"Semantic Intent" Will Change How You Choose Keywords Forever (Episode 531)

0:19Chris Schaeffer: Hello and welcome to the paid search podcast. My name is Chris Schaeffer. And today I'm going to tell you about semantic intent. and this very likely will change how you choose keywords forever. The problem is that you are getting clicks that are irrelevant, but from those, sometimes you get some good searches. You get bad and sometimes you get good and you need more of the good searches. Well, an example of this is maybe you're selling household water filters. And you're getting searches for why does my tap water smell and stain my tub? Can hard water damage appliances? And what you really want, but you rarely get, are searches like water filter for my entire house.

1:16Chris Schaeffer: Why, even though you have really good keywords, why do you get searches like can hard water damage my appliances? Why do you get those? Well, the answer is semantic intent. I'm going to tell you about what it means, how it will frame how you choose keywords from now on. That's what we're talking about today. And at the end of the show, I'm going to tell you the six common victims of semantic intent, why people suffer the most from this after I define what it is, explain how it all works. and hopefully by the end of this, you're going to have a very good idea about where you've gone wrong in your keywords.

1:58Chris Schaeffer: All right, so I'm going to jump into that right after I tell you about my sponsor Optio. So Optio is an online software that when you need answers, you've already dug through the Google Ads interface, you've already come to understand some basics and now you want to move to a different level of management. You want to, you know, go beyond just the basics that you understand and you want some more advanced help. Optio can help you beyond your knowledge level because it introduces you to things that you never saw in your Google ads to start with. You don't know what questions to ask. Well, Optio will help you find those answers for the things you don't even know what to ask about.

2:41Chris Schaeffer: This is a powerful tool that you can use in your Google ads campaigns to analyze your data work through your data and now we're in the age of ai where of course you can speak to your data it'll help you analyze and do audits and improve every aspect of your campaign if you'd like to try it for free you can go to optio.com slash psp that's optio.com slash psp to get a free trial of this tool it's a 28 day free trial that's twice as long as you're going to get if to sign up without my special URL. So optio.com slash PSP for that special offer. Let's get into it. Semantic intent. First, let's start with the definition.

3:31Chris Schaeffer: You may not have ever heard this term. It's a very specific aspect of Google Ads search campaigns. Okay. So when I talk about semantic intent, I'm talking about the keywords, the actual literal keywords in your campaign. So semantic intent is the underlying meaning or goal or context behind a search based on natural language processing rather than actual word for word matching. so that's the technical you know more more longer uh technical meaning of semantic intent let me give it in layman terms so that you can fully understand the scope of what this is so semantic intent for those in the back i'll say it a simpler way um google is trying to read your mind in other words there's trying to read your keyword and it's trying to read your client's mind or the person who's doing a search on google and after making two assumptions about what it is that you are trying to get with your keyword and what that person is looking for so it's making two assumptions it's going to connect those two assumptions those two guesses together and then charge you money when that person clicks on your ad.

5:10So that's a rather negative way of explaining semantic intent. You could also be very positive about it and say, well, it is a full understanding of what your keyword is and what you're looking for and a full understanding of all the history and purpose and goal behind how a person is searching.

5:28Chris Schaeffer: And then it puts those two perfect assumptions together and gets you a conversion. You can see how just by changing the way that I say it, it changes whether semantic intent is scary or semantic intent. It's a happy, great thing. But either way, the truth is, is that instead of matching, if you don't know this, instead of matching the words of your keyword to the person, to what the person's actually typing in Google, it just guesses what they actually want and what you actually meant by your keyword. Now, guess is a pretty weak term. It's a very complex guess. I mean, we're talking about some very complicated systems.

6:22so I don't want to you know act like this is a really silly thing but when you're spending

6:29Chris Schaeffer: money on Google when you're spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on Google you might be very frustrated by semantic intent because Google may be semantically getting it wrong. And I'm going to give you some examples of what this looks like in real life. Because believe me, I've seen it. I'm often very frustrated by this. And this is something, to be clear, that has not always existed. This is a, in the multiple decades of Google Ads, this is a relatively new thing. In fact, I would say in its current form, it's only been around for about three years. Back in 2020, 2019, all that time before, back when I was doing Google Ads, certainly in 2003, 2004, I mean, it wasn't around.

