Semantic SEO: Your Website is a Goldmine with On-Site SEO 2
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You think on-page SEO is dead? It hasn’t even begun!
To be clear, your website is a goldmine and you haven’t even started to dig for the gold.
On my SEO 2 blog I have covered blogging, social media and search to the point of excess.
What about actual modern on-page search engine optimization though?
Or should I call it content SEO instead?
Most On-Page SEO is Obsolete but Some Isn’t
Most of the time I have dismissed the majority of on-page SEO as obsolete.
On-page SEO basics are usually built in features of even the simplest CMS software.
WordPress, the most popular CMS rocks at SEO by default! Yet it gets improved even further when you add Yoast SEO plugin.
Do you think on-page SEO is just about h1 tags, meta descriptions or enhancing website copy with keywords? Now think again.
Consider using the term on-site SEO referring to the whole site not just each page for itself. Now add the adjective “semantic“.
The semantic Web (sometimes also called Web 3.0) and its search are about meaning.
During its early years Google matched phrases without knowing what they meant.
Over the years, with the introduction of AI (artificial intelligence) and semantic technologies that changed.
Semantic search is based on understanding what the search query is about. We also speak of search intent.
What if you could use software to determine the meaning of your own content and categorize it in topical clusters? You could:
- Make users stick with your website as a reader who would always find related articles to the current one s/he just read
- Serve contextual advertising like Google does
- Automatically improve indexation with “internal links” cross-linking related content
Doesn’t sound revolutionary? Well, what does it mean then?
In the early days you would typically structure news by location and topics.
Yet by now there are ways to find related content on your own site.
The Typical Categorization of News Confuses
Usually Europe or business are used as categories. Thus a story about fuel shortage in Great Britain could be found in Europe and business categories.
Now what about other relations? What if the story is related to another one from outside Europe or one that is not about business directly?
A reader keen on reading the latest energy and fuel news would not find anything of interest anymore amidst sometimes bizarre (think crime or celebrities) and mostly off-topic stories.
This is an actual example! The UK fuel story has been grouped with celebrity and crime coverage from Europe!
A story about a father hiding his daughter in a cellar for over 20 years and singer Amy Whinehouse and her legal problems were mixed with vital news about fuel shortages!
Yes, these stories have been been put together in Europe on CNN (April 28th, 2008). The reader will leave instead of reading more in such a case!
With semantic SEO implemented on your website you can make the reader find several stories related to this one, automatically.
- Using this example: There are a few related stories out there right now: In Brazil the president speaks out about bio fuel.
- In Singapore the oil price reaches a new high.
- Venezuela and Iran plan to work more closely together thus limiting western access to oil.
- Also there is another story about pirates freeing hostages near Somalia.
Now the first three are obvious. The fourth one is related too but how?
Pirates and other militants are also increasingly an issue in Nigeria where they attack oil tankers.
Semantic Technology Shows True Connections
How did I find out about truly related stories?
I used a (now defunct) news aggregator that uses semantic web and search methodology to determine which articles and news are related.
- Instead of reading just one article or page I read 5 increasing page views per visit or stickiness
- The website could show contextual ads about alternative energy or energy saving
- Older news about the same topic could have been directly linked to the latest news automatically. Google could spider them and rank them up as relevant again.
Now this means
- an increase of 500% in page views per visit for this example
- serving highly relevant ads with most probably high click-thrus
- new crawling and better ranking for several articles resulting in more targeted search traffic
All this impressive growth is solely due to semantic SEO implemented on-site. Nowadays most of your content gets wasted.
You can let machines dig for the hidden gold in your archives instead. So how do I do that or rather which solution can do it for me?
I do not know myself yet. I was approached by Nstein, a company that is “powering online publishing” for large publishers across the globe to help them spread the word.
Any method that looks like SEO 2 to me and that allows to potentially double, triple or even increase the number of page views by 500% in my case is worth exploring.
* Image by Kevin Rosseel
I really like this idea, I have yet to watch those webinars you have cited, but this SEO trend is definitely something I will follow up upon.
I really liked the example about fuel and the relevant strories that could be semantically generated.
This is a useful–if very old–method of increasing site stickiness. Something about how how this service works and what it costs, even just a hint, would have been helpful.
I would suggest it would be simplest to start your disclaimer with “written by me, is my opinion, not an endorsement” and then explain the rest, starting with changing “asked to write about,” to read “paid to write about,” if that’s what you mean by “sponsored post.” And put the disclaimer in a pop-up (or CSS show/hide) linked from the asterisked notice at top, or simply link to where you’ve placed it, with a “return to top” link.
[…] clipped from seo2.0.onreact.com […]
Great post.
Dan Grossman has a nifty WordPress plugin that can auto-generate tags for your posts based on the content. One could use this plugin to match posts to other ones with the same tags and add links to them.
http://www.dangrossman.info/wp-calais-auto-tagger/
Adaid: Thanks.
