Relevant is effective! Everything you wanted to know about relevant content.

While studying the abstruse SEO Talmud, you often come across the concept of “relevance” of a text, page or site as a whole. Relevance what is it in simple words? This is exactly what this publication will be about, we will analyze the term relevance in detail, consider examples of relevant search engine results and how to achieve it.

Relevance what is it

Relevance is the ratio of the search query to the resulting search result. In simple words, the relevance of information is how much the content (text, pictures, videos) satisfies the user searching for it.

To understand what search relevance is, let’s look at some examples and try to figure it out in simple words.

An example of relevant results. A certain user enters a query in a search engine: “How to bake apple pies.” As a result, we will get the top 10 sites with recipes.

Let's take the first 5 positions and analyze them from bottom to top (let's start with the 5th):

In fifth place we will see a recipe for a pie, which will describe the necessary ingredients, what to mix and how to cook, a general picture of the finished pie. Everything would be fine in Rhodes, but why did this site “receive” only 60% relevance (a figure out of the blue for clarity). Let's go further and understand the reason.
In the 4th position, the recipe is the same as in the previous example, only a few pictures have been added during the cooking process. The article has turned out to be more informative and will receive its 70% relevance.
We rise higher. Everything is the same as in the previous example, plus a video of the process of preparing the ill-fated pie has been added. The percentage of users satisfied with the information received will increase sharply. The site received its 80% relevance of information for a reason.
The second item contains a recipe with pictures, videos, detailed text descriptions and links to similar recipes, for example with the addition of pears or a cheaper option. The user studied the material, was satisfied and moved on to the next page. This is a great signal for a search engine. This site gets 90%.
And finally, our winner, first place in the search results for the relevance of information. A complete set of content (text, pictures, videos, links to similar materials), a satisfied user. But what separates this user from the previous one? What separates it is the correctly used keywords that match the search query. For example, in the title of the page, in the h1-h6 tags, the text contains words and phrases found in the request. This is called internal relevance. I'll talk about this a little below.

I think after this example it became clear to you what the relevance of site pages is and how to determine it. We determined the level of relevance visually, but it can also be calculated in real numbers, immediately after we analyze internal and external relevance.

Internal text relevance criteria

We've looked at what search relevance is, now let's outline the main points that can help you achieve the highest degree of visitor satisfaction:

The first and main point is that the text should tell or show what the user is asking about in the search engine. This is the most important thing.
The presence of keywords in the text is an important point. If your content is perfect but does not contain a single exact occurrence of the promoted query, the chance of getting to the top is close to zero.
Use of synonyms and word forms of keywords.
Key density. This concept is living out its life; with good content and proper optimization, one occurrence of the key is enough. However, try not to cram the same words side by side, this will be regarded as spam and will not only reduce the relevance of the test, but may even throw such a page out of the search.
Location of keywords. This is an interesting question, and there is also a lot of controversy surrounding it. Everyone can agree on one thing. The main key should be in the exact form in the first paragraph of the text, once in the middle and at the very end. This will be quite enough.
Use key phrases in h1-h6 tags, description and title. This will give significant weight to your page for this query.

These are the basic internal principles by which the relevance of information on site pages is determined.

External Relevance Criteria

External relevance includes links leading to the site. The more often your page is linked to, the better. If the page from which the link is placed is similar or the same topic, and even the anchor (link text) contains a keyword. This will significantly increase the relevance of the page to which the link is placed.

How to increase relevance

How to increase the relevance of an already indexed page? You can go back to the previous two headings and analyze whether you have everything, but let’s repeat it again and break down what a relevant page should look like, whether it’s new or requires editing an old one.

So, the relevant page should contain the following:

Keywords in title.
Key in H1
Keywords in the first paragraph. (The closer to the beginning the better).
The content must fully respond to the search query. Contain comprehensive information so that the visitor no longer wants to look at other sites.
Use pictures, videos, lists, small paragraphs, links to similar materials.
Description, often used in a snippet (search text), should be short, informative and attractive. Using keywords.
The page must have incoming links from other sites.

You can go through all the points and check if everything is in place; if necessary, you can supplement the article, add some elements. I have already talked about this in great detail.

There are many online services to check the relevance of a page. I will list a few of them.

You can check relevance on the PR-CY.ru website. You need to enter the required request and indicate the url of the page being checked.

Megaindex also provides this opportunity.

The majento website also provides a detailed analysis of the relevance of pages.

