Helping search engines answer the basic question ” what is this text about ” – this is our role as SEO web copywriters when it comes to producing the content of a website.
Because search engines do not read texts in the same way as humans, we must respect a structure and set clues that relate to the meaning of the content.
It is on the criterion of relevance and by applying techniques that promote the semantic understanding of a text by search engines that we give this text a chance to reach the best positions in the search results on the web.
This article examines a set of on-page techniques that reinforce each other if combined appropriately.
Google does not reveal the details of its algorithm, MOZ, the authoritative site in terms of SEO analysis has collected and collected over several years
- interview results,
- research work,
- U.S. patent filings, and
- observations from hundreds of online marketers,
in order to explore these processes. This original article owes much to Bill Slawski, whose articles on SEO by the Sea supported this research work.
As you read this paper, keep in mind that:
- these are just a few parameters used by Google that can determine the relevance of online articles, and that
- These are not absolute rules!
- Proper coding of your site is required
- The architecture of your site plays an essential role (the architecture is neither the navigation nor the ergonomics of the site…)
- and that netlinking still has a bright future ahead of it.
My own experience as a web content writer allows me to say that this article is one of the most detailed in what search engine writing is.
We’ll start with simple principles, and then move on to a more advanced level. Hang
Use of key words and phrases
Before Panda (2011), we lived with the keywords machine guns. Keywords full of the page… Some texts had densities of more than 10%, illegible… to the ground.
The concept was as follows: if your page was mainly about a particular topic, search engines would spot keywords in some important sections, such as the so-called “bully triplet” (dear to L. Bourrelly):
- title tag,
- H1,
- URL
Not to mention the alt of the images, and the scattering of the word all over the text.
The person who did this sad work took care to carry out a search for the keyword and scattered it throughout the page; This formed the basis of a keyword-optimized page. And it worked… That said, studies and results have shown that the impact of this process is no longer what it used to be.
SEO to date
Today, although it is important that your page contains at least the variations of the keywords on which you want it to go up, it is unlikely that their presence alone ensures the chances of visibility of your page.
Today, we always determine key words or phrases to value, but if we limit ourselves to making them the subject of the page, it is a minimum use in on-page optimization.
keyword rehashing keyword variant
Synonyms and close variants
With more than 6 billion searches per day, Google has a wealth of information that allows it to determine what Internet users are really thinking when they type their queries. Research done by the firm itself shows that synonyms actually play a role in nearly 70% of searches.
Search engines use these vast vocabulary banks made up of synonyms, close variants, billions of phrases associated by lexical fields, which are all references between content and queries that are taken into account when Internet users type on their keyboard terms other than those used in your article.
We can see that Google returns results associated with words in the same family. For example, for the query “dog photos”:
- Dog Photos • Dog Depictions • Dog Images • Canine Photos • Cute Dog Photo
Note that if you type the query under the terms running dog, it means something else entirely, and the search results show that the distinction is well made in the results provided.
(Phrase = group of words constituting a syntactic unit)
From an SEO perspective, this means creating content that contains both the specific key phrase, common related vocabulary , and variations (+ derivatives), rather than always using the same keywords, as the famous bullies still do.
The fact of using variations of keywords will, moreover, bring a richer semantic dimension and remove the risk of ambiguity, whereas the same keyword could refer to several different concepts.
Let’s take the example of the term avocado which needs to be contextualized at the risk of remaining in a page that will deal with both the fruit and the profession.
Today, Google’s Colibri algorithmic filter uses co-occurrence to identify synonyms in order to replace words in searches.
Under Colibri, co-occurrence is used to identify words that can be synonymous in certain contexts, while following certain rules that selecting a certain page in response to a request where such substitution has taken place has a higher level of probability.
Bill Slawski
Page segmentation
Each web page is made up of different sections: headings, footers, margins, etc. For a long time, search engines have been trying to determine the most important section of this or that page. Microsoft and Google both hold numerous patents that indicate that they consider content in the most relevant sections of HTML to carry more weight.
The content located in the body of the text seems to be more important than the text placed in the margins, moreover, the repeated text placed in the places where it is re-praised from one page to the next may go even more unnoticed. (side barre, big footer, footer, header).
We still see a lot of redundant links (with repetition of keywords in the anchor) and repetition of the site’s offer placed in big footers, not to mention the content of the side bars and the footer
Page segmentation is even more important as the use of mobile and tablet devices grows. On these devices, very often, part of the page is hidden or the content is reorganized in favor of the body of the page. Search engines want to show users the content of the portions of your pages that are visible and important, which is why the text contained in these areas deserves the utmost attention.
To go further, HTML5 integrates semantic tags to be implemented, such as <article>, <aside> and <Nav>, which clearly define the sections of your web page, don’t deprive yourself of them.
HTML5 semantic markup, not to be confused with <HTML5 semantic markup>.