Dave: “Related posts” is old but not determining them by semantic search. All current methods are based on categorization or keyword matching without understanding what the content is really about. CNN also attempts to come up with related posts but does not perform well at it as shown above.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Kevin: Thanks for the tip. I’m wary though using WordPress plugins as they make upgrading even more of a fuss.
don’t be shy about your first sponsored post. i say congrats. you’re honest about it, and the article itself is informative. now we just need to generate ideas about how to tool onpage LSI without too much work!
Isn’t tagging and related post algorithms an early form of what you are describing in this article?
i have personally found semantic tagging to be highly useful. whenever i bookmark something with del.icio.us or stumbleupon i make sure to use relevant tags so i can find the info later, just like when writing blog posts.
semantic tagging has done wonders for my email management. one of my favorite tag is “To Do” which is red. then sorting messages based on the different tags they may have is priceless.
other sites which use semantic tagging like technorati, blogcatalog, stumbleupon have made it easier for me to find way more relevant content with one click
i could ramble on like grandpa simpson for hours…
[…] of work you can both get content and earn credibility for your blog with old news. Do not forget, your archive is your goldmine, if it’s full of rocks and dust readers won’t discover the gold […]
Hello, I’m the creator of the image you’re using to illustrate this post.
Due to the fact that this is a commercial endeavor (ie, “Sponsored” as you clearly state), this in violation of my creative commons non-comm licensing.
In addition, and on a non-legalistic note, I find your use of the image deeply offensive. This is a pawn shop, one of the few successful types of businesses currently existing in Detroit, Michigan, and a sign of the widespread poverty and desperation with plagues the city. I took this photo to illustrate that fact, and you’re using it to pad the content of a totally inappropriate and unrelated article.
Please remove it immediately, or I will file a Notice of Infringement with your Hosting Provider.
Thank you.
Hello “Maproom Systems”,
I find it offensive that you do not stick to my commenting rules by not mentioning your actual name. Also you seemingly do not understand the creative commons license you use. Commercial use means actually selling an image which I did not. In addition even if I did breach the license there is no reason to threaten me, just a polite request would suffice.
Last but not least you seem to be a very negative person as your interpretation of the image does not make this image a negative one per definition. It has been changed by the context of this post which is a positive one, empowering webmasters to use their existing content to earn money they would loose otherwise. So even where there is no money a goldmine can be discovered.
I have an advice for you: If you want to keep a monopoly on the meaning of your images use a copyright instead or do not post them online at all. If you’re unable to share don’t do it. If you’re a a fan of gloom it’s your problem but keep it to yourself and do not offend others. Also make sure that you at least aren’t as cowardly as to mention your real name when offending others. I’m blogging for 5 years now and you’re the first malcontent to complain about me using an image of his. Get a life pal. I deeply regret promoting you with a link and a free display on my highly popular blog. Also I will remove your advertising link from your comment so that you can’t promote yourself with offending people.
Tadeusz Szewczyk
“Commercial Use” is not yet well-defined in the creative commons community, and there are plenty of debates currently going on involving its definition. It most certainly doesn’t just apply to print sales, though. The grey area currently involves 1) how the person using the image is making money from their site, and 2) whether the image used could be regarded as a significant element in drawing in visitors. The debate is very interesting, and at times frustrating, but it’s very far from being as clearly established as you suggest.
A burned out neighborhood plagued with poverty and crime has one successful business, which is where people sell the last of their possessions. If you think it’s perfectly fine to take that image and apply it to something such as search engine optimization, then that’s your opinion, but I don’t agree.
My name is Brett Schutzman, as can be readily found on my flickr profile and website. You had credited the image to my organization (and flickr id), “Maproom Systems”, and did so correctly. Since i was only commenting here in regards to the image, i saw no reason to confuse matters with an additional user name.
Your comment submission line has a space for “Website.” If you don’t want people to fill that in, then don’t give them the option.
The popularity of your blog has absolutely nothing to do with any part of this discussion.
Thank you for removing the image.
Mr. Schutzmann, the first line of my commenting guidelines is “Your name should at least contain a name: Tad of SEO 2.0 or TS, onreact.com is OK”.
You understand English very well so stick to it or I will have to delete your next comment.
You just proved yourself that you’re wrong on this subject but you still won’t acknowledge it. There is simply no excuse for threatening me. Also your image does not depict the neighbourhood but only one building so stop forcing your interpretation upon me.
On a sidenote: The photographer of the image I have replaced yours with was perfectly happy with me using it so stop complaining and think a little about your negativity. Maybe it’s the reason why you live in such a neighbourhood. Negative people won’t go far.
I have changed your “name” and removed your link. The “website” link is not for self promotion at my expense.
[…] could also be seen as a step towards semantic SEO, showing visitors related posts and as a consequence increasing page […]
Hi,
Thanks for the information, I Really Like Semantic Technology.