What is a semantic cocoon structure?
The semantic cocoon structure consists of organizing the content of your website into different categories and subcategories, which allows Google's crawlers to easily determine the relevance of each article on your blog based on your keywords (or topics).
In simpler terms, semantic cocoons are essentially a way to separate your blog content into multiple categories.
This is one of the best examples of semantic cocoon structures.
As you can see above, the home page contains “pillar pages” (you can also think of these as MAIN categories on your blog).
These categories are then separated into “sections” where your readers can find relevant content on a particular topic (for example, WordPress). Your sections are then separated into posts where you provide blog posts and content for that particular topic.
Would you like to see a concrete example of a semantic cocoon? I'm going to show you how I use the semantic cocoon structure (so you can get an idea).
Here is an example of a semantic cocoon:
- Create a blog (which leads to a detailed tutorial where you can learn how to start a blog)
- Increase traffic (which leads to a unbiased Semrush review, the first SEO tool)
- Categories (blogging, SEO, making money online, WordPress, hosting, etc.)
- “About” page
If you look closely at the categories section, you'll notice that some of the semantic cocoons have deeper posts (for example, the SEO category has SEO tools, link building as subcategories).
This means that, for the most important categories, I divided them into sub-categories to create a deep semantic cocoon content structure for our website. When you click on one of them, you'll find all of the blog posts in that section.
Let's see what the “link building” sub-category looks like in the SEO category.
As you can see above, you'll find a ton of posts in the “link building” section, where you'll ONLY find exclusive content related to link building.
Examples of semantic cocoon structures
So far, I've seen how I've created a semantic cocoon content structure for this site.
Now let's talk about a few more concrete examples of websites that use semantic cocoon structures to improve SEO.
1. Search Engine Land.
First, let's talk about the first example of a semantic cocoon, that of the popular SEO blog Search Engine Land. Because the SEL blog is run by SEO experts, they know what they're doing and their website's semantic cocoon structure includes a ton of SEO-related categories.
This is what the semantic cocoon of Search Engine Land looks like;
As you can see above, you'll find a ton of categories (semantic cocoons) ranging from SEO to PPC to Webinars and so on. When you click on these categories, you will find all the relevant articles and news related to that particular category.
One doesn't wonder why their website gets Google links for these categories. Have a look at it.
As you can see above, most of their semantic cocoons (categories) that are displayed at the level of their website also appear in Google site links. This is the whole point of properly structuring a website using semantic cocoons with relevant categories.
2. Smart Passive Income.
Let's take another example of a semantic cocoon perfectly implemented on a website.
If you're interested in affiliate marketing, you might have already heard of affiliate marketing guru Pat Flynn. He runs the #1 blog of the affiliate marketing termed Smart Passive Income.
This is what the semantic cocoon of intelligent passive income looks like;
As you can see above, Pat uses multiple categories to address her target audience, from beginners to advanced marketers.
Additionally, Pat Flynn at Smart Passive Income did a great job creating in-depth content (deeper semantic cocoons) for important categories (or primary semantic topics or cocoon) on his blog.
When you click on the “Affiliate Marketing” category on their blog, you'll be taken to a page where you'll find a ton of relevant chapters on affiliate marketing.
Here's what it looks like;
Do you see that? Pat Flynn knows what he's doing. Not only does it help its target audience to: Learn more about affiliate marketing, but it also creates a deep semantic cocoon around the primary semantic cocoon “affiliate marketing.”
What are the advantages of using semantic cocoons?
So why bother implementing a semantic cocoon architecture for your websites? Are there advantages to using semantic cocoons in 2022? Yes, there are several, including the following.
Helps improve engagement and ease of access
Semantic cocoons primarily help you in two areas: information architecture (AI), which involves organizing your content in a way that provides a better user experience (UX), and SEO, which consists of organizing content in the right way in order to facilitate exploration by search engine robots.
Helps to achieve a better organic ranking
The #1 reason why most bloggers and SEO experts implement semantic cocoon content structures on their websites is to improve their search engine rankings.
Does the semantic cocoon help you get a better ranking in search engines?
Yes, that is certainly the case. You organize the content on your website so that search robots better understand the content on your site, which helps them to rank your pages.
