What are LSI Keywords & Why it Helps in SEO

Before learning about LSI keywords, you must know that Google doesn’t use them. Google says that the term LSI keywords are non-existent. 

But why are we still hearing about this?

It goes back to 2004 when Google implemented Latent Semantic Indexing in its Search algorithm. 

The concept of LSI is based on Natural Language Processing (NLP).

NLP’s goal here is to enable a machine to understand relevant and contextual concepts.

With the help of LSI technology, Google Search Engine is designed to understand a user’s query and provide relevant results based on the search intent(keyword). 

When a user is looking for a piece of information, they are not entirely aware of what they are searching for, so the user types related keywords. Even if the spelling is wrong, Google Search is supposed to understand the context and concept you are looking for. 

Regarding page relevancy, google monitors users’ activity to determine specific signals. Let’s say you are searching for ‘Horse Riding’ and as you open the first link, you read a few lines and realize the page has significantly less or irrelevant information, you would go back and check for other results. Visitor’s time on a website is a sign of relevancy for Google.

Adding LSI keywords on the pages improves the page relevancy as well as add context to the content of the page for the primary keywords. SEO teams or professional SEO service providers should still consider adding the LSI keywords to their keyword research list and add these keywords in the content as well as it helps page rank on several other terms and push rankings for primary keyword as well. 

What are LSI Keywords?

LSI is an abbreviation for Latent Semantic Indexing, and keywords are the search intents. LSI Keywords are a keyword group semantically derived from your primary keyword.

They can be commonly used words relevant to your primary keyword and conceptually related words. LSI keywords provide more context for google’s algorithm to understand what your content is about, and Google would rank your content based on how unique, relevant, and user-friendly it is.

Back then, marketers would rely on one primary keyword for On-Page SEO, i.e., Title, Meta Description, h1,h2, and stuffed it in the content without regard for quality. Users started digging deeper around a topic they already knew about. The content lacked depth.

In 2013, Google updated its Hummingbird algorithm, which didn’t encourage keyword stuffing, single keyword optimization, or other black-hat techniques.

Hence, marketers, professional SEO service providers, and business owners had to develop simple SEO strategies, one being LSI keywords.

How to find LSI keywords?

Synonyms 

While the general meaning of Synonyms is similar meaning of words, here, LSI keywords cannot always have a similar meaning. People noticed that Google would bold the synonyms of your search intent.

If you search for ‘Car Services, you will have ‘car repair,’ ‘car service center’ bold in your search results.

The bold words in the search queries were triggered, indicating similar search intents. These will be your LSI keywords.

Google Autocomplete

Did you ever wonder how Google would magically predict your following phrase after typing work on the Google Search?

Google maintains a log of every user’s search activity based on four factors: Language, location, Trending, and Past Searches. Based on these factors, Google can display autocomplete suggestions. So the autocomplete words are the search queries your potential readers are looking for.

You can also try Youtube Autosuggest if you are creating video content. As youtube is the second among the top search engines, 

You can use Youtube Autosuggest and Google’s Autocomplete interchangeably for keyword research to get broader search intents making your content more rich and in-depth.

People Also Ask(PAA)

People Also Ask is a snippet of advanced topics users were looking for. Adding these topics to your content will increase users’ trust by giving them what they want. Optimize your content to appear in the PAA snippet by adding them to h2 and h3.

Create an FAQ schema inside your article and enter three questions and answers with relevant keywords based on PPA. Make sure your answers are different from those in the PPA section. Add unique details that would make the user curious and click on your page.

Related Searches

They appear at the bottom part of your SERP results page. Google algorithm generates semantically related searches in this section based on your search intent. They can help you determine users’ search behavior on a topic and what information they are looking for in a topic. Users can gain sharp insights by writing content around these Related Searches.

Keyword Research Tools 

Keyword research tools can assist you in discovering keywords or search intents typed by users on the internet. Though these tools were not designed to generate LSI keywords, they give you a set of relevant keywords that can help you rank better than your competitors.

With Google supporting semantic keywords, many keyword tools were built to help marketers and business owners. Here is a list of 4 commonly used Keyword Research tools.

1. Google Keyword Planner: Add a few keywords to your planner, and the planner will generate a list of low-competition keywords that can increase your chances of ranking high. You can also add your competitor’s website and see what keywords they are ranking for.
2. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer: When you type a keyword in the Ahrefs tool, it gives you details about keyword difficulty, search volume, and the number of clicks you can get if you rank for that keyword. There’s also an ‘Also ask for’ feature where you can find a long list of related keywords asked by users.
3. Also Asked: Also Asked is a keyword research tool used to understand users’ questions related to a keyword. You will find a list of predicted follow-up questions that users generally ask. These questions can be used in your headers as well.
4. Semrush Keyword Magic Tool: Semrush keyword tool aims to target specific keyword searches. This tool has a drop-down menu called Intent which asks you want types of keywords you are looking for. Is it transactional, informational, competitive, or navigational? It is one of the unique factors in the Semrush Keyword tool that you can’t find in any other online tool.

How do LSI Keywords help SEO?

From what we learned about LSI Keywords, they adhere to Google’s algorithm by using related words to your content which would only improve your ranking.

With LSI keywords, you can avoid implementing black hat techniques like keyword stuffing to avoid getting penalized by Google.

Even with Google’s frequent algorithm updates, LSI keywords won’t affect your rankings on SERP results as you will continue to produce keyword-rich content.

Among Google’s top ranking factors, relevancy and user signal are the most important. Is your content semantically related to the search query? Are users engaging with your content? These are the questions both Google Search Engine and LSI keywords are trying to solve. 

They will help you rank by signaling to both Google Search and Users that you provide relevant, engaging, and high-quality content. 

Conclusion

No matter how often Google updates its algorithm, the one thing that would never change is providing relevant and accurate SERP results, which is what LSI keywords are all about. 

LSI keywords help you produce relevant and authentic content, build your brand authority, signal to Google that you are a subject matter expert, increase your opportunity to rank higher and make a strong SEO foundation for your website.

Hire Experts for your SEO 

Implementing the LSI keyword research SEO tactics described in this article can undoubtedly aid your SEO efforts, but until you make SEO a priority with a strong, deliberate strategy, you’ll always be squandering organic traffic.

If this, you’re not the only one. We got your back. Pentraseoservices offers SEO services. To find out more about our SEO capabilities and successes, contact us!