What are LSI Keywords & How to use them effectively?

Shifa Imran
9 min readOct 26, 2022

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If the role of LSI keywords in SEO is in question. The only reasonable answer to this would be an undeniable long list of positive impacts that LSI keywords can have on your website, if used accurately.

This guide includes everything that you need to know about LSI keywords and how to use them effectively in order to yield maximum results from your SEO strategies.

In case you are a small business owner, a blogger, or even a SEO specialist this guide is specially for you. Read on and don’t miss out on our special section ‘How to find LSI keywords’.

What is LSI keywords?

Latent Semantic keywords also known as LSI keywords are crucial keywords that are syntactically related to your main keyword included in the search query. LSI keywords basically act as add ons for the main keyword in order to elaborate it in a better way for both the users and search engine.

In other words, LSI keywords are words or phrases that have massive correspondence to the main or primary keyword.

For instance if your main keyword is related to cars, your potential LSI keywords can be engines, tires, roads, automobiles, and vehicles.

What is Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)?

If we speak in technical terms, latent semantic indexing is an ingenious mathematical practice that was invented in the late 1980s. This technology serves the purpose of extracting precise facts and figures from substantial data sets.

Most computers make use of latent semantic indexing to determine the correlation among various terms and phrases in extensive jumbled and disordered data sets.

In simpler terms, LSI enables computers to mimic human-level understanding of words and phrases in order to provide users with the most accurate and best possible answer to their search query.

The more LSI keywords you use, the better the search engine will understand your content, and eventually you will land a better ranking on the web page. This is exactly why LSI keywords play such a crucial role in ranking your site on search engines.

Now that you have gained sufficient familiarity with LSI keywords and latent semantic indexing let’s move onto understanding the impact and importance of LSI in terms of SEO.

Why Are LSI Keywords Important in Terms of SEO?

When it comes to SEO LSI keywords are search terms that are highly related to the main keyword that you are targeting. In SEO, LSI keywords help you to dispense better and more contextual information related to the main keyword at the user’s end.

Furthermore, LSI keywords enable the search engines to better understand and rank your content according to the user’s intent. In this way, LSI keywords always benefit all three parties including the user, the site owner, and the search engine.

What are the benefits of using LSI keywords in SEO?

Possessing complete understanding regarding LSI keywords and then implementing them in your SEO strategies has become extremely important in the current marketing world. Calculatedly incorporating LSI keywords in your content will help your site stay one step ahead than your competitor’s site.

Quickly go through the benefits of using LSI keywords in your content summarised below!

LSI Keywords hold more weightage as compared to keyword density

Keyword density is usually measured in percentage, it refers to the number of times the keyword appears in your content. Once, Google used to merely rely on keyword density in order to rank a page. Which meant, stuffing keywords in the content regardless of their relevance eventually earned a higher ranking.

This technique became quite famous, and folks, especially unprofessional marketers started misusing this method to stuff their content with keywords for ranking higher. As a result, soon Google identified this as a black hat technique and now keyword stuffing can cause irreparable damage to your site.

Recently, the old concept of keyword density has been replaced with LSI keywords in order to enhance the overall user experience of Google. Now that LSI keywords hold more weightage as compared to keyword density when it comes to ranking, you can take full advantage.

You can make use of LSI keywords by naturally incorporating them in your content, don’t forget to make sure that LSI keywords should be relevant and should make sense to the user or else all your efforts will go down the drain.

LSI Keywords supplement other keywords integrated in the content

LSI keywords play a prominent role in supporting other keywords. Basically, LSI keywords facilitate the search engine to index and rank main keywords according to the user’s search query, so that the user can receive the closest possible and most relevant answer.

Apart from this, your site will definitely garner a higher chance to rank if you make use of LSI keywords naturally in your content rather than repeatedly using a single main keyword. It’s safe to say, LSI keywords supplement all types of keywords included in the content be it primary, secondary, or tertiary.

Aid Google algorithm in identifying the content relevance to the search query

LSI Keywords help dispense solid contextual meaning of a topic in the search engine. Hence, strategically placing LSI Keywords in your content will enable the search engine to better understand what your site focuses on.

Apart from this, the inclusion of relevant phrases and words also aids the Google algorithm in enhancing the match between what the user searched for and what content the search engine delivered. This is to say, the sole purpose of LSI keywords is to assist users in finding accurate answers for their queries.

The Undeniable Impact of LSI keywords on SEO

The end goal of every SEO strategy is to eventually rank higher on search engines by optimising their content. Luckily, LSI supports the SEO strategies by suppleming the main keyword and providing the search engine with better information regarding the site.

Discussed below are three undeniable impacts of LSI keywords on SEO!