Semantic cocoons are eternal
Semantic cocoons did not appear all of a sudden, in fact, they have been present in the blogosphere for a long time now.
Since the introduction of the latest Google updates and Google's tilt towards better UX, more and more bloggers are implementing semantic cocoons to improve the SEO of their site.
How to set up semantic cocoons on your WordPress site?
Now I come to the main question: how to set up semantic cocoons on your website to improve its architecture?
Let's start at the beginning. Determine your main semantic cocoons. For example, if you have a blog that is mainly about digital marketing, your main semantic cocoon will be “Digital Marketing.”
Now you need to define your categories under your theme (in our case, “digital marketing”) and these categories can generally be divided into two;
- Email marketing
- Content marketing
- SEO
- Social networks, etc.
Once you have finished selecting categories, you can divide your categories into sub-categories (although this is optional and not required for each category). By dividing your categories into subcategories, you create a deep semantic cocoon structure that gives you more power and authority to build a properly organized website.
In the example above, let's say you want to create subcategories for the main “SEO” category, it can be divided as follows (this step is optional);
- Paid ads (PPC ads)
- SEO plugins (where you can only cover SEO plugins)
- Technical SEO (only technical aspects of SEO such as site audits, the creation of semantic cocoons, etc.)
Do you get it?
Once the above semantic cocoons are defined, you can easily insert your new blog posts into the appropriate categories for a better structure of the semantic cocoon content.
Basically, the semantic cocoon content structure of a properly organized website includes the following most important elements.
- Keyword research
- Organize your content hierarchically (based on your target keywords)
- Strengthen the structure of your website by various means (such as setting up categories, menus, breadcrumbs, links between internal articles, URL structure, etc.)
Let's talk briefly about the above items so that you can implement semantic cocoons for your website in the right way in 2022 and beyond.
1. Define your keyword strategy
Why should you worry about keyword research when creating your website?
That's a great question to start with. You need to know what keywords you want to target before you can create your semantic cocoons around these keywords. It is impossible to set up a semantic cocoon structure without first defining your keyword strategy.
So be sure to determine what type of keywords you are going to target with your blog or website in the long term. In this way, you can easily create and organize the entire structure of your website.
If you're wondering how to create a solid keyword strategy for your website, there are some great tips for you.
Make a list of starting keywords: If you want to partition your website for a few topics, you first need to come up with some basic keyword ideas. Booster keywords can be thought of as primary topics or keyword phrases that define the overall “content structure” of your website.
You need to define your target audience, discover their wants and needs, and be sure to brainstorm ideas for topics around them to come up with a ton of useful keyword ideas for your website.
Target uncompetitive keywords
You can't rank for a competitive keyword like “fitness,” especially if you're building a new website that barely has authoritative backlinks. So there's no need to create a separate page or category by targeting the keyword “fitness” because you won't get any results.
It's always a good idea to focus on finding keywords that are not very competitive so that you can create groups or categories around them. You can also create pages with low search volume keywords, like “fitness apps for women,” and then start creating highly useful content around that category. This is how you can get better results and attract targeted visitors to your site from search engines.
2. Use the right SEO tools
To do a thorough keyword analysis, you need to have access to the right SEO tools. Although there are a ton of tools out there that provide you with exceptional keyword data.
Semrush.
Semrush is the #1 SEO tool in the world that is used by over 7 million people worldwide and it's also the same tool that I've been using for over 6 years now. It provides you with exceptional keyword analysis data, no matter what niche you are in.
It not only helps you with keyword research, but you can also use it for competitive analysis, backlink audits, site audits, page optimization, etc. If you are looking for a free trial of the Semrush tool, use the following link.
SpyFu.
It's another amazing tool that can be used for both keyword research and competitive analysis. It costs you less (pricing plans start at just $33 per month) but offers you a wide range of features. You can read our SpyFu reviews to learn more about its features, pros, cons, and more.
Ubersuggest.
The tools mentioned above are premium while Ubersuggest is a free tool used for keyword research, which is managed by SEO expert Neil Patel.
You can read our Ubersuggest reviews to learn more about its features, pros, cons, and more.
