How to Analyze and Optimize a Website’s Semantic Core: A Complete Guide for SEO Audits and Competitor Research

Introduction: The Importance of Semantic Core Auditing

A successful SEO strategy begins with a well-structured, targeted, and regularly updated semantic core—the set of keywords and search phrases your website is optimized for. Over time, this keyword set must be reviewed and analyzed to ensure:

Pages are aligned with real user intent
Search engines properly associate the right content with the right queries
There are no keyword cannibalization or duplication issues
New keyword opportunities are being captured based on current trends

This guide covers a full SEO audit process focused on the semantic core. You’ll learn how to extract data, use key SEO tools, evaluate search engine positions, identify content gaps, and explore competitors’ keywords to grow organic traffic strategically.

What Is a Semantic Core?

The semantic core is a collection of search queries that represent your site’s topics and target audience’s intent. Each query is associated with:

A user need or intent (informational, navigational, or transactional)
A specific page or cluster of pages
Search volume and difficulty
Performance indicators (ranking, CTR, etc.)

The larger and more accurate your semantic core, the more competitive and visible your site can become.

Step 1: Extracting Keyword Data from Key Sources

The first phase of a semantic core audit is data collection. Collect queries your website already ranks for using a combination of the following:

From Google Search Console:

Use tools like Netpeak Spider to extract more than the default web interface allows. While the web version gives about 1,000–1,500 queries, integrated tools can extract several thousand.

From Yandex Metrics:

Go to “Search queries”
Click “Groupings” and deselect “Landing page”
Apply and export the entire table (up to 83,000 rows in some cases)

This provides deep insight into what drives traffic from Yandex, including long-tail queries.

From Google Analytics:

Set the date range to cover at least three months
Export query data manually or via connectors

Remember that Analytics limits exports to 5,000 rows at a time, so you might need multiple downloads.

From Third-Party Tools:

Use Key Collector, Keystat, or Herbstat for large exports
Data sets range from 7,000 to 10,000 queries and include frequency, positions, and URLs

Once collected, all of this data is compiled into Key Collector or similar software for further processing.

Step 2: Assessing Ranking Performance

After gathering your keyword list, it’s time to understand how well the site ranks for these queries. Export and group keywords into buckets like:

Top 1–3 positions
Top 4–10
Positions 11–20
Positions 21–30
Beyond 30

This segmentation helps identify high-potential queries that are underperforming and provides direction for quick SEO wins.

For instance:

Queries in positions 11–20 are close to Page 1 and often need minimal optimization to break into the top 10.
Queries in 21–30 may need deeper optimization, better linking, or new content formats.

Use basic mathematical projections to estimate the potential traffic gain if those pages were moved up one ranking bracket.

Step 3: Identifying Underutilized Queries

Next, look for:

High-impression, low-click queries: These indicate poor snippet quality or lack of appeal
Good rankings with low traffic: Suggests keyword volume is too low or search intent doesn’t match page content
Bad rankings with high relevance: Time to reoptimize the page or build supporting content

Also check for duplicated queries or those leading to the wrong pages—these are signals of textual irrelevance or technical duplication.

Step 4: Creating Pivot Tables for Data Summary

To organize large semantic cores (10,000+ queries), use Excel pivot tables:

Group by keyword cluster or page
Calculate average ranking
Sum search volumes
Display total visibility score or paid traffic value from Yandex Direct

This quickly highlights:

Pages with strong visibility but low traffic
Groups that are highly competitive (based on paid CPC or query overlap)
Pages that are overoptimized or underoptimized

Step 5: Checking Text Relevance and Duplicate Content

Use tools like Page Checker or Netpeak Checker to extract H1, title, and meta description from URLs. Then analyze:

Whether the main keywords appear in the H1 and Title tags
Whether duplicate content is harming visibility
If multiple pages target the same cluster, causing cannibalization

Example: Three queries like “100x100x50 fire-resistant cable box” and “fireproof junction box” should likely point to the same page. If they don’t, you may need to consolidate content or redirect.

Step 6: Cluster Verification Using Key Collector

After verifying textual relevance, run automatic clustering in Key Collector to detect structural mismatches. Look for:

Keyword clusters that distribute traffic across too many URLs
Query groups missing landing pages altogether
Instances where similar queries are split across multiple, low-performing pages

When done correctly, clustering reveals:

Where to merge or consolidate pages
Which pages need new content
How to better distribute keyword focus across your site

Step 7: Detecting Missed Opportunities

This is a critical phase where you analyze which semantic groups are missing matching content on your website. For example:

You find 60,000 keywords from competitor analysis
After cleaning, 50,000 are unique and relevant
You discover your site only covers half of them

This gap is your content growth opportunity. Prioritize based on volume, competition, and commercial relevance.

Step 8: Competitor Semantic Analysis

One of the most valuable sources of new ideas is your competitors’ semantic cores.

How to do it:

Use keyword tools to extract data from your competitors’ domains
Clean the data to remove irrelevant or homepage-centric queries
Compare it against your own semantic core
Identify:
- Clusters your competitors rank for that you don’t
- Queries they rank poorly for where you could overtake them
- Niche-specific long-tail keywords they’ve missed

Use this data to find underserved topics, new product categories, or supporting content opportunities.

Step 9: Visualizing Cluster Overlap and Keyword Gaps

Create visual dashboards (in Excel, Google Sheets, or BI tools) to track:

Keyword distribution across pages
Missing content vs. existing pages
Traffic potential per cluster
Competitive density per topic

Add structured filters (by difficulty, volume, current ranking) to help your content and development teams plan better.

Step 10: Building a Roadmap for Optimization

Once the audit is complete, generate an action plan that includes:

Quick wins (Top 11–20 rankings → Top 10)
New pages for unserved keyword groups
Pages requiring rewrite due to poor relevance
Consolidation of duplicate content
Technical SEO adjustments for misaligned URLs

Assign deadlines and resources to each task based on impact and difficulty.

Final Checklist

✅ Export full semantic core from multiple sources (GSC, Yandex, analytics)
✅ Use clustering and pivot tables to analyze performance
✅ Detect keyword cannibalization or missing pages
✅ Compare your semantic core with competitors’
✅ Identify clusters with high commercial potential
✅ Create new landing pages or optimize existing ones
✅ Align technical and on-page SEO for keyword targeting
✅ Build a prioritized roadmap for content and SEO tasks

Wnioski

Auditing your website’s semantic core isn’t just a technical task—it’s a strategic one. By understanding where your content aligns or misaligns with search demand, you can uncover powerful growth opportunities.

With the right tools, structured data analysis, and competitor insights, you can transform your SEO strategy from reactive to proactive—leading to higher visibility, better rankings, and more qualified traffic.

Whether you’re working on an e-commerce site, a service business, or a content portal, a regular semantic core audit helps ensure you’re not leaving traffic on the table.

Let me know if you’d like a version of this article formatted for publication or turned into a checklist or guide!

Audit Your Website’s Semantic Core and Competitor Keywords