Think about how you currently search for information. You type something into the search engine and then weed through the various results until you find one that looks promising.

If the page isn’t a match, then you go back to the search results and try another page, and another page, and so on.

Google wants to eliminate this process with semantic search.

Google has complex algorithms that help Internet users find whatever it is they’re looking.

In the past, Google relied on the website owners to provide keywords to match users with relevant pages. Unfortunately, this resulted in website owners using techniques like key word stuffing to help improve the rankings of their pages. While effective for marketers, the content wasn’t useful to users.

So Google started to devise newer better algorithms to help internet users find what they’re looking for, and to penalize the website owners who wrote spammy pages for rankings ( How search works).

One of the first of these algorithms was Panda.  According to Moz.com

A major algorithm update hit sites hard, affecting up to 12% of search results (a number that came directly from Google). Panda seemed to crack down on thin content, content farms, sites with high ad-to-content ratios, and a number of other quality issues. Panda rolled out over at least a couple of months, hitting Europe in April 2011.”

What Exactly is Semantic Search?

Google is striving to create an algorithm or series of algorithms that understand the meaning behind your search query, not just the keywords.

For example: If I search “plants” you’ll see that the auto-finish results include “plant vs. zombies2” and that “plants” is at the bottom. This is based on what is most frequently asked related to the search term “plants.” Since I’ve never heard of “plants vs. zombies” this isn’t relevant to me.

However, once I click “plants” Google now knows what I mean by “plants” so the next time I type this query, the auto-finish changes to reflect what it thinks I mean.

This meaning based search is what’s called “semantic search.”

Over time, based on my search preferences, Google will know exactly what I mean when I type in certain words, and give me the pages that are a match; eventually eliminating the need to search.

How Search Engine Optimization is Changing

Google, “…sorts pages by their content and other factors.”  These other factors include relevance, freshness, site and page quality.

According to Wordtraker, when searching for quality pages, Google looks for how many other quality sites backlink to your site. They also look for:

• Duplicate content in high quantities.
• Low amounts of original content.
• Page content not matching the Google snippet in the SERPs.
• Unnatural language (over-optimization) of copy/content (also a Penguin issue).
• Boilerplate content (citation).

They key for optimizing your site today and moving forward is providing quality content, that is fresh and that people want to share.

Of course, keyword optimization is vitally important to how your website is ranked, but it is no longer the only factor to determine search engine ranking.

Want to learn how to write great content with confidence and purpose?

Krista Magidson is the Chief Content Creator at BoutiqueMarketingGroup.com
Krista helps entrepreneurs and small and medium sized business owners:
Get clarity on their marketing message, attract their ideal clients, customers, or patients to their business or practice, and create elegant and effective content for their websites, email campaigns, newsletter, brochures, videos, and more…

Contact her today for a free no-obligation 30 minute consultation at moreinfo@nullboutiquemarketinggroup.com