content as a whole and the information that it contains.

So, while it can be said that semantic SEO was always a good idea, it became really relevant after Google started penalizing keyword stuffing and focusing more on providing quality content to its users.

How is semantic SEO different from the traditional SEO methods?

One thing that needs to be understood here is that traditional SEO methods aren’t bad in themselves. They’re necessary and important, but when they’re applied mindlessly and incessantly, they can become harmful to your website.

So, essentially, some differences between semantic SEO and traditional SEO can be defined as follows:

Traditional SEO focus vs. semantic SEO focus:

Traditional SEO: Emphasizes specific keyword density and placement. Keywords are inserted in predetermined locations like the first 100 words, sub-headings, and alt texts.

Semantic SEO: Prioritizes understanding and conveying the meaning behind keywords. Keywords and their synonyms are used naturally and contextually, aiming to help readers comprehend the topic.

Keyword usage:

Traditional SEO: Relies on exact keyword repetition and rigid adherence to keyword placement guidelines.

Semantic SEO: Employs a broader range of related terms and concepts (including synonyms and semantically related phrases). This allows the content to be more valuable while still addressing the KW requirement of the search engines.

Content creation approach:

Traditional SEO: Often structures content around exact popular search queries, which can sometimes lead to awkward or forced phrasing.

Semantic SEO: Focuses on creating comprehensive content that addresses the topic holistically. In semantic SEO, the questions asked by people are addressed without the content containing weirdly phrased queries.

There are many other differences that would be pointed out as well, but these ones cover the main stuff.

What are the benefits of semantic SEO?

There are many different benefits of semantic SEO for your website. Now that Google is slowly becoming smarter and smarter in assessing and ranking web pages in its results, it is becoming more and more important to shed the old methods and adopt the newer, user-centric approaches instead.

That is what semantic SEO is all about.

• Semantic SEO helps make the user experience better:When you utilize rigid traditional SEO tactics in your content, they are quite visible to your readers. For example, if you are optimizing your content for the keyword “buy cars low price” or something, and you use it word for word in the first 100 words, your subheadings, etc., it’s going to stick out. Your readers won’t be very appreciative of the fact that you’re writing just to please the search engines, and this can turn them away. But with semantic SEO, this problem doesn’t exist. Since your content is user-centric, it will retain your reader's attention while also being favored by the search engines.
• Semantic SEO gives you more chances to incorporate long-tail keywords: When you’re following the semantic SEO approach, you have to look for synonyms and alternative phrases for your main focus keyword. Doing this allows you to incorporate long-tail keywords in the content. For example, if you're working on a short-tail keyword like "digital marketing," you can use phrases like "digital means of marketing" or "modern methods of digital marketing," etc., to describe the same thing. You'd have to do this because you can't obviously repeat the same keyword again and again. By using long-tail keywords in the content, you will be able to rank for them in the search engines as well and improve the overall visibility of the webpage in the SERPs.
• Semantic SEO can help to future-proof your website’s ranking:As time goes by, Google becomes more and more intelligent and smarter in assessing websites by their informative value rather than their adherence to traditional SEO measures. If you opt for semantic SEO today, you can save your website from getting hit by penalties in the future. For example, if you stop focusing on using the same keywords over and over again in the content, you won’t have to worry if Google releases an update in the future that targets penalizing websites that do this sort of stuff.

How can you create semantically-optimized SEO content?

Moving on, let’s take a look at how you can create content for semantic SEO.

Make sure you understand the search intent for the topic that you’re writing on

First of all, before you start writing content on your content, do some research to find out the user and search intent for it. In other words, find out what sort of information or results people expect when looking it up on the internet.

There are a number of different things that you can do here. One thing that you can do is check the keyword on popular SEO tools like SEMrush. For example, if you are writing on a keyword like "MacBook Air," you will be able to find its intent by looking it up on these sorts of tools.

Here is an image that shows a tool providing the user intent for a keyword.

Here, you can see that the intent of the keyword is commercial—which means that when people look it up, they are interested in learning more about it so that they can purchase it.

The benefit of finding the user intent and search intent of a keyword in this way is that you’re able to tailor and adjust the tone and style of the content to fulfil the needs and expectations of your readers.

Create a plan and a map to include all the relevant information about the keyword

This is an important step that you need to follow to create semantic SEO content. As a writer myself, I can personally vouch for the validity and necessity of creating an outline or a map for your content before embarking on the writing process.

The main benefit of taking this step is that you're able to collect your thoughts and ideas and think about all the possible things aspects that you can and should include in the content.

If you just start writing it off the top of your head, you may skip some important points of the discussion. Then, you could remember them afterwards but by that time, your discussion would already have taken a specific shape.

How does this help in semantic SEO?

Creating a content map or outline helps in semantic SEO by allowing you to explore and compile all the relevant points that need to be covered for a particular topic. Once you create content according to those types of comprehensive outlines, it (the content) will come out highly valuable.

Look for reader pain points

If you go to Google with a particular query, you will see that a “People Also Ask” section pops up after the initial few results.

The questions in this section are the queries that internet users typically have about that particular topic or keyword. For example, if we write “MacBook Air battery,” you will see that the following questions appear in the “People Also Ask” section:

If you optimize your content to include the answers to these queries, you can make it very valuable and useful.

Your content will become semantically valuable in the eyes of Google because it will have the answers to so many questions and it will be addressing so much stuff all at once. Instead of ranking other websites, Google will favor your site instead because it will have all that the users need.

Of course, you can add the questions from the "People Also Ask" section directly in your content as FAQs, but this practice isn't as advisable nowadays because it looks as if you're manipulating the search engine.

Organize and segment your data

This is also a helpful tip that can help you make your content semantically valuable.

If you organize and segment your content into proper sections, it will be easier for the readers to go through and find the information they need. Plus, when content is divided into specific sections, each of those sections becomes an authoritative mini-article of its own.

So, for example, if you're writing a review on a MacBook and you decide to make a section called "MacBook Battery: Pros and Cons," then not only will the section provide value to the review itself, but it will also feature in the search results for people who want to learn only about the battery of the MacBook and not the whole thing.

Focus on providing reliable information

This may seem like a bit of an obvious tip. Of course, when you’re writing content, you need to provide reliable information. Duh.

But, there’s a specific point that I had in mind when sharing this tip.

Basically, what a lot of people do when writing content is they look up the query on Google. Then they take the first 5 or 6 results that show up and base their own outlines on the content that those sources have shared.

This is not a bad approach in itself. Reading the top sources is a good way to conduct research. However, this does not mean that you should follow their style or their tenor to the T. Rather, if you find that there is some information that has been misleadingly provided by the top sources, you should do your own research and then give the correct data with the supporting evidence.

This may seem somewhat silly, but many people have the mindset of "If the top source said it and it ranked, we're going to do the same."

That is not what you want to do when you’re writing semantic SEO content. Make your content valuable and factual.

Conclusion

And with that, we’re going to end this post.

Hopefully, you’ve learned a lot from this article. We’ve described what semantic SEO is, how it is different, how you can do it for your own site, and what benefits it provides.

In a nutshell, semantic SEO is the practice of creating content around the meaning and context of a topic or a concept. In semantic SEO, the focus is not on following rigid SEO guidelines, but on making meaningful and helpful content.

If you want us to help you with semantic SEO and creating content for your website, you can always get in touch with us via the contact page. Learn more about our services by clicking on the button below.

Have fun and be back for more awesome content!