Natural Language’s Impact on Content Marketing: A #CMWorld Chat with Sean Van Guilder

Have you ever talked to Alexis or Siri? Searched for a restaurant or store “near me”?  Or have you run a sentiment analysis of social media posts? That’s natural language processing (NPL) doing its work.

On a recent #CMWorld Twitter chat, we discussed natural language and its impact on content marketing with Sean Van Guilder, Director of SEO at Point It. What follows are some of the many insights from the chat. Want more information on NLP? Be sure to read our Storify.

Defining NLP

Natural Language Processing is about machines imitating the way humans understand language. By extracting intelligence from human language, we can get smarter about our content and provide a better experience to our customers.

A1: NLP is a component of artificial intelligence that allows computer programs understand speech, not just commands but context #cmworld

— Sean Van Guilder (@seanvanguilder) April 18, 2017

A1: The goal of Natural Language Processing is to make computers (& the interwebz) able to understand normal human conversation. #CMWorld

— Tim Mohler (@TimothyMohler) April 18, 2017

NLP and SEO

In recent years, NLP has changed the way the web works. Now, searching the internet has shifted from keywords to discovery based on context and intent. This means marketers should plan content around topics instead of focusing on a single keyword, taking into account the fact individuals think differently and might not use the same words to search the web.

A2: Marketing content isn’t just about keywords, it’s about answering a searcher’s question & expands to personal assistants #cmworld

— Sean Van Guilder (@seanvanguilder) April 18, 2017

A2: When building #contentmarketing it should answer (and restate) real questions (as opposed to keyword packing) #CMWorld

— Tim Mohler (@TimothyMohler) April 18, 2017

Want to learn more about the future of content? Attend Content Marketing World in Cleveland, September 5-8, 2017.  Register before June 3 to secure Early Bird rates. Use code SM100 to save an extra $100.