Simple semantic SEO guideline that improves content quality

One simple semantic SEO guideline that can drastically improve your content quality is deciding how to better answer questions in your content.

There could be hundreds of ways to answer the same question.

In some cases a writer may compromise content quality by chasing creativity and engagement in the content. Let’s take an example of an answer to a question.

Question: What is the distance between the Moon and the Earth?
Answer: It’s interesting how humans have always looked up at the night sky wondering about our place in the universe. The Moon, our closest celestial neighbor has inspired myths, guided calendars and even influenced tides. The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is approximately X kilometers.

Now, take another example of answering the same question

Question: What is the distance between the Moon and the Earth?
The distance between the Moon and the Earth ranges from X km (Y miles) to Y km (Z miles). On average, the Moon is about X km (Y miles) away. This variation in distance is due to the elliptical shape of the Moon’s orbit which causes the distance to vary at different points in its orbit.

While auditing both answers, I would endorse the second answer as the better one.

Here’s why:

• It starts with a direct answer to the question which is more helpful for users.
• The first sentence structure aligns with the sentence structure of the question.
• More numbers are included in the answer.
• The answer contains more units of kilometers and miles (in other words, more relevant entities).
• The first part of the answer provides the exact answer and the second part expands on the facts mentioned before.
• The answer includes a range which helps the content staying in safe zone of truth ranges.
• The writing style and the way of adding facts align with the search engine’s goal to avoid the embarrassment factor related to searchers.

Approaching writing with these semantic guidelines and principles helps optimize the content for search engines while also making it more helpful for users.

The result is an increase in content quality and more chances to overcome the quality thresholds of targeted queries.