How to use Semantic SEO for your SEO Content

Today Semantic SEO is arguably a bit old, however understanding the concept is integral to modern SEO practices. It’s the foundation of how Google has historically processed and ranked content for years. So let’s dive into what Semantic SEO really means and how you can start leveraging it.

Quick Recap: Semantic SEO Basics

I’ve covered the definition of semantic SEO in a previous post, but here’s a quick refresher:
Semantic SEO is all about helping Google understand the deeper context and relationships of your website’s content so that it can understand what your website is trying to say, in addition to what you should be found for.

For them it’s taking understanding beyond keywords and comprehending the entities, topics and knowledge base that your site represents. And Semantic SEO is about implementing a strategy that helps Google understand all of this on your website. 

Actionable Semantic SEO Strategies

While the concept can sound pretty intimidating, weaving semantic SEO into your content process is actually pretty straightforward. First let’s start with some simple questions I like to use to keep me on track:

Entities & Topics > Keywords

• How thoroughly are you covering a topic?
• Are you answering all the key questions searchers have about this concept?
• Does your content demonstrate expertise on the subject matter?

Google is looking at the totality and breadth of your content, not just how many keywords may be on a page or site. 

Now to the actionable steps. 

1. AnswerThePublic for Questions & Queries

AnswerThePublic is a popular freemium tool that most SEO’s use to get them started on Semantic SEO. 

What you do is input a keyword or topic into the tool and it will return a large list of questions and query variations.

Really it brings together all of the Who, What, Where, When, Why, etc type of queries that exist about your topic. There are also other question  

You can see from a screenshot of the home page above it’s a pretty inviting, simple interface. 

1. Enter your focus keyword/topic
2. Get a list of actual who, what, where, why, when and how questions searchers are asking about that concept
3. Identify the most relevant questions to address in your content

For step 3, you’ll get a large list of questions or content ideas that just don’t make sense for you. The importance here is to not have to do all of them, rather it’s about filtering down to the ones that are most relevant to you. 

Once you have a list, what you want to do is start writing blog posts and articles that hit those titles. 

We also get asked about certain topics that really could be answered quickly, without an entire post. Our position at Zupo is it’s always best to have a unique post, but it’s not make or break. You can totally combine smaller topics into one post if you’d like. 

2. Leveraging “People Also Ask” & Related Searches

Google itself provides two avenues to supply your Semantic SEO insight right in the search results. These are: 

• People Also Ask – Usually 3-4 commonly asked questions related to your original search. These are directly from Google’s own engine telling you and other users what others are typically also asking about the topic. There is no clearer sign to how Google understands the keyword/topic and other topics its related to. 
• Related Searches – 8-10 additional searches displayed at the bottom of the results page. These help uncover tangential concepts and searches similar to People Also Ask. I’ll note, typically we find much stronger insights from People Also Ask. Related Searches can often feel stilted or one dimensional. 

Typically, we like to use both avenues to get a complete list of possible content ideas and then filter down from there. 

Zupo’s Approach to Semantic SEO

Over the years our approach to Semantic SEO has gotten more sophisticated. Admittedly we have stopped using both avenues we discussed above. 

Why? Because our approach to content has taken a much more precise and targeted approach, but more importantly, we’ve learned resource constraints really throw a wrench in Semantic SEO implementations. 

What we have found that many companies find difficulty in rolling out 5 – 10 posts quickly.

So what we have done is changed our approach to identifying exact titles that we know if a client writes, not only helps with the Semantic SEO, but also has a high probability of ranking. This is what we call Easy Win Content. It’s something that I can go into more in a future post. 

Key Takeaways

• Semantic SEO elevates the SEO game from keywords into concepts 
• Focus on comprehensively covering topics by building up your content library 
• Use AnswerThePublic + PAA Boxes + Related Searches as a starting point to map out semantic content

Remember, Google has continually evolved to better understand language and context just like humans do. So despite Semantic SEO being a bit old now, understanding it still helps align the right mindset in SEO.

Let me know if you have any other questions as you start weaving Semantic SEO into your content creation process!