7:31Chris Schaeffer: Semantic intent did not exist. Instead, it was a word-for-word matching. So my goal is to help you understand why Google may be doing such a poor job of understanding your keyword. Because if you haven't put it together, that's the only thing you can control. You can't control how people are searching. You can't control how qualified they are. Or that highly unqualified people are doing a specific kind of search. and you want better qualified people, but you don't know what it is that they're searching. So the only thing you can control and fix is your keyword. So I'm going to give you some examples of, and these are victims of semantic intent that goes the wrong way.

8:31So let's get into it. And here's an example of a very high cost per click that ends up going to the wrong kind of person.

8:39Chris Schaeffer: So if someone searches how to unclog a drain with baking soda. Okay. Obviously not a person who's going to be paying for a$200 trip from a plumber to come to their house. Instead, Google's semantic engine might decide that this person's intent is they need a plumber. Right. Google decides they need a plumber, but that person is not going to pay for a plumber. They're going to try the easy way first. And in determining that this person needs a plumber, it now shows your$50 click, your$50 pay-per-click ad to this DIY person who wants to use baking soda to try and fix it and has no intention of hiring anyone to get this job done.

9:27they click on your ad because it happens to be first and you have some ad copy that's very

9:35Chris Schaeffer: inviting and you know get help today maybe it says or get your pipes fixed you know something super friendly and helpful as google would intend for you to do and now you just spent fifty dollars on a person who will absolutely not call you it's not because of anything except for the fact that your keyword was interpreted and this person's search was interpreted, put together and say, this is a good match. It's not, it's not because that's obviously way too high in the sales funnel. That person needs to go ahead and try baking soda. DIYers are probably not good for home service clicks because they're not going to hire you yet until they break it.

10:21Chris Schaeffer: Then they might hire you, but you don't want to advertise to them at a$50,$60 click when they're not ready to do that yet. So another example, um, here's an example of a, uh, someone who is looking for a water pitcher, um, a search for cheap plastic water pitcher. Okay. And that might trigger your ad in which you're advertising for this$2 ,000 whole home filtration system. And because Google interprets your search to be targeting people who want clean water, and this person also wants clean water, right? Plastic water pitcher, you know, they want water, you know, it decides that these two go together and now your$25 click, your$30 click goes to this person who is shopping for a product and not even a service.

11:28Chris Schaeffer: A person just needs some kind of plastic jug to maybe water their plants. and now your ad shows to them and you're frustrated because you see all these really crappy searches coming in on your your search term report and you don't know why well it may be semantic intent and i'm going to tell you about how it works in broad match phrase match and exact match okay but because it actually works differently now remember we are in 2026. There is no Google ads where you can choose a keyword and get those words exactly. Does not happen. You can maybe get there eventually, but you will never be able to run a Google ads campaign where you get exactly what you typed because semantic intent just walks in and just backhands everyone it is it is the commander of keyword and search term matching so let me say in a very abbreviated non-illustrative way like i love to give illustrations so let me just say it in a very concise way semantic intent is used across all match types.

12:57So, broad phrase and exact. Semantic intent is involved. But it is applied in different ways.

13:07Chris Schaeffer: So let's go through what it looks like in broad, phrase and exact. And maybe I'll change your mind, but warning, you're not going to be happy with what you think is going to be the best. So So leave your preconceived notions at the door because we're going to jump in here. So first of all, let's start with broad match. Semantic intent is used to match on broad match any topic or concept that it considers to be related to the keyword. okay so in essence um there's no real structural boundaries that uh make up how this works it's it's very loose there is no boundary system this is i i cannot tell you that broad match won't get you this and i'm not going to spend podcast minutes here going through examples there's really no need to go any more examples i've given you examples i have a few more examples coming up a little bit later but i'm not going to give you examples because you know what the examples are but but i want to to give you kind of of rules here to help you understand what this looks like so if you use broad match there's really no structural boundaries that would stop Broadmatch from showing to a lot of different things.

14:44Chris Schaeffer: Basically, wherever the semantic intent engine decides that your keyword matches, if all parameters are set and you have budget and your bids are sufficient to show, then, boom, your ad will show. Okay? So the fact is for broad, your search is unlikely to include your keywords, actual words. So if you have specific words, you know, we, we, we talked about some, some searches before at the, at the top of the show, maybe your keyword was water filter for entire house. And that's a broad match. um as i gave in my illustration the search you may show up for is why does my tap water smell and stain my tub all right the only word that matches there is the word water it didn't say filter it didn't say entire house it's it just you know it it kind of matches in a very generic way this is this can be highly destructive but sometimes it's the only way that you can get traffic I am not saying just because broad match has the highest most boundless semantic intent that doesn't mean it's the worst and also foreshadowing exact match just because it has the least semantic intent doesn't mean it's the best.

