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Is your organic traffic not taking off? Is your site not visible on search engines? Discover an expert SEO technique: SEO semantic analysis! It allows you to find the keywords that match your business, understand the needs of your audience, and much more! To find out everything about this topic and boost your traffic, simply read on.
SEO definition of a semantic analysis
Before talking about SEO semantic analysis, you must understand what the semantic field is in natural referencing. To write a text that is pleasant to read, you must first use a rich vocabulary by varying its lexical field. Semantics then makes it possible to give meaning to the terms used within a sentence. This is especially necessary when you use a word that has different meanings (for example “foot” for a table or for the human body).
When we talk about semantic analysis in SEO, we are referring to the meaning of the words present on a web page and, by extension, on an entire site. Consequently, it allows you to find the keywords that allow your visibility on the Internet and to assert the general theme of your site. This step must be done as a priority when implementing your SEO strategy. However, if your content is already online, you can always do a semantic audit to find out the health of your website.
Why carry out an SEO semantic study?
As is often the case in organic SEO, the objective of this SEO concept is twofold: to promote the user experience (UX) and improve the work of indexing robots. And of course, you will greatly benefit from seeing your traffic from search engines explode!
Meet search intent
By working well on the semantics of your texts, you improve reader comfort (less repetition and more details). In addition, you perfectly meet the search intent of Internet users. Indeed, as your sentences are well detailed, they provide all the details hoped for by your visitor.
Also note that this technique is very useful for adapting your content to voice search. Indeed, these searches are generally long and precise (we then speak of long tail). So, by working on the semantics of your content, you better correspond to this type of query. Note that 27% of Googlers favor voice search to find a relevant result!
Improve your natural referencing
You have already understood, carrying out an SEO semantic analysis allows you to position your texts on unique, precise or complicated queries. But that’s not all ! There is no doubt, proposing a semantic field proves the relevance of your content to Google. This is also the case since the update of the Google algorithm known as Hummingbird and the search engine recommendations known as “EAT”.
Another SEO advantage, the semantic study allows you to create a complete architecture for your site. Thus, by covering the entirety of a given subject, you demonstrate your level of expertise to Google. As a result, when an Internet user does a search corresponding to your theme, your pages are largely favored on the search engine results pages. To achieve this, you can either create a tree structure using semantic cocoons, or (even better!) define a keyword strategy by thematic cluster.
How to do an SEO semantic analysis?
To be effective, an SEO semantic analysis must follow a precise procedure. Here are the 5 key steps that you should not neglect!
1- Research Keywords
Keyword research is always the basis of an SEO strategy. Indeed, to improve your visibility on search engines, you must determine the words that perfectly represent your business and that interest your audience. For this to be effective, remember the 6 types of keywords in natural referencing!
- Long tail head: short search (maximum three words).
- Long tail: long search (more than three words).
- Semantic keyword (related to your key query).
- Event keyword (short-term visibility, linked to current events).
- Keyword evergreen (long-term visibility, imperishable).
- Local keyword (essential for location-based SEO).
2- Understand the needs of the Internet user
During this phase, you must first precisely define your SEO persona. It’s obvious, only with a perfect knowledge of your readership can you meet their needs! Secondly, you want to understand the search intentions linked to the different keywords you have chosen. To do this, analyze the Google SERP while always keeping in mind the 4 types of intention behind a query.
- Navigational search: to find a particular business or site.
- Informational research: most often in the form of questions.
- Transactional research: decision support for a purchase (name of product or service).
- Commercial research: allowing you to make the best decision for a purchase (comparison, best price, etc.).
3- Write quality content
Now that you know your keywords and are aware of user intent, you can write your content. However, it is not a question of doing it in a hurry! Indeed, the quality of your content is essential to please your reader and improve your ranking on Google. Proposing qualitative content and optimizing the semantic field is essential at this stage!
In addition, you take the time to properly structure your blog article or SEO text and optimize your content for SEO. In particular, consider placing your key queries and offering variations of your main words in hot areas of your content. In fact, correctly placing keywords is a major factor in your positioning on search engines.
If you don't think you have the skills to write excellent content or simply don't have the time, don't hesitate to delegate this task to a web editor!
4- Work on internal linking
Internal networking is a very important element for your SEO! First of all, it allows you to offer additional information to your reader, which can help respond to their search intent. In addition, you help the Googlebot to browse your entire site (and therefore not forget old content). Finally, you share “link juice” with your landing pages.
This improves the internal page rank (PRi) of your entire site. In addition, you can also control the notoriety that you attribute to your different pages. As a result, you have control over your site and can promote the SEO of your pillar pages (the most important for your SEO and your target readers).
5- Control Semantics
To finish the SEO semantic analysis, you should always check the optimization score that you obtain once your text is written. To do this, you could spend time (a lot!) comparing your text with those offered in the first Google results. In addition, if you do not have a lot of experience and your level of knowledge is not sufficient, this study may prove to be ineffective.
This is why the best solution is to use a powerful semantic analysis tool. You save time and benefit from artificial intelligence similar to that of search engines. In the next chapter, I offer you 4 tools that you could use to achieve this goal.
Semantic analysis SEO tools
An SEO strategy always begins with a brainstorming stage. However, to be exhaustive, effective and perfectly targeted, the use of SEO tools is mandatory. Here are 3 SEO tools that you should not neglect!
1- Google: the foundation for understanding search intent and finding keywords
To precisely understand the search intent of Internet users, a visual analysis of the SERP is necessary. At a glance, you understand the type of query behind a keyword. Do you find any comparisons? This is a commercial request! Do you notice products at the top of the results page? So it’s a transactional request! Etc.
You can also take advantage of the Google results page to find other content ideas. Indeed, taking into account “other questions asked” and “associated searches” is an excellent way to develop a subject in its entirety, while meeting the needs of Internet users.
2- SEMRush: the essential tool for knowing the best keywords and their search volume
Once you have your first list of keywords established, you can take the next step using SEMRush. This comprehensive tool is certainly the favorite of professional SEOs. It is particularly practical at the start of your SEO semantic analysis to find all the keywords that correspond to your general theme. To do this, don’t hesitate to crawl the sites of your SEO competitors!
Even if the search volume can sometimes be a dream, I advise you not to focus on it! Indeed, words searched thousands of times per month are often extremely competitive. This is why it is first of all in your interest to work on the entire semantic cocoon of your main subject. By proving your expertise to Google, you will then have a chance of appearing on these competitive queries.
Conclusion
To please your readership, improve your Google SEO and attract more organic traffic, semantic analysis is the ultimate weapon! Indeed, it allows you to find the right keywords, meet the expectations of Internet users, write quality content, improve the relevance of your content and assert the expertise of your site on a given theme.
Have you managed to achieve all these objectives without doing an SEO semantic analysis? This may be the case if your theme is extremely niche! However, if you want to stabilize your site in the top results of Google, you should definitely consider this technique.
Do you still doubt it? Here are concrete examples of this ultimate SEO technique.
