Its important to remember that a website is only as good as its content, and a websites content is only as good as the author who wrote it. But how does websites semantics play a key role in search engine optimisation and usability? Easily, good websites work well with a majority of users; therefore a poorly built website will typically have a higher bounce rate along with poorer SEO performance.

Semantics will typically involve the placement and layout of a website, in conjunction with content placement. When building a website, good semantics make all the difference, especially when it comes to visitor retention levels.

For example, when you look at a newspaper, you will always see a large bold headline, a picture affiliated with that headline and then a teaser for the headline, which works incredibly well. This structure is becoming more popular within today’s websites, since its becoming more vital to capture users attention within seconds of them visiting. Remember, if a user comes to buy an apple, the first thing they will expect to see is an apple.

Good semantics have an impact on search engine optimisation, purely because of the fact that good semantics allow for better placement and utilisation of body emphasis elements such as header tags, content and content emphasis attributes.

Also, the websites interconnecting pages can be better placed, encouraging a good step through platform will allow users to find more information, so for example, if a user goes from the homepage to a car parts page, the idea from this point would be to list manufacturers to lead the user through the selection process.
Website semantics can also be referred to as latent semantic indexing or LSI for short which means pretty much the same thing, although LSI is designed to identify key attributes for improving a websites semantic structure.

Search engine optimisation is not directly affected by LSI; however, good website structure does affect SEO directly. If search engines can understand the websites ability to convey relevancy then they are more likely to place emphasis on the website within the natural search results.

In principle, structured semantics, or a website framework will allow for better data utilisation and sharing, it will also aid towards enhanced visitor/website interaction. These principles are why it’s becoming increasingly important to plan ahead when building a new website.

How do I make sure my website is semantically Sound?

Its relatively easy, however, best seen when a mock up of the new or existing website is created in a block chart. Link pages between one another to see a pattern of how the website connects, from this you can determine how relevant the interlinking pages become, and of course, the structure of the pages themselves.

A good website will always utilise a consistent navigation method, will also offer links relative to the pages subject/theme and will always offer the user additional navigation aids.

The semantically sound structure of the website will also be seen by the usage and placement of content, header tags, images and any other media on the page.

Using good header tags and writing good content branch into another area of search engine optimisation.
Whilst the website is live, why not install some form of website analytics, Google analytics is a great tool and is free to install and use. With this you can monitor your websites bounce rate, which could help towards changes being made on a semantic basis.

You may notice that poor website semantics will mean that your bounce rate from entry pages is higher than that of average; typically, bounce rates will exceed 50% in bad cases of poor website semantics or LSI.

Some good tips for Website Semantics:

1.    Interconnect relevant pages through the body of each document and keep the navigation separate.
2.    Ensure large headings go before content, so that the user is drawn to the content via the heading and possibly an image.
3.    Do not clutter the pages excessively, ensure content is in a structured format.
4.    Use links within content to relevant pages.
5.    Use sub-headings on important sections within the page.
6.    Provide a recommended link base of URL’s that users might also be interested in looking at.