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LSI Keywords and What They Mean for SEO

SEO optimization

LSI is a marketing acronym you may not have heard of, or you don’t know enough about. The acronym stands for Latent Semantic Indexing which is a keyword that is commonly related to another primary keyword people use to search. These keywords are based on data from a person’s search history, pattern and behavior. That being said, what do LSI keywords mean for your SEO and your business?

Rankings

Search algorithms scan every website in order to determine the relevancy of the page. This in turn identifies the primary keyword(s) in addition to the topic being discussed. Utilizing primary keywords in addition to supporting keywords help determine the content and quality. It would be ideal to use an optimal amount of primary and LSI keywords to increase the chances of a higher ranking.

Website Protection

Using a primary keyword too frequently may cause your website to incur a penalty. Search algorithms consider this to be keyword-stuffing and it will damage your website’s ranking. In order to avoid penalties and damage to your overall ranking, you should replace some of the primary keywords with an LSI variation.

Increase Your Keywords

Another way to decrease the chances of penalties and to increase your ranking is to use multiple, varying keywords. With a varying amount of keywords, either LSI or long-tail, it increases the chances of visitors to the website. Longer-tail keywords tend to show higher intent and can be less competitive, and either way the results are usually in your favor with these. With an increased opportunity to gain visitors it in turn raises your chances of converting them into a customer or client.

Rework Your Campaigns

Keywords are crucial to the performance of your PPC campaign and sometimes reworking the main keywords isn’t enough of a change. Adding LSI keywords helps to increase the chances of a conversion because it opens up the opportunity for a searcher to find you based on the words they’re using for their search.

What does all of this mean for you and your brand? Search engines such as Google are continuing to develop their algorithm and determining content relevancy, and LSI keywords are beginning to carry more weight. If this strategy isn’t in place for your SEO and PPC strategies, or if you don’t have a strategy, contact Brawn Media and we’ll do the work for you!