Semantic distance and links between terms
How can search engines know that “labrador” refers to a “dog breed” when these two phrases are not in the same sentence?
They solve this problem by measuring the distance between words and phrases inside different HTML elements.
The closer the concepts are semantically, the more they can be linked in the same sentence, paragraph or small chapter.
In addition, HTML elements (<h>, <li>…) can reduce the semantic distance between certain concepts, and therefore “bring them together”. For example, we can consider that the distance between the elements of a list is the same between each element, and that ” the title of a document is close to all the other terms in the document “.
What about micro-formats?
Schema.org. Schema markup allows you to semantically structure sections of your text in such a way that it clearly defines the relationship between the terms.
The great advantage of these standardized signals is that they no longer leave any guesswork to search engines. The links are clearly defined. On the other hand, they require the intervention of enlightened webmasters to implement these special tags. So far, studies have shown that they are not widely used.
This leaves a head start for the sites initiated.
Other concepts listed here can work on any page that contains text.
Co-occurrence and indexing based on phrases
So far, we’ve talked about individual keywords and their semantic relationship. Search engines also use certain calculations to index pages according to integer phrases, as well as to prioritize pages according to the relevance of these phrases.
This process is referred to as indexing based on phrases.
What’s interesting about this process is not how Google determines which phrases are important for a web page, but how it uses those phrases to prioritize a web page based on their relevance.
By using the concept of co-occurrence, search engines know that certain phrases call for predicting others. If, for example, your topic is mainly about “Marie France Bazzo”, this group of 3 words will often appear associated with others such as ” And what else “, ” Bazzo.tv ” or “Radio Canada”. A page that contains these related terms is more likely to relate to the journalist/host than a page that does not contain any related terms.
Add to this inbound links from pages containing related phrases, cooccurrents, and you will have given your page powerful contextual tags!
Entity Predominance
Looking to the future, search engines explore a thousand and one ways to use links, semantic relationships between entities, and not just keywords, to determine thematic relevance.
One such technique, published in a Google research paper, explains the method of attributing relevance by the predominance of the entity.
Entity dominance goes beyond traditional keyword research techniques, such as the TF-IDF, to identify relevant terms in a document, taking advantage of known relationships between entities. An entity can be anything in the document that is distinct and well-defined.
The stronger the link between the entities on the same page, the more important that entity is.
In an article that contains the terms Iron Man, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and Science Fiction. The keyword ” Marvel Comics” has a strong entity link with all these words. Even if it only appears once, it has a good chance of being important in the document.
On the other hand, when it comes to ” StarCity ,” even though it appears several times in the article (because the movie was shown in those theaters), the keyword with weaker entity links will likely be less important in Google’s “eyes”
Practical tips for better on-page optimization
As we move from assigning keywords to more advanced processes in topic targeting, it’s actually easy to incorporate these concepts into our content. While most of us don’t have the means to compute semantic connections between entity instances, there are some simple ways to optimize content:
- Keyword research to form your base.
Even if keywords alone are no longer enough to form the basis of your content, it all starts with careful keyword research. You need to know what terms you’re targeting, the relative competition between those keywords, and their popularity. In short, your goal is to establish a link between your content and the keywords as they are generally entered by Internet users in the search field. - Research around themes or topics.
Restrain yourself from searching for individual keywords, but instead try to define your themes by keywords. Research secondary keywords, related to each keyword you find. When people talk about your topic, what words do they use to refer to it?
What characterizes your subject? Use these key phrases to build content around your core theme. - When producing your content, answer as many questions as possible.
Good content is one that answers questions, and semantic relevance should be studied based on that. The best ranking for any search assumes that the search engine relies on your content as the one that best answers the question.
As you structure your content around themes and topics, make sure you deserve the highest rankings by answering questions and providing a better user experience than your competitors. - Use both the most common language and variations.
During the keyword research process, it’s helpful to identify other common terms that searchers use to talk about your topic, and incorporate them into your content when possible. A semantic search for keywords (lexical field) is very valuable during this process. - Place your important content in the most important sections.
Avoid footers and margins for important content. Don’t try to bias search engines with fancy CSS or JavaScript tricks. Your essential content should be where it is most visible and accessible to readers; in the body of the text - Structure your content appropriately.
Headings, paragraphs, lists, and tables give structure to the content that allows search engines to understand your topic targeting. A clear web page contains a structure similar to that of a good academic research paper.
Refine your introduction, conclusion, paragraph structure according to the different topics covered, spelling and grammar, and cite your sources appropriately.
At the end of the day, you don’t need to have a state-of-the-art computer to improve our content, or make it easier to understand. Just writing like humans for humans is enough to make our web content largely optimized for search engines.
And you?
What are your top tips for on-page SEO and topic targeting?
An article freely adapted from http://moz.com/blog/7-advanced-seo-concepts and freely reduced by Kristof, director and consultant of Référencement-PME, SEO agency in Montreal .
Feel free to comment!