What are LSI keywords and their benefits for SEO

Want to show your content at the top of the search results? Create content that is relevant to what the target audience is looking for. For that, you need to know about Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords.

Insights about LSI keywords can help you increase your website’s ranking in search engines. Not only that, your content will be more targeted!

Curious? This article will thoroughly explore everything about the LSI keyword so that you understand its definition, how it works, and how to look for it. Let’s see more!

What are LSI keywords?
How Does LSI Work?
How to Find LSI Keywords?
What are the benefits of LSI keywords on SEO?
Use LSI Keywords to Increase Your Website Ranking!

What are LSI keywords?

LSI alias Latent Semantic Indexing keywords are words or sentences that are considered semantically relevant by search engines. This set of keywords is one of the factors that search engines consider when setting a site’s ranking in search results.

Sounds too technical? Let’s take an example.

Suppose you write content about the moon (satellite) on your website. How come your site appears in search results about astronomical objects? Why isn’t your content showing up in search results for about a month (date)?

This is because your content contains words like satellite, eclipse, celestial body, or orbit that are semantically relevant (LSI keywords) to the moon (satellite).

So, search engines will identify semantically relevant words. So that your content can relate to one specific topic.

A little intermezzo. Did you know that LSI is an ancient technology? Even Google doesn’t use it.

Yes, you read it right. Google does not use LSI technology. To display relevant search results, they use the Word2vec technology developed by the Google Brain team.

But does that mean that using semantically relevant words on Google is useless for SEO?

Not really.

The Word Vector approach used by Word2vec has essentially the same properties as its predecessor (LSI). They both use semantically connected words.

The difference is, that LSI was not created to accommodate loads as big as the web. In the past, LSI was only tested using nine documents containing the topic of interaction between humans and computers. While his successors have been able to handle much more complex problems.

However, why are so many still using the term LSI?

This is because the use of semantically relevant words originates from LSI. Thus, the identity of the method is still attached to the LSI.

How Does LSI Work?

The way LSI works is complicated. Because in practice, LSI uses complex mathematical formulas to understand the relationship between words.

But you don’t need to understand how it works. You just need to understand the outline. This is more or less the process:

Search engines will look for similarities in the words you use. For example, the moon has two meanings, namely satellite month and calendar month.
The word will be identified using semantically connected words. For example, satellite moons are connected to astronomical objects, orbits, and planets. While the calendar month is connected with January, February, and March.
The search engine will group satellite months and calendar months into different categories. The LSI keywords used in the content will determine the type of month you are referring to.

His role is very important, right? LSI keywords not only give your content context to readers but also to search engines.

How to Find LSI Keywords?

Now surely you want to know how to find the right LSI keywords to increase the relevance of your content. Don’t worry, below we’ll explain five easy ways to find them. Let’s check one by one!

1. Use the Autocomplete Feature

You’ve certainly got keyword recommendations when searching on Google, right?

This is an Autocomplete feature that serves to make it easier for you when searching. This feature can also provide an overview of the words that are often searched by Google users.

You can use the keyword references returned by Autocomplete as references when creating content.

For example, suppose you want to create content about the moon. You’ll know what Google users are often searching for by entering “month is”:

Or “why moon”:

As you can see, there are a lot of questions you can answer.

Give precise and interesting answers through the content you create. The more relevant your answer to the user’s question, the more likely it is that your content will rank up in search results.

Oh yes. Feel free to be creative with word variations when using the Autocomplete feature. Use words that trigger questions, such as “ is it the moon” or “ is it the moon”. You will find ideas that were not thought of before.

And don’t forget, always pay attention to the relevance of each LSI keyword. You don’t have to answer all the questions. Look for the most suitable to fit into your content.

2. View Related Search Results

Don’t leave Google just yet. There are still other features that you can use to find LSI keywords.

Find a topic. Then scroll to the bottom of the search page:

This feature will show you words or sentences that are potentially related to your chosen topic.

Just like the previous method, you can take advantage of these words and sentences by incorporating them into your content. So, your content can become more relevant to the chosen topic.

3. Take advantage of LSI Keyword Tools

There are many tools out there that can help you find the right LSI keywords. Therefore, next, we will review one by one the best LSI keyword tools that you can use for free.

LSI keywords

True to its name, LSIKeywords is one of the most popular free tools for finding LSI keywords. Here are examples of search results using this tool:

As you can see, apart from keywords, there are three metrics that LSIKeywords displays, namely:

Monthly Volume – the average number of searches for that keyword in a month.
CPC – the amount paid by advertisers for one-click on that keyword in Google Ads.
Competition – measures the number of advertisers targeting this keyword. This variable is measured on a scale of 0 to 1. The larger the number, the greater the level of competition.

You can also consider these three metrics when choosing LSI keywords. The most ideal choice is keywords with high monthly volume and a low level of competition.

