How to Use LSI Keywords for Better Ranking?

While there once was a time when you tried to throw in as many keywords into your website’s content as possible to make it higher in search rankings, it’s no longer appropriate. In fact, that is now referred to as keyword stuffing and it makes company’s content look awkward and unnatural. Search engines may even flag your site and penalize you for this practice.

Your readers won’t enjoy reading it and it will be obvious that you stuffed it with the same keywords over and over again. Think of it this way; Google wants to reward their content providers by ranking them higher when they follow the rules, which includes avoiding keyword stuffing.

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Instead, it’s time to start utilizing the practice of Latent Semantic Index keywords or LSI keywords. This practice is a better way to target your readers and stay on track with search engines. Here is a look at why using LSI keywords will rank your content faster.

What are LSI keywords?

LSI keywords, sometimes called long-tail keywords, are latent semantic indexing which involves identifying plurals and synonyms to your main keywords. When you find similar words for your primary keywords, it will allow you to still use keywords while keeping your piece sounding natural.

Search engines will be able to find an analogy between your LSI keywords and your main keywords while being able to maintain the natural relevance. The LSI keywords will help search engines determine what your content is about.

For example, if you are writing about “Smith’s Birthday Cakes,” you wouldn’t want to be associated with other shops like “Frank’s Baked Goods.” You would want to terms in your content to relate to it such as “bakery,” “candles,” or “vanilla frosting.” Being more specific with keywords can guide search engines without saying the phrase “Smith’s Birthday Cakes” over and over again. Your piece will flow naturally without over-stuffing your keyword.

Why use LSI keywords?

LSI KeywordsPeople are seeing the benefits of LSI keywords because it’s improving rankings, avoiding search engine penalties, increasing readers’ interest, and you can use as many LSI keyphrases as you wish. Search engines will check for LSI keywords when they index the content of a site, so if they are using this determine your content’s quality, having variations of LSI keywords will increase your chances of ranking high.

It won’t be marked as spam due to keyword stuffing since you aren’t repeating the main keywords multiple times in your piece. The various keywords that rephrase the main keyword will keep readers more interested while making it easier to skim through in a hurry, and you can use as many LSI keyphrases as you want to keep your content unique and relevant to the industry.

LSI weight in SEO

LSI is one of the biggest things that is taken into consideration by the search engines, the search engine bots will crawl the page to note all the main keywords and LSI keywords to rank the page for specific keyword search. With the use of LSI keywords it’s not that you should not focus on the main keyword density. This is a blend between te two.

To rank high in the search engines for a keyword you should focus on the main keyword density along with the LSI keywords supporting it. As per now LSI keywords holds a great importance that search engines takes to notice. There are various factors that Search engines take to notice like length of post, title tags, keyword density, bold and italics,SEO optimized images. page speed, etc. In these factors LSI tells the search engines what exactly the page is about and how to put them in search results.

Where to put LSI Words?

After knowing about LSI keywords you must make use of these in your article but the big question is that where to put them.

1. You can use the LSI keywords in the Title, URL, Highlighted words, headings, meta description, Meta keywords.
2. You can use the LSI keywords while interlinking to the page. you can use this to have the different anchor text for the links.

If you like to build external links then these keywords can be used as anchor text for those links.
Now you can make your SEO ranking boost to new height. But before you start using them you should not over use it, try to keep away from keyword stuffing. Keep the density in check, if you try to use these LSI keywords more then needed then rather than getting positive result you can drop the rankings.

How to Find LSI Keywords?

Go to Google search & search for your target keyword. At the bottom, you will see the related search terms, which are the right LSI keywords that you should use.

Along with that, you will notice that Words on certain search results are highlighted, you should use them in your article. Here is an example:

Hope now you got the clear idea on how to find and use LSI keywords exactly.

Advantages of Using LSI Keywords

LSI keywords have so many advantages as far as SEO and user experience is concerned.Here are the perks of having LSI keywords in your content:

•  Prevents Your Content From Being Labelled as Spam:

LSI keywords prevent your content from being marked spam in the eyes of search engines.Having a varied mention of keyword phrases that are semantically related to your primary keywords increases your content’s credibility.This also differentiates your content from spun content.

•  Decrease in Bounce Rates

LSI keywords help you in reducing bounce rates by preventing your site from ranking for the wrong terms.

•  Increase On-Page Time Spent By Visitors

It helps to retain visitors on your site.LSI keywords make the flow of content natural and meaningful.This gives your readers a peaceful environment without making it feel keyword stuffed.

• Improve Search Engine Rankings:

It helps you to rank better and for related searches.Google bots automatically crawl your site and make a perception about what your article is.Now they use LSI criteria to rank your site for semantically related searches no matter what your target keyword is.

• Improve Blog Authority

More rankings = more click through rates = more authority of your blog.

• Increase Sales

LSI keywords are also like long tail keywords and hence you can rank higher without less competition.For example, Amazon records a hefty 57% of all sales through keywords that are long tail and LSI versions of the primary keyword.

This is only because there is less competition and exact buyer intent down there in the LSI zone.


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LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. One of the most important elements in quality content is the extent to which it contains LSI keywords. In order for any SEO campaign to succeed through content marketing, it must understand and implement a strategy which emphasizes on the use of Latent Semantic Indexing.

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