Just as a business tries hard to give the best user experience to its customers, search engines too tries to give the best search experience to its visitors, by providing them with relevant, updated and useful information. One of the technologies that search engine giant, Google, uses for this purpose is Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI. The search engine uses LSI to assess the meaning of a content that it finds in a website or on a blog. Indian SEO Company calls LSI a misnomer for ‘latent semantic analysis’- a technique of statistical analysis that uses character strings to determine the semantics of text, i.e., the actual meaning of it.
What is Latent Semantic Indexing?
The primary purpose of Google is to provide the best information to its users. To do this it needs to understand the exact information that a user is seeking when they type in a key-phrase for information, and also how well each of the web pages furnishes the information.
It is an information retrieval technology that can retrieve information from websites and other information stores on the basis of vector space model of document classification. This is done on the basis of its concept or meaning, even if the document does not contain the search term. To put it more simply, it can be said that the algorithm helps Google find out the relation between the search strings and their related synonyms and keywords.
Searchers are not always very specific with their searches. One may type ‘Mango’ on Google to know about the fruit. But the Google SERP may be showing a lot of other things named Mango, other than the fruit, like, there’s a fashion brand called Mango, then there’s Mango Airlines, etc. So, you see the search result that one gets by typing a non-specific search term, is also non-specific. But with the use of LSI concept you can boost the potential of your blog or web page to be listed for the search term in the context of which you are using it.
This is the reason why Google prefer sites that contain synonyms. Googlebot or spider always picks and ranks websites that make use of synonyms.
How does LSI algorithm work?
This can be explained with an example. Web pages that contain the word ‘Apple’ along with Mac, iPhone, OS are kept in the category of ‘Apple, the brand’. While web pages that contain the same word along with recipes, pie, juice, fruit, etc., are kept in the category of ‘Apple, the fruit’. This is how LSI works to help Google find the most relevant results for a given search query.
If a user searches for ‘Apple iPhone’ then the sites that get ranked contain words such as iPhone, camera, SIM, Memory, etc. Here, you won’t get any result that has to do anything with apple fruit, pie or juice; because Google knows that the user is looking for information regarding the gadgets that is manufactured by the company called Apple and not Apple fruit.
Similarly, if someone searches for ‘Apple Pie’, then no result regarding Apple gadgets shows up in the SERP.
The algorithm of LSI, thus, helps Google produce more streamlined and precise results.
Using Synonyms
As it has been stated earlier that LSI thrives on the relation between searched keyword and their synonyms and Google ranks pages that contain appropriate synonyms instead of too many keywords. Stuffing your site with keywords is not healthy; hence, the use of synonyms. For example, you can use ‘best’ instead of ‘top’, ‘facial’ instead of ‘face’, ‘moisturiser’ instead of ‘cream’, ‘vehicle’ instead of ‘automobile’, ‘speedy’ instead of ‘fast’, etc.
Doing so allows search engines to make a guess on the concepts that a user wants. Then it starts sorting pages that seem like best matches even if they do not contain the exact keyword, that the user has used to search.
Why is Good Writing Necessary for producing LSI content?
One of the significant features of latent semantic indexing is its skill of recognising the types of words that can be expected when dealing with particular concepts. In this way, it can detect, to some extent, the concept or meaning of a certain document or collection of documents.
Indian SEO Company uses the traditional method of placing a specific keyword density range throughout the text, especially in certain parts of the text like in the first sentence of a write-up, in between and in the last paragraph. Quality SEO companies generally hire knowledgeable content writers who are capable of creating a well-written document, keeping latent semantic indexing in mind.
Site Structure and Links
Latent Semantic Indexing does not only emphasize on single web pages, but also on collection of documents.
The question is how search ranking algorithms decide what comprises a document collection. SEO experts often make use of the ‘silo’ process to make a file structure on the site server that arranges all web-pages in collections.
For instance, a site that produces facial creams may have separate folders of silos that deal with day creams, night creams, fairness creams, anti-aging creams, etc.
In this way SEO professionals can hope that the algorithm will recognise the documents in folders as distinct collections.
Another way to do categorise documents is through links. For this, you need to include links to other documents that deal with same specific sub-topic. However, if there are links that deviate from the specific focus of the collection, you should turn them into no-follow links.
How can you create LSI content?
Most SEO professionals use Google Keyword Tool to find terms related to semantics. It would, obviously, be best to use keywords that people search for commonly.
However, one should keep in mind that keyword stuffing is certainly not a solution as far as LSI content is concerned. This is because the algorithm takes positioning and density of words into consideration. Hence, in most cases it is quite likely that it’ll catch excessive keyword stuffing.
The best idea is to produce content that not only reads well but also covers all the significant concepts that are connected to targeted keywords.
Do not forget that user satisfaction is the ultimate goal of Google; and LSI is a part of that endeavour. Indian SEO Company says that a well-written LSI content is that which is not spammy but genuinely informative. The content must never leave the reader confused but should answer a question in a precise manner. If you manage to do this, you will surely pass the LSI test.
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