Semantic analysis: definition and uses

What is semantic analysis?

Semantic analysis: definition & challenges

THEEditorial SEO audit, also known under the term”semantic audit” or “semantic analysis”, which is an integral part of a SEO audit, aims to assess the coherence and relevance of the content of a website. It is a methodical process that revolves around several axes and is implemented during the origination Or the redesign of a site internet.

The challenges of this analysis are multiple. It is not only about improving the visibility of the site on search engines, but also to offer a better experience to Internet users and to convert your prospects into customers more effectively.

In addition to this approach, semantic SEO audit is often associated withSEO technical audit, forming a global approach that assesses both the quality of the content and the technical solidity of the site. This correlation is essential, as it ensures a coherent and effective SEO strategy.

Editorial or semantic audit?

Editorial auditing and the concept of semantic auditing both evaluate web content in order to optimize it, but from different perspectives:

- The editorial audit looks at the overall quality of the content, analyzing both content and form, for the entire site or specific pages.

- The semantic audit, on the other hand, looks at keywords and content from an SEO perspective, focusing on the relevance of the terms used.

While they aim to improve content, their approach and goals differ. This is why it often happens that some company or agency does not solve the entire semantic problem when it starts the semantic audit of their website.
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What do you need to know about semantic analysis?

Semantic analysis for a website: How does it work?

THEsemantic analysis In SEO is based on a thorough understanding of the meaning of words and expressions in a specific context. It is based on the semantics, which studies the meaning of words and sentences.

To understand how semantic analysis works, it is essential to understand how search engines interpret the content of a web page. The latter use semantic analysis algorithms, constantly updated, to understand and interpret the meaning and relevance of a text.

Google works like a response engine : it seeks to understand the intent behind each request in order to provide the most relevant and accurate response possible. Its objective is no longer just to provide a list of relevant pages, but to improve the meaning of words and to understand the user's query to give them the information they are looking for directly. This is a major change in the way search engines work.

The importance of semantic analysis

Semantic analysis is a fundamental component of the digital landscape, significantly influencing various aspects ranging from customer relationships to SEO strategy.

• First, it is essential for understanding consumer intentions, thus improvingcustomer experience.
• It optimizes theUX by structuring web content to facilitate navigation and understanding.
• In terms of productivity, it guides content creation by identifying relevant topics and keywords from data (thanks to SEO KPI for example).
• For the SEO, it improves natural referencing in real time by aligning content with users' search intentions.

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What tools for semantic analysis (free and paid)?

Keyword generators

• Ubbersuggest is a free tool that allows you to identify keyword ideas adapted to your field. It also offers domain analysis and site audits.
• SEMrush is a more comprehensive tool that includes more than 50 SEO tools. In particular, it is used for competitive analysis and the study of research intentions.
• Yooda offers a suite of tools for semantic analysis, including Insight, which is particularly used for market analysis in the context of marketing research.

To “crawl” your site

Crawling tools like Screaming Frog and Xenu are essential for carrying out a thorough semantic analysis.

• Screaming Frog, collects data essential for SEO optimization, such as site structure, meta tags, incoming and outgoing links... It also allows the identification of HTTP errors, indexing problems or broken links.
• Xenu, while offering fewer features than Screaming Frog, Xenu is an excellent choice for quick and effective link analysis, including the detection of broken or erroneous links.

For the monitoring of positions

These three tools can be used to track your site's positions in search results, and to understand how your content is performing on various keywords.

• Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track and analyze the traffic on your website. It provides valuable information about user behavior, such as time spent on the site, bounce rate, and the most visited pages.
• Matomo is an open-source web analysis platform. It offers a private alternative to Google Analytics that focuses on data privacy.
• MyPoseo is another option for tracking SEO positions. It offers market analysis, audit, and SEO/SEA monitoring, making it a comprehensive tool for SEO professionals.

For the structure of the pages

To structure your pages and optimize their SEO, chrome extensions Web Developer and SEO in One Click are proving to be valuable tools.

• Web Developer allows you to analyze and manipulate the architecture of your site. It is a great ally to identify and correct structural errors that could harm your SEO.
• SEO in One Click offers an instant analysis of the SEO of your page. It provides you with information about meta tags, links, images, and much more.

For content quality analysis

• With Site Liner, you can perform an in-depth analysis of the content of your site to identify duplicates and weaknesses in your content.
• Ahref, on the other hand, is a more complete tool that allows you not only to analyze your content, but also to monitor your backlink profile, study your competitors and discover new keywords to target.
• The advantage of SEobility is an SEO tool that analyzes an entire website, identifying errors and problems that could affect your SEO.

What are the steps of semantic analysis?

Step 1: Identify the purchase intent of the target customer

To enter and define theIntent to buy of our target audience, it is essential to start by laying the foundations of our offer. This involves asking questions such as:

• What products or services do we offer?
• How are our offers positioned in relation to those of competitors?
• How do we differentiate ourselves?
• What is our market positioning strategy?

These initial reflections make it possible to identify the stakes Majors and the issues specific to our client target, and thus to better understand the audience segments we reach in the face of their problems.

By doing so, we can better understand the precise expectations of our customers and what they are looking for when choosing our offers. Managing customer journeys on our site is essential to adjust our strategies, thus responding directly to the requests of our potential prospects. This improves their experience by aligning our services with their expectations.

