How to Develop your Semantic Core For Canadian Businesses
Developing your SEO Semantic Core for your Canadian website is the starting point for on-page SEO. You have likely heard a lot of talk about keywords, long tail keywords and keyword strategy as fundamental to search engine optimization strategy.
When developing your SEO strategy, and in particular your on-page website optimization we start with collecting a semantic core. The semantic core is the high frequency, high quality words and phrases that most accurately describe what you do. The core is a list designed to bring your target audience to your website.
When we call them keywords, this meaning is associated with understanding the search volume that keywords generate, and then selecting your best bets. Since only time will tell if you are successful, keywords and strategy are measured regularly over time by your digital marketing agency.
What is an effective keyword for your business across Canada?
In terms of SEO, an effective keyword is the one that your business can rank for, is relevant to your business, and has a strong volume of organic traffic. As you improve your rank position for this keyword, you will see increases in the volume of organic traffic to your website associated with the improved ranking.
Once you understand this, then you can develop your plan around further SEO activities, including content planning, optimization, and structuring, website’s on-page, etc.
Developing the semantic core for your website
The keywords that are the foundation that will enable your website to establish itself as an authority and leader in your sector. This work is accomplished within a competitive environment. And therefore developing the semantic coer for your website must take into consideration your competition.
When people are looking for your products or services on the internet, they use many different search terms. The first step is understanding what these search terms, or popular keywords are. The semantic core are those search terms, or keywords, which will enable those users to find you.
Your steps to determine the semantic core
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- Use Google Analytics, Google Search Console or another tool to identify the most frequent enquiries (search terms) on you websites
- Run this same analysis on the websites of your competitors
- Make a list of these enquiries, containing the keywords and their synonyms
- Eliminate the meaningless keywords
- Group the keywords in categories
- Prioritize keywords based for each page of your website
- Organize your website pages to align with target pages in the structure of the website
- This work should take into consideration your competitors ranking for keywords.
Use online tools for your research
Creating a list of keywords, keyword selection and creating a semantic core are time consuming. There are both free and paid tools that are used in this work. We are going to share with you some of the ones we consider essential.
Free SEO tools are:
- Google Analytics – This is an essential set of tools you need to analyze data for your business, provided free by Google.
- Search Console – Google provides a set of free tools and reports to measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, improve your site’s performance in Search results.
- Keyword Planner – Another free tools from Google. Used for SEO keyword research, content optimization and topic ideas.
- Yoast SEO Plugin for your website – Yoast SEO is one of the most widely popular WordPress plugins . It is a powerful tool to make your site as search engine-friendly as possible
- Google Page Insights – PageSpeed Insights (PSI) reports on the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.
Top paid tools are:
- Semrush – A Saas (Software as a service) company that provides subscription based visibility and analytics software to help you improve your online competitiveness.
- MOZ – A Saas (Software as a service) company that provides subscription based inbound marketing and marketing analytics software subscriptions.
- Ahrefs – A Saas (Software as a service) company that provides subscription based Site Audit tools to analyse websites for common SEO issues & monitor your SEO health over time.
Learn How Expert Can Guide You!
We hope this guide to developing your semantic core is helpful. Since today’s SEO is complex and dynamic, businesses hire SEO Agencies to this work.
As a business owner you don’t need to become an expert in SEO, however understanding the levers that drive SEO strategy will enable you to better understand the work your SEO Agency is doing on your behalf.
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