Which service to use is up to you, you should try them all and determine which one suits you best.

In conclusion. The purpose of this publication was to answer your query - “relevance, what is it in simple words.” I hope I was able to convey to you the essence of the concept of relevance, this is the visitor’s satisfaction with the information provided, completeness and equivalence to the search query.

Funny video for relaxation. It’s not always just about studying.

Every webmaster strives to ensure that as many visitors as possible from search engines come to his website or blog. But not all optimizers have an idea of what relevance is. They seemed to have heard about this concept, and often came across it on forums, but they never dwelled on this issue in detail, but in vain.

So, relevance— this is the correspondence of the search results to the user’s search query, in other words, the correspondence between what is desired and what is seen. If we are talking about a website page, then relevance is the correspondence of the page content to the search query. For example, a person writes in the search “ tours to turkey“So what does he want to find? Naturally, sites with information about tours, prices, departure dates, hotels and so on.

This is what he sees in Yandex search results:

Do you think the output corresponds to the request? In my opinion, quite. And if instead the user were shown sites, say, about the history of Turkey or with Turkish news, then the results could be considered irrelevant or with a low level of relevance.

What is search results in a rough sense? This is a collection of links to specific web pages that search engines believe are most relevant to user queries. That is, site owners can influence search results. For example, did you want your site to be in the top 5 for the same request? "Tours to Turkey". So create a web page that fully corresponds to this request, prove to search engines that it deserves to be in the top positions of search results. To do this, you need to “tailor” the page to this search query, carry out internal optimization, and purchase links. In general, there is quite a lot of work. We have already talked about this and will continue to talk about it in future articles, so subscribe to. Today we will dwell in detail on relevance.

How to increase relevance

Since we already mentioned the request "Tours to Turkey", then he will be used as an example below. So what do we need to do to ensure that the page is fully relevant to the given query? It needs to be tailored (there is no other way to say it) for this search query. That is, its title (title) and content (text) should contain occurrences of keywords. The information on the page must fully respond to the search query, that is, you must not just put keywords in the text, but tell about what the user is looking for. For example, he is looking for "tour price comparison", which means you must provide him with this comparison with numbers, explanations, and so on. If you simply put several occurrences of a query in the text, but there is no price comparison itself, then the page cannot be considered relevant to this search query.

Naturalness. It is very important that the keywords (from the search query) look natural in the text of the page. There is no need to sculpt them anywhere. Remember, first of all, you create pages for visitors, and only then for search engines.
Keyword Density. There is no need to insert keywords at every step. Two or three exact and one or two diluted occurrences of the query are quite enough. Sometimes even less is possible. It all depends on the number of characters on the page. The longer the text, the more entries required.
Keywords in the title. The words from the request must be in the page title. That is, if you promote a page for the request “ tours to turkey“, then this phrase in this form should be in the title (heading). Before or after it, you need to write other words that are suitable in meaning, for example, “cheap”, “at low prices”, “prices”, etc. Write a title that makes users want to click.
Using h2, h2 and h3 tags. These html tags contain headings and subheadings. There are lower level heading tags such as h4, h5, h6, but often the first three are enough. They are written as follows: ... . Don't forget to remove spaces. Inside these tags we insert relevant headings; it is desirable that they contain keywords, but if this is not possible, then there is no need to insert them there in an unnatural way.
Highlighting keywords in bold, italics and underlining. You can highlight keywords several times in the text using bold, italics, or underlining. As a rule, those words that they want to focus on are highlighted. Search engines cannot ignore this. The most important thing in this matter is to know when to stop. Put the keywords in bold once or twice and that’s enough. Of course, more is possible. Everything again depends on the length of the text. Use these tags to highlight other words and phrases that you want to pay attention to. After all, naturalness and benefits for visitors are above all.
Declension and dilution of keywords. Insert other words inside key phrases, inflect them, use prepositions.
Writing a description. Having a well-written description can increase the number of visitors from search engines. Google, for example, uses it as a snippet - a small text block under the site title in the search results. The more correctly it is compiled, the more attention it will attract from visitors. Use words from the promoted query in the description. If we are talking about, then this CMS has a special All in One SEO Pack plugin (there are others), with which you can add a title, description and keywords to each post. By the way, even though keywords already have a slight impact on promotion or even not at all, I still recommend using them, it definitely won’t be superfluous.

