At a time when an online presence is one of, if not the most important thing for growth in your business, understanding how it all works is a massive learning curve that needs to be attacked if you want to thrive in the digital marketing era.
One of the most prominent ways to boost your brand awareness is by implementing a killer SEO strategy to improve your visibility on Google. Once you start ranking for relevant search terms in your line of work, you will start to see business coming in like there’s no tomorrow.
A topic that is talked about heavily in the SEO realm at the moment is the use of NLP SEO and the importance of the techniques used for your search results in the short and long term.
To see how NLP techniques can be used in your favour and whether they’re truly crucial for your search rankings and relevant search queries, we’ll break down exactly what it is and how to utilise it to squeeze the most benefits out of it as possible. Carry on reading to learn more!
What is Natural Language Processing (NLP) SEO?
In regards to what Natural Language Processing (NLP) SEO is, it is a technique used to improve how search engines understand and rank content by analysing the language used within it. Essentially, it’s about making your website or content more easily understandable to both humans and search engines.
More technically, natural language processing is a linguistics subfield that uses algorithms and technology to process and interpret the meaning behind words or phrases when computers and humans are communicating, rather than just matching keywords.
For example, if someone searches for “best Italian restaurants near me,” natural language processing (NLP) helps the desired search engine understand the search intention behind the query and give that person relevant results even if the exact words aren’t present on a web page.
This means focusing on creating high-quality content that addresses users’ needs and questions naturally, rather than just stuffing it with target keywords.
Essentially, NLP is about using computing and artificial intelligence to assist you in speaking the same language as your audience and providing valuable information in a way that’s easy for both humans and Google search engines to understand.
However, to better understand natural language processing in a more practical and SEO-friendly way, grasping BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) will allow you to connect the dots.
How Do BERT and NLP Work Together in SEO?
BERT (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers) and NLP (natural language processing) work hand in hand in SEO because BERT will essentially collect and analyse data related to the content or search query and then NLP can understand the word or phrase in its context by looking at various signals around it.
Furthermore, BERT is one of Google’s algorithms that helps search engines learn the context and intent behind simple or hard-to-understand search queries by analysing the entire sentence rather than just individual words.
NLP techniques, on the other hand, allow your website to create content that aligns more with user intent and provides valuable information in a natural, conversational manner.
Together, the Google BERT algorithm and natural language processing make sure that search results are more accurate and relevant, helping your target audience find the information they need more effectively. This synergy improves your website’s visibility and overall ranking in Google search engine results, eventually, after trial and error, driving more organic traffic.
How Does Natural Language Processing Help SEO Performance?
Now that you have a further understanding of how it works and a basic knowledge of the benefits it could potentially provide, we’re going to break down the advantages into more bite-size pieces so you can really see the effects it can have on your SEO performance when performed properly. Here is what you can expect:
Improves Overall Understanding
An NLP helps a search engine learn the context and meaning behind search intent, leading to more accurate search results being shown – meaning that you can thrive more as a business on Google if you provide relevant information.
It Supports Voice Search
Now, natural language processing can respond to your voice searches, meaning that when you use Google microphone technology, you will be able to get suitable answers based on your question.
The User Experience is Off-the-Charts
With Google being the most popular search engine (and NLP being one of the main driving factors of this), you will most likely always get a relevant answer to your query. Therefore, more people will use Google if you’re providing relevant details within your website related to information your customer base wants to know.
It Makes Sure the Content is Natural
If you don’t conform to NLP, your chances of getting high-quality leads and customers are low. One of the great things about NLP is that it wants naturally written content rather than those who stuff keywords into their content.
This means that if you’re being genuinely helpful and interested in what your target audience needs, rather than a quick money grab, you will most likely always come out on top.
Enjoy Higher Search Engine Rankings
Whether it’s one web page that you’re trying to double down on when it comes to promotion or you simply want to see higher Google searches for all your relevant keywords, using this machine learning process and following our best NLP practices below will provide you with much higher results in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Best NLP Techniques You Can Use For Your SEO Strategy
An SEO strategy, whether that be a national SEO campaign or a local campaign, is one of the key determining factors that you need to consider taking seriously if you want to boost your online traffic. Google’s algorithm is ever-changing but if you can implement these natural language processing techniques, this will be a great start to providing content that is king:
Writing Simple, Clear, Yet Informative Content
Although this may seem like unsurprising and basic advice, you’d be surprised at how many people will overcomplicate their content just to sound like an authoritative figure in their field, rather than sticking to human language.
This can work against you heavily, as all the people you’re selling want to know is what you offer, how you can benefit them, and whether they want to work with you.
If they can’t even understand your content and the meaning behind your web page, they’re going to click off immediately. Google analyses the subject and objects of your sentences and will identify entities, so making small, clear changes to your sentence structure may just help you get recognised more often.
Using the API Demo For a Better Sentiment Analysis
A positive sentiment analysis (a sentiment score from 0.25 to 1) can be one of the most important factors in your web pages ranking on Google. This still remains prominent but with tools such as Google’s API Demo, you can assess the sentiment of your content.
For example, you may be writing something that you think is relevant but Google is picking it up as another topic completely, ranking you for the wrong search terms. This is why writing clear content is key.
Do Your Keyword Research For Better Search Engine Results
Whatever niche you’re in, search engines will have specific keywords that you can take advantage of. Whether that be a quick win or a relevant term that you try to rank for in the long term, making sure you do your due diligence and complete keyword research is vital.
Keywords are how people find your content and, ultimately, how they react to it. This not only helps you find what you can rank for but it also assists you in understanding what type of content you need to write in order for it to rank as relevant underneath the chosen keywords.
Use Entities Within Your Content
An entity is essentially anything that is singular and unique, meaning it can be recognised as something on its own. This can be a word or phrase which represents an object, for example, numbers, the number of people, businesses, etc.
Salience and categories fall under entities. Salience highlights the entity’s importance in text and category, something that we know that SEOs break content into. An important part of this is that you will be given a salience score, in which Google will analyse your web pages and the importance of the centrality of your entity.
To ensure you’re getting the most out of your salience score, you can use Google’s API Demo to check the scores of each page. From there, you can see what you need to improve and add to your content.
What Does Your Future Look Like Using Natural Language Processing in SEO?
Now, as we bring this to a close, there is clearly a lot of information that needs to be dissected, but as SEO is ever-changing, there are many different SEO strategies that you can use to implement NLP into your business’s website.
Here at Quirky Digital, we believe that conforming to NLP practices means that you first need the SEO fundamentals in place to begin with; otherwise, you’re going to get lost in all of these extremely technical terms.
Keyword research, auditing your site, internal and external links, completing competitor analysis, and the list goes on for the number of SEO tasks that need to be carried out, and then most likely, great NLP will follow if you have the fundamentals in place.
If you want to work with a company that is practising what they preach and begin ranking your company’s website higher up the search results, look no further than our specialised team here at Quirky Digital.
Our perfect track record speaks for itself and once you have a strategy with intent set in stone, there will be no looking back on bad business. Take your business to the next level by contacting us today!
