Why Are Semantic Keywords Important For SEO? (Top 5 Benefits)

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This guide answers the question, “Why are semantic keywords important for SEO?”

Below, you’ll find the benefits of semantic keywords for a website’s search engine rankings. You’ll also find out exactly why semantic keywords matter, both improving search results and site experience for users and increasing your site’s topical authority and Google ranking.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a good idea of what semantic keywords are and why they are so important to search engine optimization.

Why Are Semantic Keywords Important For SEO?

Why Are Semantic Keywords Important For SEO?

Semantic keywords are important for SEO because they are related to the original keyword a user searches for. For example, if a user searches for “camping backpack”, then semantically related keywords include “hiking backpack”, “hiking daypack”, and “internal frame backpack”.

As you can see, these keywords are not synonyms, but they are conceptually related to the target keyword phrase. This makes sense because people will use different words or phrases when searching for the same thing online. And because Google is a semantic search engine, any additional keywords you can add to the content to increase the semantic relationships can help algorithm systems properly index and rank your content in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Benefits of Semantic Keywords In SEO

1. Improved Search Results for Users

The top benefit of semantic keywords is that they help improve the search results for users. Semantic keywords are important for matching search queries with relevant content, which makes finding answers and products much easier online.

Semantic keywords can be used in everything, from your website’s About page to your blog posts, product descriptions, and more. Using semantic keywords strategically will help to create a smooth experience for your site’s visitors, making them more likely to find the content and visit the website again.

Semantic keywords are all about digging down into the intent of your website’s visitors by asking yourself, “What is it they’re really looking for?” And then showing your potential customers valuable specific content that gives them a more personalized search experience they will deeply appreciate.

2. Better Browsing Experience

Another advantage of semantic keywords for SEO is that their use tends to result in more engaged visitors, which leads to a better browsing experience. High-quality, practical, detailed content—especially with strategically placed internal links—will help increase the overall time on your website.

The best thing to do is provide visitors with an accurate answer to their search query by covering all of the semantically related topics with the right target keywords. This results in not just a precise answer but the best precise answer for the user.

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Using semantically related keywords in a natural, helpful way provides extra value to your visitors, which will increase their engagement rate and session time, which may be factored into the final ranking positions of your content in the SERPs.

3. Provides Expertise to Users

Semantic keywords also matter for SEO because they demonstrate expertise to the user. By planning your content using semantically-related keywords, you’re providing your visitors with useful, in-depth information that they may not be able to find on other sites.

Imagine typing in a simple search query (for example, “dog treats”) and finding two pages. One page has a simple list of dog treats with links to products. The other has valuable, targeted, related content alongside the list of dog treats, providing the user with specific information that is useful to them to make a decision on which dog treats to buy.

Which page is more likely to gain the trust of the reader? And which website will give the impression of having expertise and authority on the topic? The second page, of course.

Semantic keywords demonstrate expertise to the users while positioning the writer (or business) as an authority in that area. This is important for building trust with visitors and increases the likelihood that they will return in the future.

Additionally, Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines has a set of website evaluation standards called E-E-A-T, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust. And one way to measure these ranking signals on the page is to scan for semantic keywords.

Why?

Because a true expert on the topic will naturally include semantically-related keywords in the content. On the other hand, a writer who is trying to fake expertise on a topic will often just use the primary keyword phrase repeatedly throughout the content because they don’t understand the nuances of the subject matter that a true expert does.

4. Provides Natural Internal Linking Opportunities

Semantic keywords also allow creators to place natural internal links to related content. This is why building topical content clusters is essential for SEO: the more opportunities you have to provide helpful content to users, the better is for keeping people on your website and increasing organic search visibility.

5. Helps Google to Understand Your Content Better

Google uses a variety of factors to categorize and rank your web pages, including:

  • On-page SEO (this includes internal links, metadata, keywords, and content structure);
  • High-quality content (engaging, valuable, targeted content)
  • Backlinks
  • Page load speed
  • Security
  • Site architecture
  • Mobile-friendliness

Semantic keywords play an integral part in the ranking process. The more related keywords you include on the page, the clearer it becomes to Google which search queries your page is relevant to rank for its users.

In fact, Google has a complete machine learning system called RankBrain that’s focused on ranking content based on “things” (or topics) not “strings” (solely exact match keyword usage). Therefore, the more semantic keywords you can use in your content, the more you’re demonstrating to the RankBrain system that your article is relevant to the topic and not just using an outdated practice of keyword stuffing.

Learn More About Semantic Keywords

The links below explain more about semantic keywords and how to use them effectively for search engine optimization. Use these resources to expand your knowledge on the subject.

Semantic Keywords Are Important For SEO Summary

We hope you enjoyed this guide answering the question about why are semantic keywords important for SEO.

As you discovered, there are many benefits of semantic keywords when it comes to improving your search engine optimization strategy. From improved search results and browsing experiences for users to providing better SEO rankings and natural internal linking opportunities, there are a lot of good reasons why semantic keywords matter, especially if you want to create high-quality, relevant content that ranks high on Google’s search engine.