Better understanding regarding user intent

User intent refers to understanding what users are actually demanding. Understanding the user intent plays a key role in driving relevant traffic to your site. Since every individual makes use of different phrases to search or has a different goal in mind regarding a single keyword, using LSI benefits majorly.

For instance, when you search for ‘gym equipment’, a list of LSI keywords is displayed on your screen. These keywords provide you with meaningful insights as to what other questions users may have in mind when searching for ‘gym equipment’.

Keyword variation is a brownie point for ranking

As LSI keywords are closely linked to your main keyword, therefore your page is likely to come up in search results for both the main keyword and the LSI keywords.

For example, if your main keyword is diet plan, you can incorporate LSI keywords of this main keyword in your content to increase the chances of your page to rank higher in the search engine.

Delivers better understanding of your site to Google

As mentioned earlier, naturally incorporating LSI keywords in your content help users land at the most relevant site according to their search query. Moreover, LSI keywords help Google better understand your site in order to rank it.

As Google is mainly focusing on delivering the most accurate result for a certain search query, your site with LSI keywords is likely to rank as compared to a site that solely operates on the concept of keyword density.

Let’s study the search query ‘mango’ as our case study for today. For instance if a piece of content contains words like healthy, tasty, sweet or fruit salad it’s easier to identify that the content focuses on the mango in terms of fruit.

On the other hand, if a piece of content contains words like fashion, footwear, dresses, and accessories, it’s safe to say that the said content focuses on ‘mango’ in terms of a clothing company.

This indicates that the correct usage of LSI keywords majorly helps Google catalogue the accurate search ranking. You ease Google’s job by including relevant phrases of your main keyword, resultantly you witness your rankings sky-rocket.

How to use LSI keywords for SEO?

Before you move on to using LSI keywords in your content, thoroughly understand that LSI keywords are related to the main keyword. Now let’s move onto understanding how to use LSI keywords in your content.

The very first thing that you need to keep in mind when making use of LSI keywords is to work them naturally in your content. Moreover, the overall content flow should not be disturbed and the LSI keywords should make sense to the user.

Always remember, you aren’t using LSI keywords only for the sake of ranking on Google but you are using them to provide value to the users. Hence, make sure to naturally incorporate LSI keywords in your content instead of randomly stuffing them here and there.

Secondly, you need to identify perfect points in your overall content for placing LSI keywords. Some best possible segments where you can include LSI keywords are:

  • Meta title
  • Meta description
  • Throughout the body text
  • Headings (H1, H2, H3 and so on)
  • Image alt tags

How to Find LSI Keywords?

We have covered almost everything that you need to know regarding the infamous LSI keywords. However, now is the time for a million dollar question : how to search LSI keywords?

The first and foremost step to finding LSI keywords is to establish a base of your main keywords, then coming up with related keywords will feel like a piece of cake. All you are required to do is conduct a bit of research to uncover tons of LSI keywords possibilities.

Here are 3 quick ways you can employ for carrying out effortless LSI keywords research in no time!

Via Search Engine

Google’s inbuilt search feature is the most uncomplicated way to search keywords relevant to your main keyword. All you need to do is type in your main keyword in the search bar, and you will receive plenty of suggestions relevant to your main keyword in bold.

Simply note down the words and phrases that appear on the screen in bold, and now you can use them in your content as LSI keywords.

Make use of Google Keyword Research tool

Google keyword research tool is one great tool that you can make use of in order to research related phrases and keywords of the main keyword. However, for researching LSI keywords via this tool you need to have a Google AdWords account.

Through LSI keyword tools (LSI Graph and Other Tools)

Another method of researching related words or phrases of your main keyword is by making use of either paid or free LSI keyword tools available on the web. One such paid tool that business owners and marketers widely use is LSI graph.

With LSI graph all you have to do is type your main keyword in the search bar and then click on the Generate button. You will receive a list of related words and phrases of your main keyword that you can sprinkle all over your content.

Frequently Asked Questions about LSI Keywords

How many LSI Keywords Should I Use?

You can use LSI keywords as many times as they fit in a normal conversation. In short, you can use LSI keywords as long as they make sense.

Does Google Use LSI?

Yes, Google employs Latent Semantic Indexing technology for indexing web pages according to relevant search queries. Therefore, it is highly recommended to incorporate LSI keywords in your content for landing a higher position in SERP.

Final Words on LSI Keywords!

When aiming for a higher search engine ranking, tightly holding onto LSI keywords is your best bet. Ignoring LSI when drafting your SEO strategies or overall marketing strategies can cost you your chance of ranking on top most positions in the search engine.

Learning about LSI keywords and their implementation is pretty easy to comprehend, even if you don’t belong to a technical background. Therefore, start using LSI keywords from today onwards and witness the wonders it does to your site ranking later!

We dearly hope this detailed guide helped you immensely in understanding what LSI keywords are and how you can use them effectively to skyrocket your site’s ranking.

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