If you do everything correctly and use keywords in the text in the right quantity, then the page will be relevant to the required query. At a minimum, search engines will associate it with this particular request. Naturally, if there are many strong competitors in the search results for it, then getting to the top will not be so easy. High page relevance is just an opportunity to get to the top for a promoted query. If this indicator is at a low level, then taking high positions will be much more difficult or even impossible.

From my experience, I know that sometimes correct internal website optimization and high page relevance are enough to appear in the top search engine results. SEOs who neglect this spend much larger budgets on promotion. Isn’t it better to pay proper attention to these points once in order to later save thousands, or even tens of thousands of rubles? Of course, it’s up to you to decide, but I think money is never superfluous.

Naturally, you can determine the approximate relevance of a page by eye, but why these difficulties if there are special services. Although, to be honest, I don’t always use them, since sometimes it’s clear that the post I wrote has at least 80-90 percent relevance. But it’s still better to play it safe once again and check your beliefs.

The easiest way to find out relevance is a special tool for analyzing content on pr-cy. There you will be shown the keyword density, the number of occurrences, and relevance. The service, in principle, is very convenient, but I still often use MegaIndex to determine relevance. The service is designed to promote websites, but it also contains many free and useful tools for optimizers. First, you need to register in it, add your website and the necessary requests there. Then go to the search results tab -> my sites.

Here you should click on I or G and select “relevance” opposite the required query. Don't forget to check that the address and request you entered are correct. As a result of the analysis, you will be shown the relevance of the page, as well as the number of occurrences of the query. The higher the relevance, the better. If this indicator is at a low level, then the number of occurrences of the query in the text should be increased.

Now you know what relevance is and how to improve it. Take this as seriously as possible. Try to create optimized pages with high relevance. This will make it much easier and cheaper to promote sites in search engines. Save your money and energy.

Relevance(derived from the English relevant - relevant) - in a general sense, this is the compliance of the document with the user’s expectations. Thus, search relevance is the degree to which a user is satisfied with the search results shown in response to his query. Ideally, the search results page should fully satisfy the user’s information needs in terms of its completeness and accuracy.

Relevance is calculated using search engine algorithms. Each search engine works according to its own algorithm. The ranking is based on Matrixnet technology.

Types of search relevance

Formal– it is on this type that search engine rankings are based. The image of the search query is algorithmically compared with the image of the document in the search engine index. This means that relevance is calculated without direct human intervention - using a specific formula based on data collected by the search robot.
Content– relevance is determined informally. This type is also used by search engines, but to assess the quality of the search. Special employees evaluate search results based on their assumption that a given document matches the request. These specialists are called assessors.
Pertinence– complete satisfaction of the user’s information needs. This is exactly what all search engines strive for.

The search results show the most relevant website pages from the search engine's point of view. Before starting promotion, it is always necessary to determine the most suitable page for promotion. Here you can be guided by factors such as age, link juice, level and existing relevance of the page.

To determine the most relevant page from existing ones, just use the query language or advanced search.

Advanced search page for Yandex http://yandex.ru/search/advanced

Advanced search page for Google https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Components of page relevance

In the vast majority of cases, SEO optimizers work on a website in the following areas:

The technical component of the relevance of site pages is common errors that make it difficult for search engine robots to correctly index them:

site accessibility;
page loading speed;
issuing resource encoding;
setting up server response codes (redirects, error pages);
site mirrors;
robots.txt file and robots meta tag;
sitemap.xml file;
frames;
elements hidden from the user;
URL structure;
duplicate pages;
broken links;
date the pages were last modified;
spam;
other interference with indexing.

The text component of the relevance of site pages is the correspondence of the content to the user’s request:

meta tags;
text headings;
occurrences of key phrases in the text;
img tag attributes.

The reference component of relevance is factors associated with:

external linking;
link anchors;
donor characteristics;
dynamics of link mass growth.

Behavioral component of relevance – factors associated with user behavior:

number of visitors;
visitor sources;
duration of stay;
bounce rate;
viewing depth;
conversion;
ease of navigation;

Other factors:

regionality;
affiliates.

When talking about search engines, experts very often refer to the term “relevance”. At the level of intuition, its meaning is clear to everyone.

At its core, relevance is how relevant a particular document or text is to a user's query. Roughly speaking, the more accurately the content answers the user’s question, the higher its level of relevance for this request.

How does this work?

How does a relevant result differ from an irrelevant result? This is easiest to understand by looking at a simple life example.

