Hello everyone! Today for #learnSEO I’m going to share a long thread to summarize the important bits from my SMX advanced talk - Using a knowledge of semantic search to improve E-A-T.
I learned so much in creating this talk!
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Did you know that Google says that “assessing your own content in terms of E-A-T criteria may help it align with signals that Google uses to rank content?”
What does E-A-T have to do with semantic search though? Let’s unpack what semantic search is. It’s search that understands the meaning of words and the connections between them.
When you do a search and see xx million results, that’s lexical search showing how many pages could be a match for this query. They’re ordered by the traditional PageRank based algo. Filters can be applied (like Panda and Penguin) to improve quality.
Much of Google’s understanding of concepts and entities and how they relate to each other comes from the Knowledge graph. Knowledge retrieval is a form of semantic search.
Some studies show that adding About schema (to tell Google what main topic is covered) and Mention schema (what topics are also mentioned) can help improve rankings.
In the QRG, raters are told to look for evidence of other people referencing a content creator or business.
Now, Google’s algos are not doing site: searches to replicate this. But I do believe they are looking to find connections that support you having expertise on a topic. #LearnSEO
So how do you put this into practice? 1) Find ways to get mentioned on authoritative sites. Not for the PageRank (although that’s still helpful if you can get it), but for the connections to support your expertise.
Think HARO, producing content that is truly linkworthy, good PR
2) Create topical authority to demonstrate a deep level of knowledge on your topics. The more expert level content you have on a topic, the more likely you are to be seen as authoritative.
The topic layer of the kg🤯:
“built by analyzing all the content that exists on the web for a given topic and develops hundreds and thousands of subtopics.”
“We then look at patterns to understand how these subtopics relate to each other”
To sum up
✅Assessing content from an EAT perspective may help it rank better
✅Make your entity information as clear as possible (schema)
✅Get links & mentions from truly authoritative sites discussing your topic
✅Create topic hubs to demonstrate depth of expertise #LearnSEO
Here are some of the sites we monitor that did well following the May core update and the tremors that followed. A little thread with what these sites cover and why they may have done well.
1/7
First, a medical advice site.
➡️Written by a doctor who is very well known.
➡️Pages are well structured with headings - easy to skim
➡️Does a very good job of answering the questions a searcher would have for each topic 2/7
Next, another medical advice site. This one covers many alternative medical topics as well.
➡️Pages structured so it is easy to find the answer you are looking for
➡️Uses examples of first hand real patient experiences
➡️Very thoroughly covers their topics 3/7
Q4:
If your traffic or rankings declined following this update, it may not be because of the update! What are some common *other* reasons for losses to be seen?
A4 There are lots of possible reasons for traffic/rankings to drop. Ranking changes happen daily. It could just be that a competitor has stepped up their game.
If you made technical changes recently, look to those first.
I wrote this a while back when I was doing mostly Google penalty work. Most of it still applies today for traffic drops. mariehaynes.com/reasons-for-tr…
If you feel you have been negatively affected by this update, can you share screenshots of analytics/GSC or even rank tracking data (anonymized) in this thread?
I’ll share some examples from MHC data as well. #LearnSEO
A1 @JohnMu said in our recent @buildwithduda talk that when Google runs an update, they “reprocess urls on a website and then apply the new settings”. So as Google recrawls your site, you will feel the effects.
1/2
A1 (cont) Here are some examples of sites impacted by a core update. The drop often starts happening on the announced date (May 25). In some cases it can continue downwards for a long time. We often see the traffic settle at a new level.
Hi everyone and welcome to another #LearnSEO! Google launched a core update last week and I wasn’t even on vacation😂
Today we’re going to discuss: How to determine if you’ve been impacted by a Google core update.
It’s early yet to give our thoughts on what changed with this update. The @mhc_inc team and I are analyzing SERP changes, sites and client data and will be publishing our thoughts (in newsletter and also on the web + some tweets) soon.