16:26Chris Schaeffer: So please do not pigeonhole me and say, Chris is the Google ads manual bidding guy. And he always says exact match and manual bids is the best. I do not say that. I I've never said that. Um, I believe that what works in Google ads works for you and what works for someone else may not work for you and vice versa. so I bring these things to your attention so you can be better educated about how it all works so next we move to phrase match phrase match for semantic intent it does keep the core meaning of your keyword okay so as understood by google the core meaning of your keyword that you type out is intact.

17:21Chris Schaeffer: So I would say in this instance, some boundaries exist for semantic intent. You're going to have a phrase match, which, which is, you know, ideally is going to have multiple words. So, um, maybe, you know, to go back to the water filter type of thing, house water filter, that would be an example of a probably a pretty poor keyword because what does that mean house water filter is that whole house is that a water filter that's used in the house is it possibly a faucet you know it's just just one faucet or is it the entire house system that's that's working i mean you have to understand that the limitation of a phrase match keyword is based on the quality of the keyword itself.

18:10Chris Schaeffer: If Google understands that keyword very poorly, you're going to get bad results. So choosing your keyword to help Google understand really what it is you're looking for is your best shot at semantic intent not screwing up your search results. so a phrase match keyword the search is likely to include at least one of your keywords actual words maybe two probably not all of them and probably not in the same order that you typed it but it's it's gonna be matching at least to a core idea okay and you have you guys have to understand how frustrating this is. I used to travel around the United States and teach out of this textbook that was, you know, like this Google Ads textbook.

19:13I didn't write it, but I used to teach out of it. And I would

19:19Chris Schaeffer: do training with groups and things, and I would always explain, okay, this is what a broad match does, this is what a phrase match does, and this is what an exact match does. And I always had clear definitions to share with people about when you do a phrase match, the word can be added before and the word could be added after nothing in between. I used to say things like that. I used to tell people that's what you get. If you put house water filter, it's going to get house water filter, some things before and some things after. And that's what a phrase match did. oh I cannot tell you the frustration that I have when I cannot give you that definition anymore and I have to talk about semantic intent the amount of frustration that gives me I cannot express so don't don't think because I'm talking about these things that I am somehow complacent to the frustrations and the ambiguous aspect of this whole system of semantic intent and AI interpreting what my words are and what my words mean.

20:33Chris Schaeffer: What I typed is what I meant, Google. Okay, I've left. I digress. Alright, let's move to exact match. So the third and final match type is exact match. And semantic intent is used for this to recognize the identical meaning of your keyword. I'm going to say that again because don't mishear me. Semantic intent is used to recognize the identical meaning. I didn't say words. I didn't say keyword. I said identical meaning. So there's immediately a variation of what you've typed. You type something, it's immediately interpreted by Google, and then that interpretation is matched to a person's search, which is also interpreted, right?

21:34So there are varying degrees of interpretation that happen before the connection ever happens on the search in your ad shows. Okay, so even exact match is really a misnomer. It's not exact anymore. It's not exact. And in those same coaching sessions that I did all those decades ago, I would very clearly say exact match is going to match your keyword exactly. Some misspellings are allowed, but it's just going to be your exact phrase that you typed into Google. That's exactly what an exact match shows for no more, no less with very few variations. that's what I used to teach. That's not the case.

22:23Now, the search is likely to include multiple words of your original keyword. So it's likely to include. Sometimes it won't have a single word that actually is. I was looking at someone's Google Ads campaign. I was doing an audit for someone.

22:41Chris Schaeffer: And their exact match was an abbreviation of something. and Google showed it for something that was the full spelling, not of the abbreviation, but something else that was referring to the abbreviation. So it wasn't even, it was just extremely blatant that it was not an exact match. It was pretty crazy. So before you decide, well, this is my best chance to show for what I want to show for, let me give you a quick rundown and explain some bad news about exact match. Before you decide to use exact match exclusively and said, Chris told me to, don't you put that on me because I'm going to tell you the truth.

23:25Chris Schaeffer: I'm going to tell you what you need to understand about this because semantic intent allows for what's called close match variance. If you don't know what close match variance is, go to my website, chrisschafer.com and ask me about it. Be glad to do an audit on your account and show you where you're suffering from close match variance. It can be highly destructive, which is the... Close match variance is the product of semantic intent. Okay, so semantic intent allows for close match variance. Not going to go any deeper on that, but that is absolutely allowed on exact match. exact match keywords can be completely reordered words they allow for synonyms they allow for completely different searches that may not even match the original exact match keyword also probably the worst news is very often exact match keywords require higher cpcs so you have to pay more per click in order to use an exact match keyword very often they suffer from low search volume, meaning you don't get much traffic.

