With millions of websites and blogs across the globe, ranking first in Google is becoming more and more difficult. So many factors are involved in taking one site to the first page of Google. One such factor is how well your content is organised and how much information it delivers. To make sure that your content is as informative and conclusive as possible, you can make use of semantic SEO. If you wonder what semantic SEO is and how it affects your ranking, you are just about to find out.

What is semantic SEO?

Semantics is concerned with the meanings of linguistic chunks such as words, phrases, or sentences. As an example, the term “snake” refers to a reptile with no legs that bites and swallows its prey. This is the lexical definition of “snake”. Semantically speaking, the same word brings notions such as poison, danger, beauty, and fear to mind. These are the most connected concepts related to snakes. That is to say, when people talk about snakes, they often talk about biting, poison, danger, and fear as well. Semantic SEO does the same thing to your content. It helps you organise your content around a group of highly related concepts. In doing so, your content covers more than just one topic. Google highly appreciates this as it favours more informative content. The tips below help you make the best use of semantic SEO and obtain a higher rank in Google searches.

Always consider your readers’ needs.

The whole idea of semantic SEO evolves around creating in-depth content which addresses the most important aspects of a certain topic. The role of thumb is to learn about the main concerns and questions people have regarding the topic at hand and address them in your content. Go online and check popular forums, such as Steemit, Quora, Hacker News, Reddit, etc. Here people share news and comments regarding various topics. You could learn about your target audience and their queries. Then, it shouldn’t be that difficult to develop a good topic for your audience.

A common mistake that many writers make is stuffing their content with several keywords so that search engines detect their content more easily. Optimising your content for search engines is good. However, you should remember that stuffing your content with keywords will, in many cases, result in a Google penalty. Also, Google now favours topics more than keywords. It means that the amount of information that your content delivers is much more important than the number of keywords used in your content.

Take advantage of Google hints.

When you search for a topic in Google, it provides you with some hints regarding that topic. Let’s say that you want to write about “partner visas”. Highly related pages appear on the first page of Google. However, there is more to look for on the first page. If you look closely, you will notice some hints that Google gives you on the top or bottom of the first page. You will most probably see a section titled “related searches” or “people also ask”. What appears under these sections is absolutely related to your intended topic and, therefore, should be included in your content. Looking at the picture below, you should probably know what to include in an article on partner visas.

By providing this section, Google tells you that if you want to write about partner visas, you should cover these issues. Keep in mind that Google algorithms usually predict questions people ask after learning something new. So, if your content provides some new information, it should also address the questions that arise with that piece of information. Now regarding our topic here, you should ask these questions from yourself:

• What is the most important question I want to explain in my content?
• How am I going to answer this question?
• What questions would arise in my audience’s mind after I have answered the first question, and how should I deal with them?

Regarding our example above, the main question would be, what is a partner visa? The reader should be able to answer this question after reading the first section of your content. Then, after consulting the “related searches” section, you should be able to predict the questions that they would come up with. According to this section, they would probably ask:

• Is it only related to Australia?
• What is the difference between a partner visa and a spouse visa?
• What is the difference between partner visas 309, 801, and 820?
• Is there a checklist? If so, what does it include?
• how much does the visa take to get processed?
• What is unique about offshore partner visas?
• What are the requirements?

Identify the best keywords for your content.

Now that you have decided on the structure of your content, you should find the best keywords related to your topic. When you put your content on your blog/website, Google search engines investigate it. First, they identify the topic. Then, they consult the Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) system. This system helps search engines gather the keywords used most in content with the same topic as yours. If your content contains a certain number of those keywords, then search engines list it under the proper category and suggest it to the audience that you wrote the content for. Similarly, if you use the less-repeated keywords in your content, search engines will put it under the wrong category. Therefore, your content will be viewed by the wrong audience.

In order to make sure that you are using the correct keywords, and for that matter the best ones, you can use keyword research tools such as Moz Keyword Explorer, Aherfs, GetKeywords, Semrush, etc. These tools will provide you with a list of keywords highly related to your topic. You can select some of the mostly-repeated ones and use them in your content in a natural way and with proper pace.

Make sure your content leaves a positive effect on the audience.

This tip does not directly have anything to do with semantic SEO, but it affects your ranking terribly. The more your content is viewed, the higher your ranking will be. When your content is viewed by many users every day, Google decides that you are helping many people. Consequently, it will suggest your content to more and more of its users, increasing your traffic. On the other hand, if your content negatively affects the viewers, you will lose your audience little by little, and Google decides that your content is irrelative to the viewers’ needs. This will follow by receiving less and less credit from Google. Among the reasons why people may dislike your content are:

• Inserting too many links in your content
• Providing false or outdated information to your readers
• Applying improper language/tone
• Not dealing with the topic thoroughly

Conclusion

Semantic SEO is a highly effective technique to improve your site’s rank. This article discussed four tips to make good use of semantic SEO to rank high in Google. When creating content for your website, go through the steps described above to come up with the best topic and structure for your content.