So, you are a schoolboy or student who has been asked to write an essay on a certain topic. Few people these days spend hours in the library searching and analyzing all the information. After all, it is much easier to find a suitable job online, perhaps change it a little and pass it off as the result of your work. Let's leave moral issues aside and look at this from a different point of view.

What do you need to find first? Absolutely right: a site where ready-made abstracts are published. You open a search engine page (be it Google, Yandex or any other) and enter the word “abstracts” in the search bar. The search engine instantly scans the database of indexed pages and finds in it links to about 8 million different pages, on which the word we need occurs a total of 30 million times.

It should be noted that the search engine finds this word both on the page of the “Bank of Abstracts” website and on the Twitter account of Katya, unknown to us, who “was writing an abstract all night and wants to sleep.”

This is where the concept of “relevant” comes into play. This means that the search engine determines which link is most likely to interest the user. That is why we see a link to the “Bank of Abstracts” already on the first page (it better matches the request), and a lonely post on Twitter dedicated to Katya’s life’s ups and downs remains somewhere on the ...-tenth pages, although the word “abstract” is also present in it .

Now that you have a general idea and relevant search, you can move on to the more interesting parts.

Why does your site need relevant material?

Of course, modern search engines are imperfect and, by resorting to certain tricks, you can promote even irrelevant pages for a certain query. In practice, you have most likely encountered this more than once: for example, you searched for results for the query “buy a washing machine,” and the search engine directed you to a page where the history of the creation of this unit is described.

What do you do in such a situation? Close the site and continue searching.

If your articles are irrelevant to certain key queries, visitors to your resource will not stay on it either.

In addition to this, the presence of relevant content on a page significantly speeds up its progress and helps improve its position in the overall ranking.

In fact, thanks to it, you increase site traffic, create a positive reputation for your resource and, as a result, increase your income level.

The most effective tips for creating relevant pages for your website!

First of all, you need to determine the key queries that are suitable for the selected site page. The more accurate they are, the better. That is, if we are talking about an online store page where you can order a kettle, it is more logical to promote it according to relevant requests. For example: “buy a kettle”, “online store of kettles”, etc. Of course, you will not lie to your visitors if you use phrases like “kitchenware” or “buy kitchen utensils”. But then, in addition to your potential clients who really want to get a new kettle, people who, to put it mildly, do not need it at all, will also go to the site.

So how do you create truly effective, highly relevant content?

1. Create a competent title. This tag contains the title of the page. It should be as vivid, original and accurately describe the information presented on the page itself. To do this, your main keyword must be present in the title.

Example: if you are promoting a page for the query “Indian tea”, then the title may look something like this: “History of Indian tea”, “Buy the most delicious Indian tea with discounts”, etc., depending on the main material.

2. Enter keywords. This is a separate point in the page code, indicating for what queries it should be promoted, a kind of “beacon” for search engines. There is no need to get carried away and write down dozens of words, phrases and their combinations: the optimal number of keywords is from 3 to 5.

3. Come up with a description. Description is a brief description of the page that performs 2 functions at once: it promotes more effective search engine promotion and shows users what the article is about. There are several “golden rules” for compiling such descriptions:

It is desirable that the entire description consist of 2 sentences;
at the beginning of the first sentence, as well as in the middle or end of the second, you can insert a keyword;
if it is not possible to use it in its exact form, you can change them morphologically.

The main thing here, as in the entire process of creating relevant content, is naturalness.

4. Headings and subheadings. Don't neglect them. Firstly, a structured article looks much better and is easier to read. Secondly, by including main and additional relevant phrases in the h1, h2, h3 tags, you can make the right accents and improve the page’s position in search engines.

5. Use pictures! Illustrated material is always more relevant. This means that of two articles similar in topic and volume, one of which will have thematic images attached, the latter has a greater chance of being in the TOP of the search engine. In order to achieve this, you need to write a description of each image (alt attribute). It is also advisable to use selected key queries in it.

Please note that if there are several images on the page, the alt descriptions should not be the same!

Let's talk about the “filling” of the text

Everything is simple here. The text should correspond to the topic of key queries and the page itself. In addition, its information content matters. After reading it, the visitor should gain some useful information for himself and find answers to his questions. Only in this case can the word “relevant” be applied to the text.

This applies specifically to the “human” face of your material. But there is another side, because our goal is to please not only users, but also search engines.