3. Organize your content hierarchically
In the previous step, I talked about keyword strategy, now let's talk about organizing your content around these keywords. You need to establish a high-level information architecture based on your target keywords.
What if you already have existing content? What if you already have a website with a ton of blog posts and want to set up semantic cocoons?
If you have existing content, you simply need to review all of your content and make a decision;
- What blog posts to keep
- Which blog posts or pages to update
- Which blog posts should I delete or use 301 redirects?
The key here is to remove and use the 301 redirect for every blog post or page that has thin content or is no longer relevant to your target market.
Make sure to reduce the size of your blog content so that you can organize it more easily. For example, I had about 1000 blog posts that are already online, but now I only index 500 pages on Google search.
Do you know why? I decided that the remaining pages or blog posts weren't helping me at all, especially in terms of traffic, sales, or conversions. So I've either updated them or removed them (and redirected) them to other existing pages that work well.
That's how I cleaned up a ton of blog content and didn't notice a drop in traffic.
For new content (blog posts or topics you want to cover in the future), be sure to create specific categories that relate to your content. And be sure to create in-depth content to rank highly in search engines.
Find a target keyword for every post or page you create on your blog. It's best to target long-tail keywords with low search volume if you really want to get better search engine results.
4. Strengthen the structure of your website
Strengthen the structure of your website by various means, including the following;
- Implementation of categories
- menus
- Breadcrumbs
- Create links to other people's internal posts
- URL structure, etc.
Here's how you can get started.
5. Use pages to create semantic cocoons
Use pages instead of blog posts to structure your site hierarchically. So, you can easily define a parent page for each section, giving you the ability to create the structure of your website in a hierarchical manner.
Just be careful NOT to create too many pages for your semantic cocoons, otherwise it will be very difficult for you to manage these elements. There are themes like Genesis that give you easy options for managing your pages and navigation, otherwise keep it simple by creating only the essential pages.
6. Use breadcrumbs
A breadcrumb can be thought of as a secondary navigation system that shows the user's location within a website.
If you look at my blog, I use breadcrumbs. Here's what they look like;
As you can see above, I am implementing breadcrumbs at the article level for two main reasons.
- For one thing, people can easily navigate to the relevant category or section to find (in the example above, the SEO tools section) similar blog posts.
- In other words, search robots easily understand the content of the page.
Simply put, breadcrumbs help your website visitors follow their path from the page they are currently viewing to your site's home page.
If you use WordPress and want to set up breadcrumbs on your site for better navigation, you can install and activate this plugin.
7. Optimizing your URL structure
Your URL structure plays an essential role in optimizing your content and improving the overall SEO of your site. So keep it simple.
WordPress offers you an option for the URL structure that looks like this;
/%category%/%postname%/
To be able to make such changes, simply go to the WordPress dashboard, click Settings > Permalinks, and select Custom Structure, enter /%category%/%postname%/, and save. You are done.
You can also avoid using the category name if you want an even shorter version of your site's URL structure. In this case, only the title of your blog post will be displayed next to your domain name.
8. Use menus
Almost all professional WordPress users use menus to display their main pages like “Who We Are,” “Contact,” “Email Landing Pages,” “Portfolios,” etc. Whether you know it or not, menus are extremely important, as they are the main navigation links to your semantic top-level cocoons.
It's extremely easy to create menus in WordPress (assuming your WordPress theme supports the Menu function). Simply go to the WordPress dashboard > Appearance > Menus and configure the menu to include semantic first-level cocoons on your website.
9. Learn to build relationships like a pro
Interconnection is extremely important as it helps you get better rankings. If you're wondering what interconnection is, it's the process by which your blog post or page contains links to other relevant articles on your site.
When someone clicks on it, they are redirected to another similar article on your site. This not only improves user engagement and session duration on your site, but also promotes in-depth exploration of your site by search robots.
consultancy : If you don't know how to intelligently create links between your articles (interlinking is more difficult especially when you have too much content on your site), start using the premium version of Yoast SEO because it recommends highly relevant internal links when creating a blog post.
Important things to remember when creating semantic SEO cocoons
Here are some important things to remember when siloing your website content to improve your overall SEO.
