NLP and SEO: Everything You Need to Know

A Crash Course on Google's BERT Algorithm

Google is comparable to advanced AI systems that understand human behavior and deliver relevant information instantly. Much of this capability stems from Google's use of artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) in the background. The search engine has evolved beyond literal query interpretation and now evaluates intent, sentiment, and user expectations.

BERT stands for "Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers." When released in 2019, Google announced it would affect approximately 10% of search queries. Today, BERT powers nearly every English-based query entered into Google.

Google explained: "We see billions of searches every day, and 15 percent of those queries are ones we haven't seen before–so we've built ways to return results for queries we can't anticipate...we're making a significant improvement to how we understand queries, representing the biggest leap forward in the past five years."

BERT helps Google read surrounding words to understand search term context and meaning. It employs machine learning to evaluate sentiment, categorization, and word importance to comprehend language similarly to humans. This produces relevant results even with misspellings or awkwardly phrased questions.

Google's BERT in Action

BERT allows Google to interpret imprecisely worded queries like "is it better to eat carrots or broccoli for eyes health" as a question about improving eye health.

For example, someone searching "brazil traveler to usa need a visa" would previously confuse the direction. BERT now understands the significance of "to," recognizing the searcher is Brazilian seeking U.S. travel information.

BERT affects both organic rankings and featured snippets. When someone searches "parking on a hill with no curb," Google previously over-emphasized "curb" and ignored "no," displaying irrelevant snippets. BERT corrects this misinterpretation.

How BERT and NLP Affect Your SEO Strategy

Google representatives have emphasized that BERT requires no specific optimization—it simply improves search matching. However, BERT signals a shift in "quality content" definition.

Writers must prioritize creating for human readers rather than machines. NLP enables Google to better identify genuine experts. Previously, ranking by mimicking top-ranking competitor content worked; today this approach may fail.

You must demonstrate through on-page and off-page SEO signals that you're a trusted authority providing unique insights. Not all queries demand equal technical depth, creating some optimization opportunities based on topic requirements.

How to Check Your NLP Score

Using AI-powered content tools, you can score your content relevance:

1. Enter Your Keyword and Link

Content insight tools display how your content compares against top-ranking competitors. Insert an existing URL to fetch and analyze the content. The sidebar shows measurements including overall grade, word count, readability level, and competitive averages.

2. Analyze Your Opportunities

The tool produces a list of semantically related words and typical usage patterns. This anticipates words Google deems important. While word frequency obsession is counterproductive, this list verifies two things: your chosen keyword attracts your intended audience, and you're writing in language your target readers use.

Different topics warrant varying technical language levels. This list benchmarks how people typically think and write about subjects.

3. Make Live Changes

Edit content directly within the tool, which automatically saves progress. As edits occur, metrics update in real-time, evaluating your page's organic competitiveness.

4. (Optional) Use an AI Content Generator

When creatively stuck, AI content generators can help. Provide a title and content type description. The generator produces unique text one paragraph at a time, which you can paste or refresh for alternatives.

NLP and SEO for the Win

SEO and NLP interconnect fundamentally. First-page positioning requires NLP consideration. Writing from experience provides the easiest path through Google's content quality and relevance tests. Content tools can help you understand your content's performance among popular results.