Unless you have been ignoring the world of SEO, you have an idea about semantic search. I think it's exciting to see how the focus in marketing is coming back around to the humanity of connections rather than the mechanics of coding, although you still need both. The two are getting blended in semantic search.
A Dozen Things To Do
In the article Ian Harris wrote for Search Engine Journal, he suggests 12 things you should be doing right now for semantic search. How many of these are not a surprise to you?
- Think like a user - do you know your user?
- Understand the Graph - Google's Knowledge Graph is changing the way search happens.
- Make use of local - because that's where we live.
- Don't forget social media - consistently offer information and answers.
- Mind your markup - schema, that is.
- Be future-proof - pay attention to the changes in search.
- Respect your elders - webmaster guidelines are still valid in optimizing your site.
- Don't just look at Google - there's competition out there and it works hard to garner some of the market.
- Think about synonyms - there are lots of ways to say it and they all work.
- Keep up with semantic technology - work with official developments and learn.
- Think for yourself - don't be a dim copy of a competitor, be your USP.
- Don't try shortcuts - search engines are changing to think like a user and we have to keep that in mind.
Search Engine Optimization Still Works
The fact that search engines are changing doesn't mean that SEO is out the door, it means that search engine optimization has to be flexible to change with the search engines. We optimize to bring up our ranking on the page because the user generally goes with something on the first page or so when searching. The search engine and the marketer are both trying to be on the user's team and that's the way it should be.
Photo Credit: Semantic Search/shutterstock