1. Don't create articles that don't match your semantic cocoons
The first mistake most people make after creating a semantic cocoon structure for their site is publishing new topics or blog post ideas that have absolutely nothing to do with the categories (or semantic cocoons) they created on their site.
If you really need to create new blog posts or topics about new semantic cocoons, be sure to create a new category and publish them under that category.
2. Review your published articles
You may have already published a large number of articles under different categories.
If you use more than one category for an article, deselect them and associate them with a single category that is relevant to the subject of your article.
3. Focus on content quality and relevance
SEO evolves almost every year, but two elements are growing in popularity: “content quality” and “relevance.”
Regardless of what niche you're in, if you want to rank higher, you need to create high-quality content that's relevant to your website themes.
That's where silos come into play. Make good use of it and you will see an improvement in your search engine rankings.
4. Create links to articles, not to categories
Interconnection is very important and you should include links to your internal articles whenever necessary.
But don't make the mistake of creating links to your categories, which are useless. Create links to relevant articles so your audience can read one article at a time.
It also makes it possible to transmit link juice to a particular page rather than to a category full of messages.
Summary.
As I often say “SEO is a huge ocean” that is constantly changing. You need to adapt to the latest changes to get better rankings.
While silos are not new and have been practiced by many SEOs for a long time, it is still essential if you want to achieve better organic rankings.
I've tried to find out almost all the important things you need to know about creating a semantic cocoon content structure to improve your site's SEO. If you still have questions, feel free to let me know in the comments.
FAQ - Semantic cocoons.
Here is a list of some important questions you need to know about the semantic cocoon of your website for better SEO in 2022 and beyond.
What are semantic cocoons in SEO?
What is the semantic cocoon structure? The semantic cocoon defines how your website should be structured (usually hierarchically).
In the field of SEO, semantic cocoons consist of dividing the content of your website into several categories and subcategories, these groupings being called semantic cocoons.
A semantic cocoon for a website is similar to a book with a table of contents.
All relevant chapters are nicely organized in the form of a table of contents in a book.
Likewise, a semantic cocoon helps you organize the content of your website in a hierarchical manner and allows visitors and search engines to better understand the content of your site.
How do I find powerful semantic cocoon ideas to implement on my website?
The key here is to determine what topics you want to include on your website so that you can do a thorough keyword research.
In this way, you can easily divide your website content into multiple categories to create powerful semantic cocoons. Opt for subcategories if necessary.
How many semantic cocoons can I create for a WordPress site?
There is no limit. It's just that there's no limit to the number of categories or pages you want to create on your website. You can create as many semantic cocoons as you want. But if you're just starting out with a new site, it's best to create only 2 or 3 semantic cocoons (categories) and create several relevant subcategories around them.
Let's say you have a blog about marketing.
Instead of creating a ton of semantic cocoons and categories, first divide your main topics into 2 or 3 categories, for example;
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
- Content marketing
Then, create highly informative and in-depth content for each category. Be sure to include at least 5 to 10 in-depth articles for each category. Then, consider adding more semantic cocoons and categories as you grow. It is as simple as that.
You might also consider creating subcategories for each of your categories if you have a ton of blog post ideas or content ideas for those categories.
Should I create backlinks to my pages in my semantic cocoon?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, it's better to start creating backlinks to the pages in your semantic cocoon that you think are really important rather than creating links only to your home page.
By building links only to your home page, you increase your domain ranking, but if you start building quality relationships to your inner pages, theYour domain's overall authority increases as well as the ranking of your pages in a semantic cocoon.
Next time, when using various link building methods, like publishing guest posts, raising awareness among bloggers, etc., instead of providing links to your home page, create links to the pages in your inner semantic cocoon.
Can we create sub-categories to turn them into semantic sub-cocoons?
Yes, you can create semantic sub-cocoons by including sub-categories that you can implement by dividing the pillars of your blog. If you are reading this blog, I have divided the pillars of SEO, for example, into several semantic sub-cocoons such as the acquisition of backlinks or the best SEO software.
Just be sure to create semantic sub-cocoons by dividing your categories into sub-categories only when you have too much content. Or if you're planning on publishing a ton of new blog posts in this particular category in the long term.
