Natural referencing is an important topic for all companies that wish to make themselves known on the web. To achieve this goal it is essential to work on the positioning of your website on search engines. Semantic audit is one of the techniques used to improve your SEO.
In this article we will explain what the semantic audit is, why it is useful for SMEs and when it should be carried out.
What is semantic auditing?
As this comprehensive guide specifies, semantic auditing is the first step to improve the natural referencing of a website. It allows you to determine the most relevant keywords for the site content and optimize them to improve their positioning on search engines.
To fully understand what this type of audit entails, it is important to distinguish between semantic audit and other types of SEO audit, such as technical audit and content audit.
- Technical check consists of analyzing the structure of the website to detect technical errors that can affect natural referencing. It can include aspects such as loading speed, mobile compatibility, quality of internal and external links, etc.
- Content control focuses on the quality and relevance of the website content. The aim is to determine whether the content meets the expectations of Internet users and whether it is optimized for keywords relevant to the SME’s business.
- Semantic control, instead, focuses on the analysis of keywords and their semantic relevance to the content of the site. It takes into account the terms used in the titles, meta tags, texts and images of the website. It aims to determine the most relevant keywords for the SME’s business and optimize them to improve the site’s positioning on search engines.
Why is semantic audit useful for SMEs?
The semantic audit is all the more useful as keyword optimization is essential adequately address the requests of Internet users et increase qualified traffic to a websitehelping you improve your search engine rankings.
More, semantic audit allows you to better understand the search intentions of Internet users and respond to it. By identifying the most relevant keywords for your business, you will create content that best suits your audience’s needs.
Basically, here are three problems that semantic auditing tries to solve:
- Make yourself understood by Google. Recent updates to Google’s algorithm aim to help its crawlers understand human language. But as efficient as they are, they don’t completely decipher it. This is where semantic optimization can make a difference.
- Your competitors target the same audience. There is so much content competing for precious search engine space that it’s difficult to stand out. Google uses a web page’s authority, quality, and experience to determine which content is most interesting and should be shown first.
- Knowing the intentions of Internet users. Search engines can usually determine what your content is about. But it’s up to you to answer consumers’ questions before they ask them and convince them to convert.
Improving semantic SEO not only allows you to develop content that better answers the questions and intentions of Internet users, but also to position it so that it can answer more than one question in more than one way.
When to carry out a semantic audit?
Semantic auditing can be performed in different situations, such as:
- Launch of a new website : It is important to carry out a semantic audit before putting the site online to ensure that the content is optimized for natural referencing.
- Site redesign : During a site redesign, a semantic audit ensures that the new site is properly optimized for SEO and that the content has been updated.
- Decrease in traffic : If traffic to a website declines, a semantic audit can help identify SEO problems and correct them.
- Competitive analysis : a semantic audit can also be carried out to analyze the SEO strategies of the competition and identify opportunities to improve the positioning of the SME’s website.
Other than these situations, it is it is recommended to carry out a semantic audit regularlyevery 6-12 months, to ensure that your website is always optimized for relevant keywords and that the content always meets the expectations of Internet users.
As a reminder, work on natural referencing must be constant and part of an overall digital marketing strategy. It is therefore recommended to implement complementary actions, such as the creation of quality content, the implementation of netlinking strategies or the optimization of the technical structure of the website, to maximize the impact of the semantic audit and improve the online visibility of the SME .
Read also: Should you constantly work on your site’s SEO?
How to carry out a semantic audit?
Performing a semantic audit can be done in several stages:
- Keyword analysis : selection of keywords relevant to the SME’s business and analysis of their popularity and competition.
- Competitive analysis : Analysis of competitors’ websites to determine the keywords they use and the strategies they have implemented.
- Semantic relevance analysis : analysis of the website content to determine the relevance of the keywords used to the topics covered.
- Analyze backlinks : analysis of the quality of links pointing to the SME website and implementation of strategies to improve the quality of incoming links.
There are many free or paid tools to carry out a semantic audit, such as SEMrush, Ahrefs or even Google Keyword Planner. It all depends on your capabilities and budget.
However, since this area of expertise is quite specialized, we recommend it use an SEO consultant or agency. After reading this article, you will have all the elements to evaluate the quality of the quotes you will receive.
Mistakes to avoid during a semantic audit
Here are some mistakes to avoid during a semantic audit:
- Over-optimization : Over-optimization is using the same keywords too frequently in your website content. This practice is considered “spam” by search engines and can have a negative impact on your website’s ranking. It’s important to find a balance between keyword optimization and content quality.
- Ignore long-tail keywords : These are more specific and less popular terms than generic keywords. However, they can be very relevant to your business and be used by Internet users in their searches. Taking this into account during your semantic audit helps maximize your chances of appearing in search results.
- Content duplication : Using the same content on multiple pages of a website or across multiple websites is a practice considered “duplicate content” by search engines and can have a negative impact on your SEO. So make sure you produce unique and quality content for every page of your website.
- Lack of content updating : The content of a website must be updated regularly to remain relevant and interesting for Internet users. The absence of updates can have a negative impact on the natural referencing of the website. It is therefore important to plan regular content updates.
- Choose irrelevant keywords : the use of keywords that are not relevant to the SME’s business can have a negative impact on the natural referencing of the website. It is important to select keywords based on their relevance to the SME’s business and their popularity among Internet users.
By avoiding these common mistakes, you will strengthen the impact of your semantic audit and improve your content and online visibility.
In short
Semantic auditing is an essential, yet often overlooked, step in improving a website’s natural referencing. By working on keyword optimization, you can improve your search engine rankings and attract more qualified traffic.
Don’t forget to repeat the exercise regularly to maintain your search engine rankings.
