Semantic core for a successful website: basic steps in building it

You've probably heard the term "semantic core" at least once. But what actually lies behind these two words? That's what we'll talk about in this text.

Do you have a website that needs to work purposefully and successfully? For this to happen, two activities are required:

• • optimization 
  • quality copywriting

They are of the utmost importance today, in the age of the Internet, when every business is on the web and how well you will be able to sell your product, service, idea, depends on the correctly selected keywords that respond to user queries. This is actually the semantic core.

What does this term mean in copywriting and optimization? A semantic core is a set of words, phrases, and combinations of such that most accurately reflect the purpose of the entire site, blog, portal, etc., its sections. What it was created for and what it offers.

Keywords are those that describe the essence of the mission, activities, and products of a company, organization, firm, or even an individual.

For the copywriter and optimizer it is important to:

• • to understand the perspective of target users;
  • to predict what the end customer expects, what they would enter into the search engine as words and phrases in search of the product or service that this site offers (but also many others!). 

Every website owner strives for profit, and end users tend to focus their attention on the sites that first "pop up" as results. This is human nature, especially in the fast-paced age we live in - we don't want to waste time "digging" for pages that have gone to "faraway" places... Everyone is now aware that if certain sites come up first in a search, this certainly means serious SEO work, excellent copywriting, accurate and sufficient keywords.

Copywriting agencies and SEO optimizers know very well that trends, competitors need to be studied, and also, if desired, existing paid, developed programs for analyzing initial information and compiling a semantic core with ready-made databases need to be used.

As a rule, the following steps can be followed to compose a suitable, working semantic core , and they generally look like this:

• • Researching the specifics of the market that the specific site is aiming for. This stage takes the most time, but is especially crucial! The business, the essence, the case, respectively – what words and expressions are used for this type of business must be thoroughly researched.
  • The structure of the portal – a diagram of the site with its key pages. 
  • Keyword collection – this is where a set of keywords for further research is obtained. At this stage, the list is initial and is subject to subsequent filtering. Above all, the ability to see through the eyes of the customer comes first.

What should be considered at this stage?

Your semantic core includes:

• • Any variations of the company name, product brand, as well as their synonyms;

• • Components of products or services;

• • Qualities associated with these products or services.

• Accidentally misspelled words – often in a hurry, the user makes spelling mistakes, so they are taken into account to be part of the keywords leading to the site;
• Competitor analysis – a phase that should not be underestimated. Competitor websites are visited, the texts and keywords they use are examined, and conclusions are drawn;

• Analysis of collected keywords – a thorough in-depth review, carefully analyzing each word and phrase, considering how they would work and etc. From the initial list, we make a selection based on the discovery of queries related to the main searches . Practically, this means thinking about what additional queries users would ask. Then, the so-called hyponyms are searched for and found.

What are hyponyms?

These are words denoting species concepts. For example: “pear”, “apple”, “apricot”, “pineapple” are hyponyms of the hypernym “fruit”. And a hypernym is a word denoting a generic concept (in this case – “fruit”).

• • Finally, another extremely important stage: removing unnecessary words and phrases. Here, the optimizer is guided by which query directly "leads" to the product/service.

• • Semantic core grouping – at this final stage, the key terms are combined words in relevant groups.

• Finalizing the structure of the entire site.

To create a successful semantic core, in addition to hard work, a high level of linguistic culture, perfect spelling in the respective language included in the site, logical and forward-looking thinking, insight into the psychology of the end target user and – last but not least – patience are also necessary. Copywriting services, together with optimization, should represent a combination of these factors in order for a site to gain top positions in search.