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# Why should your website site search be semantic?

AB

Akshaya Balasubramaniyan

Content Writer, Keyspider

December 2022

9 min read

Semantic search is the next big thing that will help your website rank higher and help customers find what they are looking for with ease. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of any website’s success. It can help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and gain more organic traffic from potential customers, but it only works if you have the right SEO tools in place. One such tool is semantic search, which uses natural language processing to understand what users mean when they search for specific terms on your site.

What is semantic search?

Semantic search is a type of search that uses natural language processing to interpret the meaning of the words in a query. Semantic search is the ability to understand the meaning of content and relationships between words, sentences, and paragraphs. It's about providing users with more relevant information based on their queries.

Semantic search leverages machine learning techniques to understand the intent and context behind a user's search query and return results that are relevant to the user's specific needs. While this type of search can be helpful for some websites, it is not a requirement for all websites.

The main purpose behind this technology is to make it easier for users to find what they're looking for — even if it's not explicitly listed on their page. This makes it all the easier for website visitors to navigate toward what they want quickly.

Why understanding customer intent of search is important?

Understanding customer intent is the key to improving your website's search engine rankings. It's important because it helps you understand what the customer wants to achieve and how they can best achieve their goals.

If a user enters a keyword into your internal site search engine, they're not necessarily looking for something that's on your site—they may be searching for an alternative solution or an idea of what they'd like to get from you. With semantic search possibilities, your search plugin will understand what they’re exactly looking for and what results would be more relevant to peak their interest levels.

The use of the right technology can have a significant impact on the user experience and website performance. The main reason why it’s important to think about semantic search is that it helps improve the user experience by providing useful information more intuitively, as well as making sure that your content is always up-to-date.

How to leverage the power of the knowledge graph?

A knowledge Graph is a structured data type that can be used to represent relationships between entities, entities, attributes, or even individual objects.

The goal of knowledge graphs is to enable search engines to understand your website's content better by providing them with rich information about each page on your site. This allows them to better understand what you're trying to say when people search for information using keywords related to those pages.

This means that instead of just showing results from all over the website, an effective search plugin in place will provide links only relevant based on their understanding of what the searcher meant when they typed in those terms into the site search bar (or equivalent).

How does semantic search work?

Semantic search is a way to search for information on the web. It uses words and phrases in the same way that humans do, rather than using keywords or other Boolean logic. For example:

• "how to avail of a web development services" (the meaning of this phrase)

• "web development packages" (the structure)

• "how long will it take for website development" (context)

Use cases and benefits of semantic search for enterprise websites

Semantic search can be used to find information, documents, files, people and groups, products, and services. It can also be used to find news and events.

For example: If you have a company website with a page that contains the following text: "We provide industrial maintenance services at competitive rates." Then your user may type in the query "industrial maintenance" (without quotation marks) into your Site Search Engine and get results that are relevant to that particular service along with everything you have listed about it.

Use cases and benefits of semantic search for media and publishing

A semantic search is a powerful tool for media and publishing. It can help users find the right content for their needs, whether it be news articles or blog posts. Semantic search also enables you to target your audience based on specific interests, location, and behavior. The ability to personalize these searches will make your site more relevant for users’ purposes as well as improve click-through rates by increasing the likelihood that someone will click through to see what else you've got available on your site.

For example: If someone searches for "Best restaurants in London", then they'll likely get back results that are relevant to their location (a list of top restaurants in London) rather than just being presented with all results from across Europe (which might include some irrelevant information).

Use cases and benefits of semantic search for travel

Semantic search is important for travel websites because it helps to improve the user experience and the quality of results.

• It improves the user experience by providing relevant answers in less time.

• It reduces costs as you don't have to pay for additional conversion campaigns

• It reduces time spent on finding answers on your website, which means lower bounce rates and higher conversion rates from visitors who find what they were looking for without having to leave your site first (or any other).

Why is your website search must be semantic?

• Better search results: Search will be more relevant and less time spent on searches.

• More accurate ranking of search results: This makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for, especially when there are many similar or related sites in the same category as your site.

• Better user experience: Because semantic content is easier to navigate, users will feel less frustrated when trying to find the content they want.

• More accurate & relevant recommendations: When a user searches for something specific (however big or small), you can gain an edge over competitors by providing them with recommendations based on their previous visits and browsing history.

Finding the right search plugin with semantic search

To find the right search plugin , you need to understand what it is. A search plugin is a software add-on that adds more functionality to your website’s existing functionality. KeySpider uses advanced AI-ML algorithms to deploy advanced search result listings that are performance-driven.

Why should you care?

It’s important because semantic search helps users find exactly what they are looking for on your site by using descriptive keywords. This means that when a user visits your site, they can type in their query into a browser window and see results based on their criteria rather than just seeing generic results from any old search engine algorithms.

There are many different approaches to implementing search on a website, and the choice of approach will depend on the specific needs and goals of the website. Some websites may benefit from using semantic search, while others may be better served by a more simple keyword-based search approach.

Ultimately, the best approach would be to deploy an effective search depending on the specific needs of the website and its users.

So, what to look for in a site search plugin?

1. 1 Relevancy

Relevancy is the most important feature of a site search plugin. It's not just about matching keywords, it's about understanding customer intent, and how that relates to both your product or service and their needs.

- Contextual search

A contextual search plugin will allow you to search by location, time, and category. For example, if you are looking for a restaurant in your area that serves breakfast on weekends and sandwiches during the weekdays, a contextual search tool will help narrow down the results.

A good example of this is Yelp! which lets users create their searches based on their personal preferences: “restaurants near me where I can order delivery pizza” or “restaurants near me that serve brunch every Sunday.” Once created these searches can be saved so they appear at any time by simply clicking on them from within the app or website's front page menu bar (if available).

- Intent

Understand the intent of your users. The first step to finding out what people are looking for on your website is to understand their needs and wants, as well as their behavior. If you don't know what they want, how will you know if it exists? You need to be able to see through a user's eyes—the user's intent—to determine whether or not something is missing from the product or service that can be added to help make them more satisfied with your site experience.

To do this effectively, you need a plugin that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) technology like Natural Language Processing (NLP) or Machine Learning algorithms.

- Conversion

Conversion is the ultimate goal of a site search plugin. It can be defined as a purchase, signup, download, or any other action that is valuable to your business. Conversion isn't the same as search relevancy. You have to have both before you can turn on conversion tracking in your plugin!

- AI-ML algorithms

AI-ML algorithms are used to improve search relevancy. They can be used to understand customer intent, enhance conversion possibilities and reduce the number of clicks on irrelevant results.

Site search plugins need more than a keyword search.

You can use a site search plugin to help you find relevant content on your website, but they also need to be able to provide contextually relevant results that are useful for your customers and visitors.

Site search plugins need to understand customer intent: What do people want? How can we help them find that? The best way we've found is through machine learning (ML) algorithms that are rigged to present the right results at the right time.

Site search plugins need to now focus on providing deeper search functionality, including contextual analysis and intent. They also need to take advantage of machine learning algorithms. We are still in the early days of AI-ML, but there's no doubt that it will play a large role in how webmasters use these features moving forward. Realizing all this, the Keyspider team has developed a plugin that is effectively performance-driven.

Sign up for a free trial now to understand how our plugin can redefine your website performance!

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