What matters here is the harmonious occurrence of key phrases (both in exact and inflected form). For greater weight, it is recommended to enclose them in a tag.

Your article should be neither too short (less than 400 words) nor too long (more than 2000 words). Although the main emphasis should be on information content. If you managed to cover the entire issue in 1500 characters, you should not waste time trying to bring the text volume to the required size.

How to find out the relevance of a page?

Most domestic SEO experts use the convenient MegaIndex service. It allows you not only to find out the relevance of the page as a percentage, but also to get a lot of additional useful information. For example, with its help you will learn about what negatively affects the level of relevance of a page and what needs to be corrected to make it more attractive to users and bots.

When a user wants to find information on the Internet, he types a specific question into the search bar and waits for relevant results from the system. But very often this does not happen. It turns out that the page was not relevant. So what is relevance?

Concept of relevance

Relevance (relevant - relevant) - compliance of the text with the required expectations. In other words, this is the correspondence between what was sought and what was found. This means that the relevant page is exactly what the user expected to see when making a request in the search bar. This term began to be used in modern systems.

But how does the search engine determine this relevance, how does it decide which page to offer at the right time? This is why search relevance exists, which each system calculates using different algorithms. So what is search relevance?

When a user types his query into Google or Yandex, the system evaluates the documents from its index and selects those that best match the query. Visitors evaluate the search engine's performance based on relevance. If the user is not satisfied with the response received, he may no longer want to use the system.

Therefore, the most important task for search engines is to find the most relevant documents. This affects not only the popularity of the resource, but also its profit.

Types of search relevance

Formal. Using an algorithm, a query is compared with the type of document in a search engine. In this method, relevance is calculated without human intervention. Everything happens with the help of a search robot, according to a given formula, based on the entered data.
Meaningful. This type is used in search engines, but to assess the quality of the search. Specialists, called assessors, evaluate search results by comparing them with the query.
Pertinent. All search resources strive for this type of search. In this case, the information completely satisfies the user.

Any search engine works according to its own algorithm and each system has its own trick, but the principle is very similar for all:

First, it checks how often a given question or phrase appears on the selected pages.
The space between words is being checked.
The number of links per page is checked.
It takes into account what text the phrase is typed in.
The age of the site is checked.

The amount of information on the web is constantly increasing, so increasing relevance is a very important task for every search engine.

All resources have many pages that match the query requirements. The search engine algorithm will suggest the most relevant page. So what is page relevance?

How is a relevant page determined?

A website page is its own world on the Internet. This content contains text, images. It echoes many other pages. Based on this, it turns out that relevance is influenced by both the content of the text and interaction with other sites.

Internal (text content) relevance - compliance of the text content with the requirements of the search system. When the most frequently used phrases on the page are entered when entering a query, it will be relevant. Each search engine has its own set of ratios of occurrences of the required phrase to the number of words in the written article. The closer this number is to the system number, the higher the text will appear on the search page.

Basic Page Rating Options

Despite the fact that each search system has its own algorithm, the search principle is similar for all. Internal component of relevance assessment:

Frequency of use of the desired phrase in the written text. If the total number of occurrences of the desired phrase is close to that established by the system, the higher the relevance of the page.

Placement of relevant words in headings and subheadings. When the required phrase is located in the title of the text, the level of evaluation of the text increases.
The necessary phrases are at the beginning of the page. The system starts the search from the beginning of the page, so the faster a given query is encountered, the higher the relevance.
The right words in the right places. Having the right words in your headings and subheadings increases relevancy.
Presence of synonyms. This is an important part of the document. If the text contains synonyms of the required words, the system will consider such text useful and related to the given topic.

The number of links that lead to the site. This indicates the importance of the site among other resources.
Compliance of the site with the required words. The greater the number of pages that match the desired phrases, the higher the authority.

Of course, there are other search engine techniques by which they consider one page relevant and another not. There are quite a lot of them and disclosing them is not in the interests of systems that want to improve relevance for their users.

But no matter how search systems are improved, we should not forget a few important things:
The result obtained depends not only on the system, but also on how successfully and accurately the request was formulated and the necessary words were specified.
Each person has his own outlook, his own perception of life and the content of the same information will be different for each person.

All search engines:

Own tasks.
Various financial options.
Employees with their own worldview and horizons, all of different ages and different ways of thinking.

After studying the article in detail, you will find the answer to the question of what relevance is.