Leveraging LSI Keywords for SEO and Content Marketing

Years ago, in the early days of SEO, marketers focused on one keyword for ranking.

 For example, a brand related to wellness may have just focused on “health” or “self-care” as their target keyword.

At first, this was a valuable strategy.

However, as digital marketing and search engine algorithms have advanced, single keywords no longer pack the punch that they used to.

Now, context matters more than ever.

Someone searching for “health” could be searching for many different things. Are they interested in healthy food? Healthy lifestyle tips? Quotes about health?

Searches have gotten more advanced, with people using everyday language and questions to find what they need. For this reason, LSI keywords are now essential for providing context and reaching the right audience.

How can you leverage LSI keywords for your SEO efforts?

Read on to find out.

LSI Keywords

Talk of LSI keywords and their relevance to your SEO has been around for several years now, but many people are still unclear about what LSI means.

LSI is short for “Latent Semantic Indexing.” This is a fancy, confusing term that just means search engines use context to learn synonyms. It’s how modern search engines pair search terms with the content they show.

Example

It helps to look at an example. For SEO, LSI keywords are related to your target keyword. They add more content so that search engines can more accurately pair your content with searches, and thus more relevant users see it.

For example, the brand MySerenity.Love may have a primary keyword like “healthy lifestyle motivation.” Here are some LSI keywords for that main keyword:

  • healthy lifestyle motivation tips
  • healthy lifestyle motivation routines
  • healthy lifestyle motivation habits
  • healthy lifestyle motivation secrets
  • healthy lifestyle motivation stories
  • healthy lifestyle motivation inspiration
  • healthy lifestyle motivation lessons
  • Common problems finding healthy lifestyle motivation
  • What is healthy lifestyle motivation?
  • How can I improve my healthy lifestyle motivation?

Benefits of LSI Keywords

There are constantly new Google searches on every topic imaginable. This is part of the reason Google and other search engines have made such an effort to improve their algorithms and provide the most relevant results to those searching.

Using LSI keywords within your content strategy offers a number of SEO benefits including:

  • Increase your website’s position in the search rankings.
  • Improve the relevance of your content to make it more visible and relevant to your target audience.
  • Offer a better experience to reduce bounce rate and increase other ranking factors (like time spent on your website).

Finding Relevant LSI Keywords

To leverage LSI keywords, you’ll need to find them. How can you do this? There are many helpful tools for finding LSIs for your top keywords. Here are a few tools that can help:

Google Autocomplete

Enter your keyword in the Google search bar and look at the various options Google autocomplete suggests. When we type “healthy lifestyle motivation” it recommends healthy lifestyle motivation quotes, healthy lifestyle motivation quotes, and healthy lifestyle motivation Instagram.

Check the Related Searches

Another strategy is to scroll down to the bottom of the Google page for the search term and look at the related searches. For “healthy lifestyle motivation” some of the related searches are: how to encourage someone to live a healthy lifestyle, motivation to be healthy and fit, lack of motivation to eat healthily, and daily motivation tips.

LSI Graph

LSI Graph is a free generator that will show you relevant LSI keywords. You just enter your primary keyword and it gives you a list. It’s an easy, free tool that can help you plan out LSIs. It also shows you the top-performing content related to your keyword.

People Also Ask

This is another great free resource that’s right on Google. On the search page, check the “People Also Ask” box to see related questions.

There are many other tools you can use to generate LSIs, including free and paid options as well. Generally, you’ll be able to build out a fanatic, relevant list even just using these free tools mentioned above.

Leveraging LSIs for Your SEO

Once you have a list of excellent LSI words, it’s time to put them to use with your content marketing. Here are some tips for best leveraging LSIs for your SEO:

Break Them into Logical Sections

Some of the LSI keywords logically lend themselves to group together. If you were writing an article on healthy lifestyle motivation tips, then some LSI terms you may include would be

  • What is healthy lifestyle motivation?
  • How can I improve my motivation to get a healthy lifestyle?
  • Healthy lifestyle checklist

You may save LSIs like “healthy motivation lifestyle quotes” for an article that has to do with “healthy lifestyle inspiration” instead.

Assess Total Monthly Search Estimate

How do you know if an LSI is best as its own piece of content or as part of another post? One way to help make the distinction between the two is to review the total monthly search estimate. Those with a high monthly search estimate tend to work well as their own posts.

Include LSIs On Your Website

Yes, you want to leverage LSIs in your content, but you should also implement them throughout your website. Include LSIs just as you do your typical keywords by adding them naturally to your:

  • Web copy headings
  • Web copy and blog post body text
  • Image alt tags
  • Meta titles
  • Meta description

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Rules on keyword stuffing still apply to LSIs, as you do not want to overuse them in your content. Do not stuff your content with them. Instead, implement them naturally and cohesively. Make sure they add value and create the best possible user experience. A good rule of thumb is to implement one LSI keyword every 200 or so words.

Boost Your Digital Marketing with LSI Keywords

Google is now smarter than ever, and so are users. People do not search for single keywords; they are looking for targeted content that meets their needs. For this reason, you should leverage LSIs in your content for better SEO.

Engage 2 Engage is Here to Help

There’s no denying the value of LSIs, but they do add a layer of complexity to the already confusing space of SEO. For many small businesses and entrepreneurs, it can understandably be a major challenge. While you need to implement this strategy to grow your business, it can be difficult to know how to start or keep up.

That’s where we come in. Engage 2 Engage provides comprehensive marketing solutions to small businesses just like yours. We offer a wide array of services, including SEO tactics like LSIs. Turn to us for marketing automation, content, design, web tech, and more.

Find out more about how our dedicated team of marketing professionals can help you. Learn more about our Marketing Programs today!

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