How Semantic Keyword Research Can Help Your Business

Semantic keyword research is the future of content marketing. In the past, search engine optimization (SEO) marketers would choose a high-ranking keyword and use it several times throughout their article and hope they get on the first page of the search results. But that doesn’t work anymore with how smart search engine technology has become. Now it’s about searcher intent and giving the user knowledgeable information they wanted the first time around.

Semantic keywords are words that are closely related to the original keyword, which helps search engines bring better results to help the user find exactly what they’re looking for. For example, instead of searching just “fashion”, a user may search “80’s fashion” to find the targeted results they are looking for. Adding these specific words in your own content will help you rank higher in search engines because the algorithm will be able to tell you’re giving the reader rich content rather than stuffed and unhelpful content. Furthermore, search engines now watch for keyword stuffing, so if you’ve used a word too many times, or your sentences don’t flow with a natural language pattern, your content will rank lower and be flagged as spam.

Another example is the keyword “baking”. Instead of repeating that one word, search engines want to see semantic keywords like “oven” or “flour” and other words that are related, along with natural sentence patterns. This shows the search engine that this content is actually insightful rather than just spamming an article to get to the top.

To choose semantic keywords, first, you should think about words on your own that you think would be related to your primary keyword. One helpful way to do this is by going to search engines like Bing or Google and finding the related searches by typing in your keyword and looking at the bottom of the page with the underlined blue suggestions.

You can also use the “People also ask” feature that gives you drop-down suggestions of different questions users have searched for in relation to the keyword you’ve entered. This will give you a list of potential questions or answers to offer in your content. Incorporating both tactics will help your content rank higher and ensure you are answering the questions that your audience is asking.

Whereas semantic keywords are the words search engines search for within content, semantic search is the process that search engines use to understand the intent and meaning of your search in order to give you the results that best fit what you were looking for. Semantic search aims to understand why you search for particular words and what you’re going to do with the results.

Here are the factors that affect semantic search:

Search intent is the term used to describe the purpose of a search, or more simply, why a user is searching for something.

For example, you could search “semantic keyword” and get a definition, or you could search “how to use sematic keywords” and this longer phrase will give you better results because the algorithm is measuring your intent with the content it can show you.

“Semantic” means of or relating to, which makes sense when we say we want related keywords in a semantic search. A semantic search will find connections between a search query, the words that are related to it, and the content within the search engine. When creating content, use groups of related keywords. This will help you rank higher and cover even more topics within your content, allowing your content to rank for multiple different searches and intents.

Now that you’ve been given all the details and know what semantic keywords and searches are, this is when you can start your research. This includes looking into what your audience is already searching for and creating your content based on the results you find to better serve the intent of the search queries. Basically, you want to think like the user. Try to consider what the user was looking for when they entered a query and come up with as many related keywords as possible.

If you want your content to rank higher and convert your readers into paying customers, semantic research is critical. Semantic keyword research will lead to finding the right keywords to add to your content which will enrich your content, give you more content, and help your content rank higher within search engines. SEO semantic search helps your content provide value, which will make Google push it to the top. It helps you develop extremely specific and targeted content that answers all your customer’s questions, and it will help you structure sentences in a clear way that is answer-based, which is what the top-ranking content looks like now.

Producing content that has semantic research, keywords, and search is a difficult task for anybody. But you can hire a team of professionals at Affirma that have done this for years and can help you create your content quickly and efficiently. Affirma knows the rules and the ins and outs of SEO and semantic research so you don’t have to. On top of that, our content marketing team can tackle specialties like Landing pages, blogs, infographics, eBooks, emails, scripting, and more. We’re here to be your partner in content marketing.