Skip to main content

Growth Factory

Say Hello–Call Us

Semantic Search

Semantic search is an SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy that aims to improve search engine accuracy by unlocking the meaning of the terms they search for.

The semantic search engine began when Google implemented its ‘Hummingbird’ update in 2013. The system used searcher intent and context to ensure that they showed users the pages that answered their questions, rather than ranking sites that share a few matching terms.

Using Google isn’t what it used to be, semantic search is becoming more and more important for websites. Is your site configured for semantic search?

Google stopped matching words a long time ago

Ten years ago you could rank by repeating a phrase often enough. Put it in the heading, sprinkle it through the copy, bold it once for luck. That stopped working, and the sites still doing it are the ones wondering why their traffic keeps sliding.

Google now works out what you meant, not what you typed. Someone searching “cheap office cleaners” and someone searching “affordable commercial cleaning” want the same thing, and Google knows it. A page that answers the question properly beats a page that merely contains the right words.

What that means for your site

Topic coverage beats keyword density. If you sell commercial fridges, one thin page repeating “commercial fridges” will not hold up against a site that also covers sizing, running costs, warranty and installation. Google reads the whole picture, not the one page.

  • Structured data, so search engines can read what a page is about without guessing.
  • Internal links that group related pages, making the connection between them obvious.
  • Content built around questions people actually ask, rather than a keyword list.
  • Headings and page structure that still make sense read aloud.

Where most sites fall down

Usually it is not the writing. It is that nothing on the site tells Google how the pages relate to one another. Twenty good pages sitting in isolation will perform worse than twelve that are properly linked and marked up.

We audit that as part of any SEO package. If you are not sure how well your site reads to a search engine, get in touch and we will take a look.