Google offers digital marketers a huge number of resources to get your marketing strategy off the ground. Not just in its marketing apps, but in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) themselves.

This is a quick guide on how to use SERPs to create better link-building content that has a higher chance of ranking – before even stepping foot in a keyword tool.

A Breakdown of a SERP

SERPs are no longer the simple, homogeneous body they used to be. Now, there are over 20 different sections which can pop-up depending on how Google defines an individual search query. A couple of examples of these different sections include:

1. The Search Bar Itself
2. A Short Informational Summary
3. More Detailed Information
4. Top Stories
5. Shopping Results
6. The Actual Search Results
7. Searches Related To…

The sections that appear are based largely on the semantic attributes Google associates with your query. At the time of writing, Google categorizes search results as either Informational, Navigational, or Transactional. It does this through a linguistic analysis of what you’ve written. For instance:

• “What is Valentine’s Day” = Informational
• “Where to Buy the Best Valentine’s Day Gifts?” = Navigational
• “Valentine’s Day Gifts” = Transactional

Particular phrases indicate particular requirements on the part of the searcher. As Google search has become increasingly powerful, so too has its ability to deliver content that is progressively more relevant.

This not only provides an incentive for website owners to create better, more relevant content, it also provides searchers with an easier job of finding something.

This entire process relies on a linguistic analysis of search queries and on-page content.

Getting Started With Semantic Optimization

To get started with semantic optimization, you’re going to need to open a relevant search. Let’s say we’re looking to promote a valentine’s day product, we would type “Valentine’s day gifts”.

Ignore everything on the top and scroll straight to the “Searches Related To” section at the bottom of the page. Here, you can find frequently searched terms which are also related to your primary search query above.

The first four results that appear are:

• valentine’s day gifts for her
• sentimental valentine’s day gifts for girlfriend
• non cheesy valentine’s day gifts for him
• romantic valentines gifts for her

Immediately, several key words and phrases can be seen: “for her”, “for him”, “sentimental”, “non-cheesy”, and “romantic”.

Confirming with the Search Bar

Your next port of call is the search bar. Start typing in a relevant query and see what comes up as you type.

For instance, if I start with “best valentine”, I’m given a lot of entirely new 
results , but I’m also given some reoccurring search phrases as well. “best valentines gifts for him” and “best valentines gifts for her” seem to be very popular, so I’m going to move forward with those.

Repeating this method with different search terms I’ve gathered from the original SERP can also net me some new ideas and language to play with.

I find that a good way to organize this data is by marking down each search term and then giving it a tick for each time it or a similar search term appears. Eventually, you should end up with several which are marked much higher. These will become your primary contenders for on-page optimization.

Supporting Keyword Strategies with Other Software

Once you’ve narrowed down a list of potential suspects, you’re going to want to use third-party software to confirm them. I tend to use KW finder as it provides data on the difficulty of becoming strong in a particular keyword or phrase. They also currently offer 5 searches per day for free. Here’s what a search result will look like:

What we mainly want to look at is the suggestions page and the DIFF (difficulty) score. The lower the score, the better the search term, the higher the score, the worse. 30 is an ok score, but something lower would be even better.

We also want to look at the search column. This provides us with data on the search volume. We want to find something which lands on a happy medium.

Rinse and repeat with the other search terms you have and rank according to the power behind them (search volume and ranking difficulty).

Once you start creating your content, take the most powerful keywords and place them as the most prominent (no keyword stuffing). Try to work in as many of them as you can organically (again, no keyword stuffing), and you’ll start to see your content rank quickly.

The Role of Schema

I’m going to talk about schema briefly as it highly relates to the pragmatics problem associated with SEO. 

Written word, unlike verbal communication, lacks some of the contextual clues that come with an in-person conversation. Medium, sound, body language, etiquette: all of these things contribute to meaning but are unfortunately absent in written communication.

Schema takes a step towards bringing this gap by providing a revealing co-text, as opposed to context. This co-text is coded behind the content. 

Marketers interested in understanding the purpose of schema should explore the history of linguistic tagging to see how it can benefit their organic results.