Once you have a good understanding of the purchase intent of your target customer, you are in a position to create the best customer journeys and add the right content.

Step 2: Study the keywords

The study of keywords: How do we go about it?

THEkeyword study is THE major step in semantic analysis. It allows you to identify the terms that your target audience uses during his research, which is essential for understanding their behavior and expectations.
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To do this, you need to use keyword analysis tools to discover relevant terms in your sector.

• What search phrases will my target customer type to get to my site?
• What are the most frequently asked questions about my website?

We seek to answer these questions, based on our customer target and on the semantic field of our competitors.

Once the keywords have been identified, they must be integrated strategically into the content of your site to improve your positioning on search engines.

Selecting relevant keywords

The selection of relevant keywords is a major challenge in semantic audit to target those essential to your audience and activity.

A distinction must be made between specific keywords, which can be long lines, which are precise and indicate a clear intention, from generic, broader and competitive keywords.

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to analyze search volume, competition, and keyword relevance. Integrate them naturally into your content to boost SEO without over-optimization.

Step 3: Analyze the positioning

Study of positioning in general: For what purpose?

THEpositioning study The objective of general is to assess the place occupied by your website in relation to its competitors and in its digital environment. This step allows you to understand what factors influence your positioning, whether it is the keywords used, the content offered or the structure of your pages.

The positioning study includes several aspects:

• the positioning of the pages on the site
• the positioning of the site in relation to its competitors
• The analysis of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

To assess the positioning of pages, we examine their visibility on search engines, their traffic and their conversion rate. Their content, structure and SEO optimization are also studied.

Competition analysis consists in identifying the site's main competitors and comparing their positioning with ours. In particular, we look at their SEO strategies, their target keywords and their traffic.

SERP analysis makes it possible to measure the visibility of the site on search engines. It is based on several criteria, including the number of pages indexed, the number of backlinks, the click through rate (CTR) and the time spent on the site.

Positioning study based on keywords

The positioning study according to keywords is carried out with the help of analytical tools such as Sistrix or SEMrush. These tools make it possible to determine which keywords the site is well positioned on, but also which keywords generate the most organic traffic.

It is also important to distinguish between the different types of keywords:

• Notoriety keywords, which are linked to the brand or company name.
• The keywords of partners or associated brands, which can bring qualified traffic.
• Keywords relating to the products or services offered by the site.
• And finally, keywords related to editorial content, such as blog posts or technical data sheets.

Analyzing the positioning of the site on these different types of keywords makes it possible to understand what are the strengths and areas for improvement of the SEO strategy.

Step 4: Categorize content and keywords

Tree structure, queries, and semantic cocoon

THETree, the requests and the semantic cocoon are key elements in the establishment of a marketing strategy effective.

• THETree of your site must be designed in such a way as to promote SEO. It must be clear and logical, focusing on the most important pages, and not forgetting any customer journey.
• Les requisitions, they are defined according to the keywords identified during the semantic analysis, during your keyword study and your positioning analysis. It's about understanding how your target audience is looking for your products or services and adapting your content accordingly.
• Finally, the semantic cocoon, also called silo, is a content organization technique that aims to strengthen the authority of your site on certain topics. It is about creating groups of pages around the same theme, linked together, to improve their referencing. This practice is used in the design of a blog, in order to enhance quality content on your site, in order to improve your overall positioning.

These three elements, combined, make it possible to optimize your positioning on search engines.

Densify its content

Content densification is key for SEO, aimed at enriching existing content to better meet search engine criteria.

Start by crawling your pages to detect those with low content, which will benefit from densification.

Next, develop a content strategy aligned with your domain, including creating semantic cocoons and regularly writing relevant articles to generate traffic.

Prioritize the creation of content that meets the search intentions of your audience, by providing accurate and useful answers.

The quality and relevance of content are essential to improve both SEO and the user experience.

Successfully complete your semantic audit

Analyzing your existing system: the editorial structure

Optimizing meta data

The optimization of meta data : It involves refining the elements that are not visible on a website, but which have a major impact on its referencing by search engines.

Les meta title and meta description should be carefully written to reflect the content of the page and contain relevant keywords. They need to be unique and attractive. They must respect a maximum of 60 and 150 characters respectively.

La ALT tag plays an important role for the referencing of images, but also for the accessibility of the website. Each image must therefore have a relevant and descriptive ALT tag of 3 to 5 words maximum.

Optimizing the structure of the site

THEoptimizing the structure of the site is a fundamental step for good referencing.

Les URLs should be clear and contain relevant keywords. They should also be consistent with the structure of your site and not be too deep.

La page structuring implies a logical organization of content. The Hn structure with the H1, H2, etc. tags allows you to structure your texts and help search engines understand the content of your pages.

The internal networking, A practice that is very commonly omitted, allows you to create links between the different pages of your site. It makes it easy for the user to navigate and helps search engines index your site. To do this, be sure to create relevant links between your pages and promote links to the most important pages.

Semantic analysis is important for improving your site's SEO, aligning content with user intent to optimize the user experience. A relevant keyword strategy, a well-thought-out site structure, and quality content are key to SEO. In other words, semantic analysis allows you to create content that specifically answers the questions and needs of your target audience, while applying the key principles of SEO to optimize their visibility on the web.