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What is LSI in SEO?

POP blog author Kyle Roof
Kyle Roof
January 16, 2022

LSI stands for “Latent Semantic Indexing”, which are related terms to keywords used by search engines to deeply understand the content of any website. With the help of LSI keywords, you will be able to update your dusty old content and add some light on them in order to improve your search engine ranking. Now, one may ask, what is LSI in SEO? LSI in SEO can help your site improve its ranking and SEO traffic, which will enhance your visibility by allowing your website to rank higher in multiple search engines, including Google.

LSI keywords importance

Gone are the days when search engines like Google would simply use keywords to rank a website page. To give you an example, if search engines find the keyword content marketing being used over and over again, the search engines think that the content is about content marketing, even if the content is about something else. Unless you used the keywords repeatedly, search engines like Google failed to understand what the page is about.

Google has become extremely smart, meaning that today it focuses not only on the keywords that are used but the overall topic. This is when LSI keywords come into play because Google takes LSI keywords under consideration to figure out the depth of the content. For example, let’s say you have uploaded a blog on content marketing. Google will not just rank you based on this keyword — it will scan your whole page and see if you have used the content marketing term in your image alt text, content, title tag, and more.

Apart from this, Google will also look for LSI keywords such as types of content marketing, content marketing strategy, and other LSI keywords. Once Google finds out different LSI keywords, it will become confident that the content is indeed about content marketing. Readers must understand that LSI keywords are not synonyms; a lot of people make this common mistake. LSI keywords will be terms closely tied to the actual or targeted keyword. For example, let’s say you are writing a blog jogging. Now if you use the word running, it will not be an LSI keyword, rather just the synonym of the word jogging.

Not that mentioning running in your article will be wrong, but running is definitely not an LSI keyword. The LSI keywords will be 5k, cardio, shoes, trek — words and terms related to jogging blog content.

Benefits of using LSI keywords

Searching for LSI keywords isn’t really that difficult. The challenge that you will have is finding the right keyword that has a good amount of search volume. Otherwise, no one will be able to find your content. First, analyze why someone might be searching for that specific information or item.

  • Through LSI keywords, you will let search engines find valuable and relevant content. Once Google finds that your content is relevant, it will eventually help you to rank well.
  • LSI keywords allow you to add fresh and relevant content, letting an increased number of people to see the content, like it and eventually share it. That way, the content’s credibility will be enhanced.
  • The better the content will be, the more visitors you will have on your website, meaning you will have better on-site browsing time. This is the best way to keep your audience glued to your content and site.

Final Words

If you want to have a better search engine ranking, better to start focusing on LSI keywords. Leaving LSI keywords to form your content can cost you big time.

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