Natural language processing (NLP) and SEO
What is NLP?
Natural language processing (NLP) is a branch of computer science which aims to use machines to understand human language – whether that be written text or spoken word.
Most of us will likely have experienced the benefits of NLP without even realizing it. Think Google Translate, talking to Siri/Alexa, email spam detection, predictive text, chat bots, search engines, transcripts – the list goes on…
All these applications require a machine to read some text, take some ‘meaning’ from it and deliver an output – whether that be pushing an email into a spam folder, translating text, or another action.
How exactly can Natural Language Processing help With SEO?
- Automatically generate meta tags: Meta tags are one of the most important elements of on-page SEO. They help search engines understand what your page is about and determine whether or not it is relevant to a user’s search query. NLP can be used to automatically generate meta tags by analyzing the content of a page and extracting the key topics.
- Analyze user intent: NLP can be used to analyze a user’s search query in order to better understand their intent. This can help you to provide more relevant and targeted digital results, which can improve the user experience and increase the chance of a conversion.
- Identify new keywords: NLP can be used to identify new keywords that you may not have thought of when using ‘lexical search.’ With machine learning and semantic search dominating the search engines, understanding semantic search becomes critical when choosing new digital keywords to target.
How to Optimize Your Site for Natural Language Search?
Understand Intent
Intent is vital for search. It’s fundamental to Google’s new approach to ranking. That goes for topical authority as much as it does for natural language search.
To understand intent, you need to know what questions the searcher is trying to answer. Are they searching to browse? To learn? To buy? And to grasp intent, you need to understand why searchers are entering a specific query. Knowing the answers to these questions will give you a sharp sense of how to build marketing content to suit your users’ needs.
Create informative content
Natural language search is the natural ally of good content. Top industry commentators have noted how “Google BERT and NLP require a strong focus on high-quality, informative content.”
After you’ve determined the questions your users intend on asking, you need to create marketing content that matches that intent.
When optimizing for natural language search, prioritize exact questions. Get specific in your response and elaborate in detail. What you lose in traffic, you can gain in conversions.
Don’t Forget Related Keywords
As you develop content, be sure to include related keywords for two reasons.
- Your reader might have wondered about a similar phrase that you can address.
- It helps to expand your reach on similar searches.
Use your Tech Stack
Post-BERT natural language search relies on semantic search. For that reason, it’s a great time for SEOs who want to get the best out of natural language search to use Schema Markup.
Schema is a kind of semantic vocabulary that helps Google understand information on a page better.