What is a semantic cocoon?
Semantic cocooning is the organization of the pages of a website into isolated tree branches, and the branched pages are linked together on the basis of semantically close words to respond upstream to the most expected requests from Internet users on the engines. of research. It is a concept of web page architecture and optimization developed by French SEO expert Laurent Bourrelly.
The semantic cocoon lies in the optimization of the internal grid and the editorial content of the site
The concept of semantic cocoon is a strategy for linking internal pages to each other and contextualizing editorial content. It is defined as a specific method applied to the structure of the pages and to the internal grid of a website in order to better position them according to the requests of Internet users.
Specifically, contextual links are created to connect all semantically relevant pages of a topic branch and ensure that target pages related to strong keywords are pushed when their corresponding requests occur. For this, the webmaster will first define the queries to target and then build a tree structure based on these first queries, structured in silos or branches. Then it will create links to connect different hierarchical pages. However, it will optimize each page by contextualizing links and tags.
The principle is therefore not based on backlinks built to increase the popularity or PageRank of a site, but on internal networking, also called cross-linking, which highlights the target page if necessary. The end goal is to get targeted traffic to every page.
Therefore, webmasters should start with the user queries that drive the most traffic and plan for future queries associated with them when determining keywords. It is from these requests that the architecture of the site will be created.
It will be organized in silos, each silo being a branch of a tree structure made up of a set of hierarchical or non-hierarchical elements of the same theme or category. The silos are exclusive because the different themes will be separated from each other. Each silo is specialized. The editorial content in each element of the silo includes one or more keywords in response to a possible request from an Internet user, or, failing that, a link to the answer he is looking for, and in the same silo, at the top, parallel or lower in the hierarchy.
The goal is that whatever the user’s request is directed to the answers that exist in the site, because the Google bot has actively explored the path, and then the engine can recommend the path. However, it should be noted that the quality of content will always determine the effectiveness of Semantic Cocoon, as search engines are always the highest judges.