Google doesn’t depend on keywords alone to understand what a page is about nowadays. Ever since the 2019 BERT algorithm rolled out, Google has focused on learning more about the on-page content through NLP (Natural Language Processing). Hence its time you optimise content with NLP at the forte!

Here’s how you can do it.

  • Answer Very Precise Questions

NLP is looking to get as close to the answer to a user’s question as possible. So the algorithm entails searching for the exact word-for-word questions.

For example, if a local nursery wants to boost traffic to their site, they can try getting into the featured snippet section. To do this, anticipate and answer a host of precise, naturally occurring questions regarding plants like Why won’t my poppies bloom? Why are the tips of my gladioli turning brown? How much water does a pomegranate need?

See how concise yet pin-pointed these questions are?

That’s because people are searching for questions like this, and if Google knows you’ve got the answer, they’ll feature your site. Hence, to optimise content with NLP, write content with much nuanced questions.

  • Try Not to Flub

When you optimise content for natural language processing, the less, the better; so consider answering questions to the point and accurate. Don’t fabricate, don’t flub and back your answers up with relevant data. If you can start the answer with the words of the question, you are one step ahead of the crowd.

Once you are done answering the question, you can entice readers to enter your portal by hooking them with another pain-point.

  • Use Conversational Keywords to Optimise Content with NLP

Since people are searching a lot on voice search, there’s a new class of long-tail keywords that have come up that are very conversational.

For example, “Where can I find a new bag?” or “Where do I go out to eat?”. Since these questions are quite long tail, you need to have optimised your content for the same.

Try to frame your keywords as questions you would ask in the course of a conversation with a friend. Thanks to NLP, Google has started to look for the most relevant answers to people’s queries. So if you’ve got content that makes the cut, you’re likely to rank in SERPs.

  • Avoid Writing Positively “Keyword-ese” Content

Google came up with the term “keyword-ese” to describe those content pieces that were built mainly for search engines and not for the reader.

In SEO, we optimise content for both the user and the search engine bots. But Google assures us there is no need to condescend our quality for the spiders. They’ve just elevated the bots to reward good writing by boosting the importance of NLP in SEO. So, with Google committed to rewarding exact, relevant, user-friendly and en-pointe content, we’ve got to focus our efforts on creating quality content for the user and not the bots.

  • Stick to the Inverted Pyramid Format to Optimise Local Content For NLP

When you write a piece, make sure the most relevant content is placed at the beginning, followed by detailed explanations below. Include different headings and subheadings to break up the content into little blocks. This is because to optimise content with NLP, there should be a high correlation between headings and text.

With these methods to optimise content with NLP, you can concentrate on providing the user with accurate and relevant information.

To sum up, Google wants to reward useful content since that’s how they gain. If you’re providing high quality content, just tailor it for natural language and not “keyword-ese”!