Editorial Articles

The internet is moving into the semantic age in a shift that requires a re-write of certain chapters of the search marketing rule book, notably the ones concerning content optimisation.

The move towards semantic search is more of a gradual, evolutionary process than an overnight flicking of a switch. But it’s significant, and even though the major search engines already make use of semantic processing, the next level of semantic search technology represents a more effective quality filter than what currently exists, enabling more efficient identification of un-related, spammy, and generally poor quality content, and significantly boosting the ability to determine relevance. This evolution not only means an increase in quality of results for web users, it also raises the bar in terms of content quality for online businesses and search marketing professionals.

Implications of semantic evolution for SEO

Semantic search technology doesn’t depose the long-reigning search marketing cliche that ‘content is king’, but it does make an important change to the truism - it adds the word ‘quality’ to the front, in a process that’s forcing the hand of online businesses and search marketers to put an emphasis on more meaningful, contextual content when carrying out Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Context is the key to effective content in the semantic age, and with context comes an innate rise in quality.

The re-birth of ‘proper writing’ on the web

When the internet first came along, writers naturally crafted content in the same way they’d write for offline mediums such as brochures. This changed as they learned more about the mechanics and value of search and the subsequent implications it had for the style and structure of content, and in recent years web content writers have on the whole tracked and adapted to changes in search engine algorithms. In effect, the semantic evolution is just another change for web writers to adapt to, but it’s a sizeable change that requires a re-alignment with traditional writing techniques in order to achieve the best results from a SEO perspective.

One of the biggest positives of the semantic shift for web users is that it brings web content back into the human realm, encouraging the creation of skilfully written, engaging, and most importantly, readable, content, and takes us away from the ugly keyword-heavy and bot-orientated content of the past few years. Writing for the semantic web hails a long overdue return to high quality writing on the internet.

The value of long tail key phrases

Of course there are some of us who never completely abandoned the principles of good writing for ‘commercial’ web content anyway, and there’s also always going to be a section of content on the web that’s not pitched at being found by search engines, but for those looking to create content for SEO purposes, then it’s important to note that keywords are by no means completely out of the window. They’re still useful, but they’ve grown into phrases.

Writing ‘semantically’ offers the opportunity to include plenty of natural looking long tail key phrases in your web content, and by doing your research into the most effective of these longer phrases, you can still make use of advanced keyword optimisation techniques while at the same time creating high quality, naturally readable and targeted web content that won’t fall foul of semantic search technology’s inherent quality filtering processes.

In essence, the move to semantic search technology means the more contextual and well written the content (including a more tactful use of a range of long tail key phrases), the better it will perform in search engines.

Author: Tim Marshall, Web Marketing Group