Semantic SEO Strategies & Techniques

When it comes to good rankings and traffic, systematic SEO can help. This is where semantic SEO comes in. Semantic SEO is all about making a website flawless and seamless.

Here are a few things to consider:

Focus on RankBrain (it is a query interpretation model)

RankBrain is an artificial intelligence system, which helps Google to process search results and provide relevant search results for users.

Now, the question arises, how to optimise a website for RankBrain? Answer is –

• Make sure your content answers user’s queries.

• Publish sufficient content within your niche.

• Perform keyword research for broader terms.

• Optimise your website for LSI keywords (LSI keywords or Latent Semantic Indexing are basically keywords that are semantically related to your primary keyword.)

Keep yourself updated with Google Updates

Google always updates its algorithms to improve the overall experience of users. In pursuit of the same, it rolls out its updates regularly. Therefore, in order to make your websites effective and productive, keep in mind these updates.

Here are a few prominent SEO updates:

• Penguin update – According to wikipedia, Google Penguin is a codename for a Google algorithm update that was first announced on April 24, 2012. It aims to decrease search engine rankings of websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines by using declared black-hat SEO techniques (buying links).

• Google Panda update – According to wikipedia, it is aimed to lower the rank of “low-quality sites” or “thin sites”, in particular “content farms”.

Fixing technical issues

Technical issues may lead to penalisation. That is why, it is essential to fix technical issues of a website and make it flawless.

Useful tips:

• Ensure correct implementation of rel=canonical tags.

• Fix all incorrect response status codes.

• Choose 301 and 302 redirects wisely.

• Study carefully about servers, such as IIS and Apache.

• Fix cannonical issues.

• Eliminate duplicate content.

• Keep URL structure simple and SEO friendly.

• Write fresh duplicate meta tags.

• Optimise content and images.

• Improve website’s speed.

• Remove internal and external content duplicity.

Focus on fundamentals

When it comes to SEO fundamental, always perform in-depth keyword research. It is the basic building block of any website and impacts its overall search engine rankings.

• Use both short and long-tail keywords.

• Research related search terms.

• Take both business and website relevant keywords.

• Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner.

Most popular keyword research tools:

• Google Keyword Planner

• KWFinder

• Moz’s Keyword Explorer

• Google Webmaster Tools

• Keyword Tool

• SEMrush

• Ubersuggest

• WordTracker

Tips:

• Study competitors’ websites.

• Analyse Q&A forums and communities.

• Use keywords having high search volume and low competition.

• Analyse Google Webmaster Tools for the best brand-specific keywords.

Improve users’ engagement

In order to improve users’ engagement, you must keep your website as simple and intuitive as possible. For that, you need to :

• Use internal linking strategies,

• Limit external links,

• Make use of anchor text,

• Resolve 404 errors,

• Use call-to-actions.

Optimisation

An effective and efficient SEO strategy starts with optimisation.

Tips:

• Optimise image, content, etc.

• Write fresh titles, descriptions and explanations.

• Simplify navigation.

• Use AMP pages.

Use SEO software and tools

To achieve high rankings and traffic, use quality SEO software and tools, such as:

• WooRank

• Agency Analytics

• Moz

• SpyFu

• Ahrefs

All these semantic SEO techniques are effective and helpful to improve your SEO efforts.