How LSI Keywords Improve Your SEO

In this article, we examine what Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is and how it can improve your search engine optimization. We will also explore ways to find keywords driven by LSI and how to use them in content.

Why LSI is Important
LSI helps search engines arrive at search results that are more accurate by helping them find related keywords and processing synonyms. For example, pages that include the word “coach” can be about a few different things. They might be about a business coach, a sports coach, or the retail store Coach.com.

By using LSI keywords, search engines are able to produce better search results by identifying the context of pages. For example, if a page is about a business coach, it might contain Latent Semantic Indexing keywords such as: “small business coach”, “how to find a business coach”, and “what does a business coach do”.

Search engines want to find the most relevant content for a search. Since LSI keywords make this easier, they reward websites that use LSI keywords by sending them more traffic and ranking them higher.  Content that uses LSI is also better targeted which helps to ensure that the right audience will see it.

Finding LSI Keywords
One of the ways to find LSI keywords is to use Google search. Do a search and then look at the related searches sections that come up to find keywords that are related to your search. Gathering some of the related keywords will give you a good start.

The Google Keyword Planner Tool is another way that you can find related keywords. Once you have entered a keyword, you can select “Get Ideas” to get more ideas that are related to the keyword. With this method, you can also see how competitive the keywords are. Another tool similar to the Google Keyword Planner is the SERPs Keyword Research Database Tool. A couple of other tools are the LSI Graph/LSI Keyword Generator and Ubersuggest.

Selecting Your LSI Keywords
After you have gathered your list of LSI keywords, you will narrow them down based on the ones that have a pretty good search volume and are highly relevant to your content. Be careful not to overstuff your content with Latent Semantic Indexing keywords. Your LSI keywords should help to answer questions people might have about your main keyword.