Understanding Semantic Search & Volume

How Google Looks At Search Queries

Semantic search is the engine's way of understanding the nuances of human language. It’s like a translator between human-speak and computer-speak. It means that Google doesn’t need an exact keyword match to deliver the right results. For instance, if you search for "the boy who lived," Google knows that you're looking for information about Harry Potter, even though you didn't use his name.

How Semantic Search Evolved

The evolution of Google's algorithm has been all about understanding semantics. This journey began with the Knowledge Graph in 2012. The Knowledge Graph is Google's intelligent database of people, places, and things—over 500 billion entities. This database understands the relationships between entities, enabling Google to provide relevant information about them.

For instance, if someone searches for "Apple," Google can tell you that its CEO is Tim Cook or even its current stock price. This information is displayed through knowledge panels on the search engine results page (SERP).

But that was just the start. Updates like Hummingbird, RankBrain, BERT, and MUM have continuously improved Google's language processing capabilities, making it more and more human-like. These updates have helped Google understand conversational searches, analyze best-performing search results, understand the full context of a keyword, and even process images, video, and audio files.

Google uses machine learning to figure out what people are looking for based on context and search intent. This is where semantics come into play. By understanding the meaning of keywords and their relationship to other keywords, Google can provide more accurate and relevant search results.

How To Optimize For Semantic Search

Optimizing your content for semantic search isn't just about using the right keywords. It's about understanding the context, the intent of the user, and how different topics and ideas relate to each other. So, let's dive into these strategies in more detail:

1. Understand and Optimize for Search Intent

The first step is understanding your users' intent when they type in a search query. This intent can fall into four main categories: informational (learning about a topic), navigational (looking for something specific), commercial (researching products, services, or brands), and transactional (intending to make a purchase).

For example, if someone searches for "how to bake a cake," they're looking for informational content. But if they search for "best cake mix," they're likely looking to make a purchase. Tailoring your content to the specific intent of your users can greatly improve its relevance and usefulness.

2. Focus on Topics, Not Just Keywords

While keywords are still important, it's also crucial to focus on the broader topics that your audience is interested in. This is because Google is getting better at understanding the context of a search query. So instead of just writing about a keyword, write about the whole topic that the keyword is a part of.

For example, if your keyword is "chocolate cake," your content could also cover related topics like different types of chocolate cake, the history of chocolate cake, or tips for baking the perfect chocolate cake.

I am going to get into this in a lot more detail in an upcoming lesson.

3. Use Structured Data

Structured data is a way of organizing and labelling your content to help search engines understand it better. This can include things like headings, lists, and tables, as well as meta tags and schema markup.

Using structured data can help Google understand the content and context of your pages, which can lead to better search rankings and the potential for your content to appear in rich snippets on the SERP.

4. Connect Related Content with Internal Links

Internal links are links that connect different pages on your website. These links can help Google understand the relationship between different pieces of content on your site.

For instance, if you have a blog post about "how to bake a chocolate cake" and another post about "the history of chocolate cake," linking these two posts can help Google understand that they're related.

5. Use Semantic HTML

Semantic HTML involves using HTML tags that accurately describe the content they contain. This can include tags like `<header>`, `<footer>`, and `<article>`. Using these tags can help search engines understand the structure of your content and its relevance to a search query.

Semantic Keywords And Real Search Volume

When you first start doing keyword research, it can often be difficult to find keywords with a good Keyword Golden Ratio, or if you do, the search volume is too low.

But by doing good keyword research and finding similar keywords and phrases, and also using these in your article, together with a cluster strategy, you are likely to rank for a broader range of semantic searches.

For example, one of my clients ranks in number one for a three-word phrase but it gets less than 30 searches a month. His actual monthly page views coming directly from search however is 420.

I will be going into more detail on this strategy when we start looking at topic clusters and pillars of content.