Apart from that, this tool also lets you search LSI keywords for 10 topics at once. Even so, try to keep looking for just one topic in one search so that the LSI keywords are more accurate.

Google Keyword Planner

This is a keyword research tool owned by Google. Its main function is to help Google Ads users find keywords when creating ads. But you can use it to search for LSI keywords too.

To be able to use it, you must first create a Google Ads account. If so, here are examples of keyword search results through this tool:

Among the rows of columns that appear, you can simply focus on the Average monthly searches and competition only. Try to choose LSI keywords with high search volume and low level of competition.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is one of the best keyword research tools that you can use for free. The following are examples of LSI keyword search results via Ubersuggest:

Here you can see not only the monthly search volume and the level of competition. You can also see the search trend for each LSI keyword in the Trend column. Make sure the LSI keywords you choose have a positive trend in the last 12 months.

4. Check the Best-Rated Pages

Look at the pages of your competitors that are at the top of the search results. You’ll want to know the LSI keywords they use to rank high, right?

For that, you can take advantage of keyword research tools as well. Below we will explain how to use two tools, namely Ubersuggest (free) and Ahrefs (paid).

Using Ubersuggest Content Ideas

Ubersuggest allows you to search for keywords within the content. Follow these steps to find out how:

On the Ubersuggest main page, type your main topic. Change the country to Indonesia. Then click Search.
Scroll down to the content ideas section. Choose articles with a high number of search visits and social shares. Then click Keywords.
You will see a list of keywords used in the content you selected.

Very easy, right?

Unfortunately, because the tool is free, there are still many limitations to its use. For example, you can’t sort content based on the amount of traffic and backlinks. So, you have to check each variable one by one.

In addition, there are a maximum of seven pieces of content that you can evaluate for keywords and backlinks. So it is quite difficult to do more in-depth keyword research with this tool.

Take Advantage of Ahrefs. Features

On the other hand, Ahrefs is one of the most fully-featured SEO tools. But you must subscribe first to enjoy all its features.

One of the main features of Ahrefs is the keyword explorer. This feature can display the complete LSI keywords that are related to one topic.

Here’s how to find LSI keywords in Ahrefs:

Go to the keyword explorer dashboard. Type in your chosen topic.
Change the country to Indonesia, then click the search button.
In the left menu, click Also rank for.
You will now see a list of LSI keywords measured against several metrics. Such as keyword difficulty, search volume, and clicks.
Try to choose LSI keywords that have low keyword difficulty, high search volume, and high organic clicks. These are all characteristics that can make it easier for you to rank higher.

Apart from that, there is another way to find LSI keywords in Ahrefs, namely by using the Content Gap feature in Site Explorer.

This feature will show a collection of LSI keywords used by competitors to rank high. Here’s how to use it:

Go to the site explorer dashboard.
Type in your website’s domain. Then click the search button.
In the left menu, click Content Gap.
Enter the competitor’s article link that ranks high in the search keywords that the below targets rank for the column. Remember, the article links that are included must cover the same topic.
If you want search results not to show keywords that you have used, enter your domain in the But the following target doesn’t rank for the field.
Once done, click the Show keywords button.
If the keyword list doesn’t appear, change the country to Indonesia.
Now you will see a list of LSI keywords dominated by competitor articles. This is a great opportunity to grab those keywords and use them in your new content.

5. Pay attention to Google Image Tags

This is one of the simplest ways to find LSI keywords. You just need to enter your topic into Google Image.

Let’s take an example. Suppose you type “how to create an online store” in Google Image. You’ll see different tags in the search results:

These tags appear because Google considers them relevant to the topic you are looking for.

In other words, its role is the same as LSI keywords. You can include it in the content to increase its relevance to the chosen topic.

What are the benefits of LSI keywords on SEO?

Are LSI keywords useful for SEO?

Of course! You can see it in the following image:

The main keyword is ” how to make a website “. As usual, the main keyword will always be in bold in the search results. However, there are other words other than the main keywords that are bolded as well, such as “ create ”, “ website ”, “ web ”, and “ create a website ”.

These words are LSI keywords that are considered relevant to the main keyword.

Incorporating LSI keywords in your content will increase relevance. Automatic. more relevant content will have a greater chance of ranking highly.

Apart from including LSI keywords in your content, you can also include them in:

Title tags
Heading
Meta description
Image alt text

This method can also be referred to as the practice of on-page SEO. Its function is to optimize the factors in the content to make it easier to identify by search engines.

Use LSI Keywords to Increase Your Website Ranking!

LSI keywords help search engines find relevant websites to appear in search results. By taking advantage of it, your content will have the potential to rank higher on search results pages.

In this article, you have learned what LSI keywords are, how they work, how to search for them, and their SEO benefits. Make the most of LSI keywords to support the relevance of your content.