One of the fastest growing areas of SEO and content strategy is comprehensive, holistic topic coverage for blogs and websites. Google’s Hummingbird filter has changed how content is ranked. Keywords don’t matter anymore. It's all about semantic search. Leveraging semantic associations throughout your site can boost your rankings (a lot!) Problems occur when website and blog content become too broad and diverge from overarching themes. There are very few products outside enterprise software which can help users to find topic gaps and avoid this so-called "topic creep." Data analyst extraordinaire, Eric Van Buskirk demonstrates how to do topic research for your blogs and websites by using several tools within the SEMrush interface.

1. FIND 'EM AND FILL 'EM:
SEMRUSH FOR TOPIC GAP ANALYSIS
IN GOOGLE-SPEAK, WE NEED “GOOD CONTENT,” A VAGUE AND
SUBJECTIVE YARDSTICK. WHAT IS “GOOD CONTENT?” IT’S WHAT THEY
SAY, AND OFTEN AT ODDS WITH MARKETERS’ COMMON SENSE.

2. @radioms
Michael Stricker
U.S. Marketing Director, SEMrush
• Leading digital marketing tool for competitive research
• Agency, sales support and digital marketing consultant
• 100s of successful campaigns 1,000,000s of impressions
• Speaker: ClickZ Live, HEROconf, Etail, SMX East.
• Author: blogs CIO.com, Business2Community, SEMrush.com
• Consulted: Enterprise Brands; 2Modern, AeroPostale, BET,
GolfSmith, HomeFirst, RedCats, RE/MAX, The-House, Toshiba
@radioms #SEMrushLive

3. @radioms
Eric Van Buskirk
Digital Media Data Analyst, Clickstream
• Independent consultant: SEO and content Strategy.
• Run TweetPhiladelphia.com to host free and full version
SEMrush API tools.
• Regular contributor for Search Engine Journal
Contributor.
• Recent alum of SEMrush.
• Digital experience started 1996, MS from BU College of
Communications.
@radioms #SEMrushLive

4. Co-occurrence research
 One to many comparisons: only tells “related”
 Many to many: scores degrees of relatedness or association: parent
topic to children topics.
 Most actionable use: find degrees of relationship for topics and
keyword phrases
 “keyword” & “keyword phrases” are popular SEO terms. “Topic” or
“entity” are popular when discussing semantic relationships.
Eric Van Buskirk: TweetPhiladelphia.com

6. Search Metrics Annual Ranking
Factors and Rank Correlations —
Google U.S. — August, 2015
1. CONTENT
• The content of the top 30 pages has become more extensive…
• At the same time, the content has become more holistic…relevant terms has
increased.
• The importance of keywords in internal and external links has declined.
• Pages with the most relevant content for a search query are
very likely to rank better.
• Keywords are a natural part of content but are not
significant without relevant content and a logical context.
• Relevance and text length often go hand in hand. It is a good idea to write
longer texts, whereby the sub-topics mentioned must also

9. The Problem With Related Keyword
Tools
 Rel on SEO or content strategist’s existing, subjective
topic knowledge.
 Ordered by metrics that don’t help (RE: Volume).
Not based on “machine language learning.”
 Google keyword Planner: mostly phrase match
 Not showing strength of relationship
Eric@TweetPhiladelphia.com

10. Example of Related Keywords Tool
Eric@TweetPhiladelphia.com

11. Trying to Boil the Ocean!

12. Co-Occurring Phrases: Your solution
Find Most Authoritative Pages From Searches of Your Parent Topic
• Beauty of finding “co-occurring” phrases is most other phrases do not
appear more than a couple times and are thrown out.
• They are very distant in association and we know not to focus on them.

13. Tools For Source Information
• Required: rank-tracks huge numbers of most popular
keyword phrases to find “others” ranking from same
page/URL.
• Inexpensive: SEMrush. Enterprise (over $3000 per month)-
Search Metrics, Conductor, or BrightEdge

14. Xbox as parent topic example
• Xbox.com is obviously super authoritative– homepage also ranks #1 in the SERP.
• From multiple instances of other, related phrases ranked from the www.Xbox.com
page, find more examples of semantic relevance
• Use the Wikipedia URL and get list of related keywords ranking from same page to
download.
• Use excel formula to see how many occurrences of phrases/topics
• Other ranking phrases are relevant, otherwise Google wouldn’t send traffic
• Consider outsourcing data entry or fiverr

15. Other phrases (topics) Found
Ranking From Same webpage

16. Ordered list showing number of
appearances
Proximity to core theme or entity
6 or 7 of 10 pages/URLs (very high) Mis-spelled or synonym: “Xbos,” for
example
3-5 of 10 (high to mid) Two-Three word phrases, not
synonyms, great for topics
1 or 2 (low) Very few occurrences. Could be
random.

17. Comparing Occurrences
This example is from 25 URLs used to find co-occurrences!
You can use as few as five
Eric Van Buskirk: eric@TweetPhiladelphia.com

18. Fill Gaps
Games
Release
Video
Best
Deals
Topic is Covered!
Sale
Price
Live
Review
Console
Results from our data
Words from our example website. Where are the gaps?

19. Traditional Keyword Research
 Organic Competitors
 How much page authority and link equity for
competitors?
 Search Volume
 How competitive are keywords?
 CPC of phrases=value
Eric Van Buskirk: eric@TweetPhiladelphia.com

20. Applying Traditional Keyword
Research Techniques
Eric Van Buskirk: TweetPhiladelphia.com

21. Content Guide Using Topics
and Keyword Research
Page Primary Keywords Comments How to use keywords
http://www.breathingcolor.com/blog/how-to-create-camera-profiles-using-the-
colorchecker-passport-with-adobe-cs5/
Goal: improve, currently ranks #10 for colorchecker passport
Xrite - not
mentioned? Need to
mention unless good
reason not to
update, and info from
HTTPS://WWW.XRITE.
COM/1234
gretagmacbeth
colorchecker
forums.adobe.com/t
hread/abc Update to post
Page
Secondary
Keywords
How to use
keywords
x-rite checker new content block
color profile new content block
accurate color add to current text
colorchecker passport alt-img
Eric Van Buskirk: eric@TweetPhiladelphia.com

22. SEMrush’s Position Tracker: Get around
Google Analytics’ dreaded not provided
1St step: Google Shows keyword ranking: Put in SEMrush Position Tracker
Eric Van Buskirk: eric@TweetPhiladelphia.com

23. Are your highest ranked pages
topically related?
Eric Van Buskirk: TweetPhiladelphia.com

24. Side by side: GOOG vs. SEMrush rank tracking
SEMrush is always 100% accurate on positions and landing
pages

26.  The recent film EX_Machina portrayed an artificial intelligence
robot with it’s machine learning coming from a “search engine”
(thinly disguised, and implied as Google). We are talking and
speaking with devices more and more. In five years, the
“conversation” will approach real AI. Are you scared or excited?
Eric Van Buskirk: eric@TweetPhiladelphia.com

27. POLL!
Eric Van Buskirk
@ericvanbuskirk
Michael Stricker
@radioms
@radioms #SEMrushLive

28. QUESTIONS?
Eric Van Buskirk
@ericvanbuskirk
Michael Stricker
@radioms
@radioms #SEMrushLive

29. THANK YOU!
Eric Van Buskirk
@ericvanbuskirk
Michael Stricker
@radioms
@radioms #SEMrushLive