24:43You get very little traffic. You can't spend your full budget and you're paying more per click. And Google often punishes with low quality scores. So you get very poor quality scores on exact match keywords that, that very often happens. You get ones and twos, which lead to even higher cost per clicks.

25:06Chris Schaeffer: so i i i hope i haven't dissuaded you from advertising on google entirely but hopefully this educates you and i'm going to tell you the six ways that people suffer the most from semantic intent these are the six people type of people type of campaigns however you want to say it that are hurt the most by semantic intent before i go in this this final six uh list i'll tell you about again Optio if you have not used Optio please check them out for me as a personal favor to me I would appreciate just give them a chance I think you're going to like it and keep it but it would be a personal favor to me for you to try out the tool because it is a signal to my advertiser to continue to to sponsor me and that's that's how I make time for episodes to write episodes like this because I do write these.

26:02I spent about two hours putting this together today. Okay, so here it is.

26:10Chris Schaeffer: Who is hurt the most by semantic intent? Six situations are hurt the most. Number one, those using broad match keywords with no conversion data and and or no smart bidding at all so if you have manual bids and you're using you're using manual bids you could be hurt pretty significantly in some situations by semantic intent because it's giving you completely the wrong traffic at all if you didn't know it manual bids have no optimization features that would allow for Google to optimize for a person's intent. There's no optimized bidding like there is in other things. I could go into more if you guys have questions about that.

27:06You can email me, paidsearchpodcast at gmail.com. If you have questions, you can send me questions about the show to follow up on this. if you'd reach out to me for business that is chrisshafer.com you can find me there all right

27:22Chris Schaeffer: continuing on sorry next poorly crafted keywords can suffer massively from semantic intent what i mean is your keyword is cleaning services or your keyword is crm or your keyword is plumber or your keyword is buy shoes. These will be destroyed by semantic intent. Google will have its way with your keywords because they're, especially if they're broad, but even if they're not broad, it can still be devastating as to the quality of traffic that you get because of semantic intent.

28:11um number three and this one this one's a little detailed but specifically those that are dealing with complex and highly specific products or services so i i work with a lot of b2b companies and if you are working in some kind of niche area with very low search volume um you know there's not a whole lot of searches. You have to kind of, you're looking for a needle in a haystack or specific things that are really highly misunderstood by Google. It's very new or it's very nuanced that, you know, it's hard for people to even find this service. They don't even know what to call it. You're going to suffer greatly from semantic intent.

28:56I actually have a few examples of clients I've worked with recently. I worked with a line striping company. You ever heard of that? Line striping? Yeah, I mean, neither. But that's the companies that paint the lines on parking lots and private roads and things like that. Line striping company. I mean, if you need that, how do you find that? another one I worked with a company that did donation appraisals oh I mean that that was a nightmare the word donation by itself could get a billion searches and then appraisals could get a billion searches by itself put those together and try and get google to match what I'm trying what kind of traffic I'm trying to get it's a nightmare right and these these are examples of highly niche things.

29:45So that's what I mean. That's number three. Very common. I work with companies like that all the time where I have to finagle this tiny pathway between wrong and wrong. And the right path is just right in between completely wrong and completely wrong. so next um small budgets if if you're working with 300 a month 200 a month 500 a month or you know whatever small in your industry based on your cost per click i you'll you could you could be hurt massively massively by semantic intent because you end up spending half your budget on stuff that's absolutely utterly worthless to you. Number five, another example is high ticket services, like custom home builders or wealth managers, you know, things that take a long time, you know, and really require the person to be in the right mind frame, the kind of right person to, to be clicking on that ad, they could suffer greatly.

30:52And then if, if you stuck around to the end, I have not said this yet the entire episode, and this might apply to you. Number six is those of you that are not using negative keywords effectively, or you have no negative keywords at all, could be devastated by this close match variant semantic intent system that works in Google.

31:22All right, so that is it. That's the end of the episode. If you've enjoyed this and you appreciate what I do here, I guarantee you're going to like what I have to offer. I do Google Ads Management or I can do a personal one-on-one session and teach you what I know and look at your account and dig through your account and help you improve the performance. If you're interested in that, chrisshafer.com. The link is in the description. you can find me there otherwise you'll find me right here every Monday I'll talk to you guys then