This is the first post in a project that I spent a long time defining in my head. In it, we'll talk about the relationship between structured data and SEO , and how to make your website more semantic .

This blog will be about a subject I'm passionate about: Semantic SEO . Here
I will write articles and posts about my research , opinions, and findings on the website optimization , the kind that uses studies in semantics , Artificial Intelligence , Ontologies , Linked Data, and data-driven Results
Analysis And in this first post I will talk about:

Here I will write articles and posts about my research, opinions, and findings on advanced website optimization, the kind that uses studies in semantics, Artificial Intelligence, Ontologies, Linked Data, and data-driven Results Analysis.

And in this first post I will talk about:

The role of structured data in SEO.

Before we begin discussing a change that altered how we search for information on the web Google 's shift from a search to an answers platform.

From keywords to entities

I don't want to talk again about the history of Google, about how it transitioned from a mechanism that gathered thousands of blue links on a page to a platform that uses artificial intelligence , combining open machine learning research with systems engineering and high-scale computing resources to generate answers to all the world's questions.

In the previous scenario, when search engines delivered a page with 10 links at a time, the importance of having the right keywords on the right pages was enormous. Get the word count right and reach the top positions. Even without delivering good content to people.

That has changed.

Today, the content you create needs much more to appear in search results and, moreover, to keep people on your website. And this is where keyword replacements come in : entities.

Current search engines are, we might say, dependent on structured data markup schemes to display rich snippets in their search results. It may seem easy to mark up any type of data, but most markup is limited to certain content types, such as recipes, physical businesses, articles, videos, and others.

What is an entity and what is its relationship to SEO?

In Semantic Web , an entity is the "thing" described in a document .

An entity helps computers understand everything you know about a person, organization, or place mentioned in an online . All these facts are organized into statements known as triples, expressed in the form of:

• Subject;
• Predicate;
• Object.

Anyone who works with writing knows exactly what I'm talking about; in fact, a child learns about this in Portuguese class: Subject, Predicate, and Objective.

These three elements together in a sentence give us context , show us what is happening, and give it meaning. In other words, they are semantic!

What is Semantics?

Origin: ETIM fr. sémantique, from gr. * sēmantikḗ fem. substv. from sēmantikós,ḗ,ón 'that indicates, that means'

feminine noun

1. LINGUISTICS : synchronic or diachronic study of meaning as part of the systems of natural languages.
2. LINGUISTICS linguistic system , the component of the meaning of words and the interpretation of sentences and statements.
3. PHILOSOPHY – LOGIC : abstract theory of meaning or of the relationship between signs and their referents (as opposed to syntax and pragmatics), and constituting, together with these, a semiotics.
4. PHILOLOGY : the science that studies the evolution of the meaning of words and other symbols used in human communication.

This is where data structuring comes in.

On the web, data can be understood as any piece of content that you put online, whether on your website, app, or platform.

The data can include the names of your products or services, your headquarters, your managers and departments—in short, everything related to your business.
And the key word is this: relationship.

Structured and related data

The relationship between the data you put online is just as important as the data itself. Without describing the relationship between your headquarters and the managers at each one, what would be the use of this information?

Google doesn't just examine searches related to its pages looking for information about a specific person, place, or thing; it also consults already registered information and analyzes the structured data associated with the page, executing queries based on that data.

But how can you use structured data in your digital projects ?

This means that by using markup of structured data in your online projects, you help search engines understand what you are saying and how it relates to the questions people are asking, greatly increasing the chance that you will be the source for the results.

As soon as you start structuring your data using Schema ( schema.org ), you begin working with relational layers that give meaning to that content.

Studies conducted by the SEO community related to semantic studies have found that Google brings significantly more traffic for long-tail keywords to websites across many different pages that were not being viewed on Google.

This could indicate that something had changed, that Google was crawling something beyond the written text on the pages of your website.

Add structured data to your projects.

Adding structured data to your pages to identify them is something anyone can do. The ease of this process will depend on the content management system you use in your projects.
If you don't use one, you'll need to rely on a professional specializing in data markup (an SEO expert with this knowledge is the best choice).

It's important to find a balance in the use of structured data in your projects. But we'll discuss the relationship between structured data and semantic fields in another post.

It's really tempting to cram more and more information onto a page, turning it into a sort of repository for everything related to a certain subject.
But this adds unnecessary complexity, both for the people reading what you're writing and for the algorithms trying to understand its content.

Perhaps you want to include more information on your pages about entities related to your business, but remember that you need to manage your structured data in a truly accurate way, without straying from the main topic you are discussing.

What I'm saying is that you need to plan the use of structured data the same way you plan your content.

If you emphasize a particular aspect of the content, then you should also mark it up appropriately.

Something relevant to the business should also be taken into consideration when structuring the page. The semantic value of your content is related to the semantic field in which your business operates.

SEO is a strategic approach that should be aligned with your business objectives.