How to Compose a Semantic Kernel

Semantic Kernel: What is It?

SEO specialists considering “semantic kernel” as their field of action are actually wrong. Philologists also use it. By the way, the word “field” is mentioned here for a reason, we will talk about it later.

Semantic Kernel in SEO

Website semantic kernel is a list of keywords, by which people will find your web resource.

What is website semantic kernel needed for? It’s a very important affair, which lets:

• estimate search engines promotion cost;
• compose certain webpages using specific keywords;
• configure website structure (sitemap);
• denote the sphere, in which your website will work out.

We’ll talk about the ways of composing semantic kernel in the next article. For example, one of the methods mentioned in the article “What does copywriter need SEO for?” is using Google Keyword Planner service. One more semantics selection service for Russian-speaking audience is Yandex.Wordstat. Its peculiarity is that alongside with queries e.g. connected with this article topic (“text semantic kernel”, “kernel of semantic field”) there is a section “What else did people searching “semantic kernel” look for?”. We’ll see queries “lexicology” and “semantics” there. These two words are philology terms.

Semantic Kernel in Philology

Philologists have studied semantic fields (semantic field has its kernel and periphery) since the end of XIX century. Semantics is a science studying words meaning and relations between them. A vast number of proceedings in this topic is written (Eugenio Coșeriu, Boris Gorodetskiy and others). It is reputed that prototypes of Google and Yandex keywords selection services are thesauri.

Step-by-step manual on semantic kernel composition

It is not enough just to compose the semantic kernel. It must be regularly updated…something may need to be added and/or something may need to be removed. It is a hot topic for commercial websites. For instance, equipment models become obsolete very quickly, new products appear, and all these changes must be reflected in the semantic kernel.

Thus, here is a step-by-step manual on semantic kernel composition.

1. Collecting queries from all possible sources:

a) Keyword statistics: Google Ads Keyword Planner

b) Keyword databases, related software (keybooster, liveinternet and similar, Key Collector, etc.). I know true Pastukhov database fans, who only use it while composing semantic kernel, not taking into account other possibilities described below

с) Entering keywords exported from Google Analytics and other web analytics tools. It’s possible if you already have your website. By the way, I gather topics for new articles from the statistics.

d) Monitoring competitors’ visibility by promoted queries (Alexa, SimilarWeb, SemRush, Moz).

2. Specifying regional attribute and query frequency; estimating seasonal popularity; evaluating links budget by keywords (adwords.google.com will help us here).
3. Clustering gathered keywords (queries).
4. Creating landing pages for selected keywords.
5. Not forgetting to make sure that users go to the landing page by the query you considered to be the most relevant. In other words, correlating queries with landing pages.

I’m often asked this question:

How many and which keywords are needed for a website’s main page, and how many and which ones are needed for single pages?

Depending on your web resource subject matter, numbers may vary.

Let’s think: Can your website main page “sell”? If the answer is “no”, then put emphasis on the inner pages of your site. I promote the main page of my site by 15 queries.

For single pages I choose 2-3 mid-frequent queries.