How NLP for SEO Can Boost Your Site's Ranking on Google

If there’s one thing you can be sure about in SEO, it’s that Google will always come up with algorithm updates. A true SEO specialist will focus on Google’s evolving algorithm and optimize content strategies accordingly.

Among some of Google’s algorithm updates, NLP is a key player. This blog post will explain what is Google NLP and why it’s important.

What is NLP for SEO?

NLP stands for Natural Language Processing, and it is a field of artificial intelligence and computer science. In simple terms, Natural Language Processing enables computers to understand human language.

Computers build a pattern and understanding of what’s written and the intent behind it. This is a revolution in the AI industry, allowing more room for building a connection between humans and AI.

NLP for SEO means Google crawlers are enabled to understand the intent behind a particular content piece. That’s crucial for Google because most content on the web is written to rank on search engines.

With NLP for SEO, Google relies less on keyword integration and more on the content’s intent. This allows the search engine giant to make sense of content and connect it with the right keyword and the intent behind it.

In addition, Natural language processing in SEO helps Google separate amateur content from experienced writing. Since NLP includes natural words, an expert in the field would have a unique vocabulary and a sense of sentence structure native to their field of expertise.

For example, an SEO expert writer would choose words like “backlinks” and “domain rating/authority.” However, someone with little to no knowledge of SEO won’t fit these jargons in the right places.

What is Natural Language Processing Algorithm in Google?

NLP was first introduced by Google in its BERT update. BERT is an acronym for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. This was Google's first NLP update, which SMITH followed.

SMITH stands for Siamese Multi-depth Transformer-based Hierarchical. While BERT was doing a pretty good job, SMITH is capable of doing it faster and at a much larger scale.

While BERT was capable of deconstructing 512 tokens of text, SMITH can deconstruct 2248 tokens of text, allowing the latter to deliver rich search results. In addition, SMITH allows Google to analyze long-form content and understand the intent behind the content.

How NLP For SEO Can Improve Your Site Rankings

An effective SEO strategy relies on planning ahead and abiding by Google’s algorithm. Including NLP in SEO will reduce the stress of keyword integration and allow your long-form guides to rank.

As mentioned above, the SMITH update is capable of tokenizing large pieces of text. Hence, you can work on long-form guides and link them to your supporting posts. Here’s a detailed explanation of how NLP for SEO can improve your site’s rankings.

1. Topic Clusters

Google values sites that have topical authority and internal links. And the best way to go about it, is through topic clusters.

Topic cluster refers to the process of incorporating internal links to sub-posts in a pillar post. The pillar post is a long-form guide that explains a particular topic in detail.

The sub-post (supporting posts) shares additional details, personal experiences, or strategies around a keyword.

These keywords are integrated within the pillar post. When supporting posts start ranking, they share link juice with their parent post.

Google’s SMITH update goes through long-form guides and understands the intent. This allows Google to rank long-form guides relevant to a search query.

2. Relevant Search Results

While the initial days of search results put forward irrelevant traffic to sites, SMITH changed that. Through high-volume text de-construction, SMITH automatically optimizes your site for relevant keywords.

This allows you to garner traffic similar to your content’s intent. For instance, if you have a web page that targets buying intent keywords, SMITH will push your web page instead of blog posts.

3. Straight-Forward Content

One of the ways NLP has improved search rankings is by simplifying content requirements. Before SMITH, SEO writers used difficult words and tried to install keywords in every section.

At one point, keyword installation becomes challenging. NLP for SEO improves your content and eases a writer's burden. This is because SMITH is capable of understanding content better than BERT, and simple words make more sense.

Although keywords are crucial, adding helping verbs between keywords won’t affect your ranking.

In a Nutshell

NLP for SEO is an excellent change that’s made content ranking less competitive for those who understand its basics.

In addition, amateur content has less chance of beating experienced and professional work. This iterates that including NLP for SEO will boost your site’s ranking.