Semantic SEO

1. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 16 years ago

   Are any of you using semantic SEO techniques as part of your keyword strategies?

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      relacheposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I'd never heard that phrase until you posted this question, but I've been writing that way for years now.

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   darksideposted 16 years ago

   I'll get back to you on that.
   
   First I need to post "What are semantic SEO techniques?" in the hub requests section

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   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   As I understand the meaning, that's all I do .
   
   Of course, this may be a new definition of the word I am unfamiliar  with

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4. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 16 years ago

   Semantic SEO is essentially, if you want to rank for the term "Best Baby Monitors" then you should also include other phrases like pregnancy, monitoring etc in your copy.  It's these related terms that help rank for the desired term.
   
   There's been a fair amount of discussion around in the SEO community.  Curious if others are doing this extended keyword research.

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   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   Well, my thinking lately is that if you are writing organically around a topic, these "semantic" terms will automatically be part of your copy. It makes sense to wander off and talk about pregnancy if you are writing about baby monitors, and off the top of my head, you would also be talking about worries and fears about baby health and maybe whether the baby was sleeping in a safe position and if the material used in the mattress was safe etc. It makes sense to me anyway ... No research here
   
   Any updates on the baby monitor hub recently?

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      darksideposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I see what it means now.
      
      I guess the SEO Experts have finally cottoned on that the people who use Search Engines want to find relevant quality information.

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   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   Looks like it.
   
   But if you want to get all technical about it, this should be a good tool when they get it worked out:
   
   http://adlab.msn.com/SearchFunnel/Default.aspx

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   Inspirepubposted 16 years ago

   I agree with Mark that good quality content will naturally include related terms.
   
   My only worry is that once the search engines get this factor built in to their algorithms, we will get even more unreadable keyword-stuffed PLR copy written for $2 per page by people who have English as a second language than we have now.
   
   If such a thing is possible ...
   
   Jenny

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   TrophyManposted 16 years ago

   Google looks at how relevant your content is by whether or not it DOES include these other latent symantic terms.  There is no reason not to include them if you are producing original, useful and informative content.  Sure, they MAY appear naturally as you write, but wouldn't you want to include them FOR SURE if:
   
   1) There is search traffic for them and if your content includes them you will get this traffic too
   
   2) These other terms have advertisers (according to Google Adwords data) spending money on these keywords which means ads for these high-bid terms will now appear on YOUR hub and you will get this Adsense revenue if your Hub has these keywords in the content
   
   3) It strengthens the theme relevance of your Hub, which means it boosts search engine rankings for your Hub, which brings you more of all the above goodness
   
   Just my 2 cents. 

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   Whitney05posted 16 years ago

   Hmm...
   
   So in my Leopard Gecko Morphs hub, if I used keywords/tags like "caring for leopard geckos" and "leopard gecko care sheet". Would that be considered SEO Semantics? As the hub is primarily about the different morphs (colors/patterns) of the leopard gecko, but "leopard gecko care" is a popular search tage as well...
   
   Just trying to make sure I understand it correctly.

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      TrophyManposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      It isn't about just putting any-old keyword phrase in your content but knowing strategically what to be sure you don't leave out, and to do it without 'keyword stuffing' which no one wants.
      
      Google has a keyword suggestion tool that provides data from Adwords, but I use a free website that does the same thing, only it picks just the best ones and helps me write the content without overdoing it.  It's a great site, but I don't want to post the link for fear in violates the HubPages terms of service, etc.
      
      It says only if I am asked for the link should I post it?  Anyway, it's a free site and if someone can tell me how to post the link to it without violating the TOS, I'd be happy to post it.
      
      I'm new here, so anyone know the right procedure for that?

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    Whitney05posted 16 years ago

    Well, I have used these tags on the same hub, but I have links to a caresheet and other information pertaining to the speices that I have written on hubpages.  I don't know if that counts or not.
    
    If that is not the case, then using tags that ARE some of the morphs. Would that be more like what is being discussed? I.E. using tags like "blazing blizzard leopard gecko," "tangerine leopard gecko," "albino leopard gecko." I tried using the morphs that I pictured as tags, as well.

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       TrophyManposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       Tags are not the same thing - yes, you should have these same keywords (and other more creative ones) in your Tags, but you should have these 'money keywords' in your content because it strengthens the theme relevance of your content - Tags don't do that because they aren't in the body of your content but off to the side and used for a different purpose.
       
       Does that help?

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          Whitney05posted 16 years agoin reply to this

          Oh ok... So, you mean using the keywords within the hub? Like the bold words and such?

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             TrophyManposted 16 years agoin reply to this

             YES - Exactly - and not just bold words - regular old text.  Google compares your content (text on the page) with other 'authorities' or 'subject matter expert' sites to see if you use the same kind of language.  If you do, then Google understands your content to be more relevant than someone else's content that does not.
             
             This is what LSI and Co-Occurrence are all about - Google seeing if the same words that appear on other sites/pages about the same theme as your page is about use the same kind of terms.

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    kpfingazposted 16 years ago

    Google already ranks websites for use of semantic SEO. For those who don't quite
    understand, here is a good example:
    
    I do a search for money using the command:
    
    ~money (no space between ~ and money)
    
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en& … q=%7Emoney
    
    Look at the bolded terms:
    
    Financial
    Currency
    cash
    grants
    
    as well as money.
    
    Most people write naturally without trying to SEO their work but if you take the time to add a little semantic SEO this could help out your hubs with regards to search engine rankings.

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       TrophyManposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       100% right - and these SEPS (search engine proven synonyms) you uncover with the tilde (~) search on Google help, but the ones to be sure to use are the ones that advertisers are bidding high dollars on (because that traffic is more valuable).

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    Whitney05posted 16 years ago

    Wow, I'm a little slow to catch onto what was trying to be explained. I guess today's just not my day.

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    About-The-Homeposted 16 years ago

    Who's day is it?
    Or is it a holiday, or a day of rest or just a spin of the earth on its axis, or should we say a seventh (1/7) part of a week, the period between dawn and dusk, or the period of time between waking and falling asleep, or just a bad hair day. Is this the idea? Not that anyone would search on any of these daydreams.

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    RichRposted 16 years ago

    As I understand it, Latent Semantic Indexing, (LSI), was invented by a couple of university professors back in the sixties. The university had a huge database of documents and a search could produce hundreds or even thousands of results.
    
    If you were interested in trees and searched for 'bark', you would bring up every document with that word in it, e.g. one containing the phrase, 'the dog began to bark'. LSI analyses the documents in terms of what words would you expect to be associated with the search term in a particular context.
    
    So if you were looking for bank, as in financial institution, it would eliminate river bank, sand bank, blood bank etc. Google using this technology has kicked out all the auto generated pages of keywords surrounded by garbage. It should improve things, at least until somebody comes up with a way to automatically find and  insert the related words.

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       TrophyManposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       Already done - but doesn't work with HubPages...

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