Semantic Search And LSI Keywords – Two Of Many Future Trends In SEO

Semantic Search And LSI Keywords Updated 09/21/22

When you think of Digital Marketing or more importantly SEO over the last couple of years. What do you think of the most? Times change and things change! The platforms you were using a few years ago have evolved, which definitely includes Google. One thing we know is that when the search engine changes it’s time for search engine optimization (SEO) to change. Have you heard of semantic search? Not Yet?

The actual truth is that search doesn’t change that often and when it does, it’s not a big change. Some things you read years ago apply to SEO today and will remain relevant for a while.

As we all know there is a gradual change in trends and an evolution in tactics. Matchbox Design Group has decided to round a big change that we feel will affect your rankings and express it in this blog. This is one of the most important SEO actions you can take to make sure your overall marketing aligns with where the search is going.

If you pay attention to these steps you can take with how you write and who/what you are writing for. You will be able to stay ahead of the changes and future-proof your rankings.

Start Targeting Topics, Not Phrases: Adapt To Semantic Search – LSI Keywords

The biggest search engine in the world, Google, is no question a semantic search engine. This means Google is finding sites for visitors that have the meaning they are looking for. Google is able to connect its users with the best page out there, that can answer their questions. Google is taking a step past, simply connecting words and letters that you typed into a box and finding the meaning within your search.

For you to adapt to this, it’s in your best interest to start targeting broader topics and not just specific phrases. Be sure to spread your meaning out, use related phrases and terms that cover other things that are linked semantically.

You Have Several Options To Find Semantically Linked Phrases, Google Is A Good Start.

When you start typing your target phrase into Google, you will also see how Google begins suggesting other search terms. The more letters you slowly type in, the more ideas you will see. Test it, by typing new letters, just like you are starting a new word. Don’t use a question word for the first word of your phrase. Pretty soon you will end up with a large number of words connected to the topic that you might not have ever considered. Be sure to write these down.

You can see an example of this working below for a search on website design comp without the word company fully spelled out:

Another way to easily get keyword ideas to use in your semantic keyword strategy is to look at the searches related to the section on the bottom of the Google results page. Here is what those searches related to the section looked like for website design company.

Be sure to write down the results that you received from both of the above methods. After you have done that you can use a tool or a website such as lisgraph.com to search your terms for even more latent semantic indexing keywords otherwise known as LSI. These LSI keywords are huge for voice search in 2019.

Use The Right Suggested Phrases

Once you do that you will have a bunch more suggested phrases and it will not take you very long to find them. Be sure to write these down. Now it’s time to start a good competitive analysis. The point of doing this is to find the top-ranked pages for all of your target phrases. That page you find is likely to rank for several related phrases. All of them will be semantically linked to your topic.

You can use a tool called SEMRush to start your competitive analysis and find a great list of phrases. You will need to put that top-ranked site into the tool, you will need the paid version to get all of the details. Enter the domain you came up with and then click positions to see the search rankings for that particular domain. In this situation add the filter Web design, so all of your phrases will contain that term.

Once you get the filter added, you should see a list of LSI keywords phrases that look something like this:

For the blog to be written about the keyword top web design company the above list of words is what came from the competitive analysis after we also used a couple of Google methods to find related terms. From the list above some of the words that I will include in a future blog about a web design company will include:

1. St. Louis Web Design
2. Web Design St. Louis
3. St. Louis Web Design Companies
4. St. Louis Web Design Company
5. White Label Web Design
6. Professional Web Design Companies
7. Organic Web Design
8. WordPress Web Design Template

In Conclusion

As I finish up this article about semantic search, I would make sure the above keywords were incorporated into the piece about web design companies. I would make sure that the article included all of or as many of the phrases as I could. I would make sure the phrases in the article have a natural flow with the rest of the writing.

This indicates to both our readers and to Google that we are relevant for the specific phrase we want to go after, as well as the broader topics we included. Something else I would do is to include the keyword, in this situation, “LSI keywords” in the final sentence.