How Natural Language Processing Companies Are Transforming SEO Strategies

Have you ever been searching for something oddly specific when, out of nowhere, Google fills in the last part of your query like a psychic? While it may seem like Google can read minds or a highly improbable coincidence, it’s not — it’s a result of natural language processing (NLP).

In 2019, Google introduced BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) to leverage NLP for an enhanced understanding of human search queries. And if you want to achieve success with SEO, this has significant implications.

NLP is one of the least talked about components of SEO, but it plays an essential role when aiming to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). In fact, some companies are using AI to mass-produce content to stay ahead of the competition, meaning you need to leverage every advantage possible.

Keep reading to find out how.

What is NLP?

In SEO, NLP introduces a deeper level of analysis by taking keywords, backlinking, and metadata and incorporating a vast data set to understand human intent. Instead of scraping data for the sake of it, an NLP algorithm stores significantly more data, allowing the AI to understand the writing better. For instance, keyword stuffing is no longer effective because BERT understands it decreases the overall user experience.

Additionally, NLP is used in SEO in these five areas:

• Query understanding
• Content relevance
• Sentiment analysis
• Semantic search
• Local optimization\

Since NLP is a fundamental part of how Google reads, scrapes, and contextualizes your content, it’s something you should understand and incorporate if ranking is a priority.

How to incorporate NLP into your SEO strategy

Here’s how NLP can be beneficial in the several domains of SEO, including keyword research, competitor analysis, and content creation:

Keyword research

Your keyword research is how you target your ideal audience, and it’s the foundational building block of SEO. Luckily, most keyword research tools automatically incorporate NLP, so you don’t have to think twice about losing out to competitors.

For instance, a tool like SEMrush uses NLP to provide context around your targeted keywords. It goes beyond identifying high-volume search terms by also revealing related phrases and questions that users commonly ask — allowing you to create articles that are highly relevant to your user’s questions. In turn, your article will rank higher.

Another noteworthy tool is Surfer, which uses NLP to fine-tune your keyword optimization strategy by analyzing the top-ranking pages for your chosen keywords. It studies these pages to recommend additional terms to include, helping your content resonate better with both search engines and users.

Unlike other keyword tools that generate a list of keywords and related data, Surfer takes things one step further by actually recommending keywords that are suitable for your website based on authority and topical coverage.

Competitor research

Understanding your competition is crucial for a winning SEO strategy. Tools with NLP capabilities offer more depth in this domain by analyzing what your competitors are doing and how they’re doing it.

For example, a tool like Clearscope uses NLP to perform content gap analysis. It identifies the keywords your competitors are targeting and breaks down their content into a graded format, F through A+. That way, you can incorporate highly relevant keywords into your content that you may not have considered before, allowing you to rank as high as possible on search engines.

Content creation

Creating content that search engines and humans enjoy goes beyond keyword density and meta tags. It’s about understanding user intent and providing value, which is where NLP shines.

Surfer AI (a subset of Surfer) integrates NLP technology with the power of ChatGPT 4 32k to write fully-optimized content for search engine rankings. The tool will generate fully-fledged articles that are optimized for specific keywords based on the topics you input into the AI.

The result?

Articles that require minimal editing with ready-made search engine optimization. Without paying agency or writer fees, you can save hundreds of dollars by automating the entire process. All you need to do is input your primary topic, and the tool will generate an entire article in less than 20 minutes.

These articles are well written and formatted with subheaders and an FAQ section, so most of your editing will be to personalize the content and add any personal insights. Since the tool bases its suggestions and guidelines on what’s already ranking, you’ll be reviewing a high quality article in much less time than it’d take you to manually research, write and optimize.

Surfer AI also includes an AI assistant that can help you edit sections of the article, along with tone of voice and anti-AI detection.

NLP is here to stay

The integration of NLP into SEO isn’t just a trend — it’s a transformative approach that brings a new level of personalization and sophistication to keyword research, competitor analysis, and content creation.

By using advanced tools, you can streamline the content process, stay ahead of competitors, and become a thought leader in your respective industry. While search engines will continue to evolve, understanding human language and intent will remain king, making NLP an essential tool in your arsenal for ranking high on search engine result pages.