I have been doing some tests to see if LSI (using associative keywords in content) will rank content on its own…without backlinks
In a nutshell, LSI means doing super-on-page-optimization by ascertaining what keywords are most related to the topic you’re writing about (let’s call this the Base KW), then incorporating those related keywords and phrases in your content.
Allegedly, the search engines want to scan a page, look for the optimization on a page, then figure out algorithmically if kw density, alternative related kws, and a bunch of other on-page optimization factors are on that piece of content, and if that’s the case, then this page of yours is definitely about that XYZ topic because other related keywords that “they” expect to find on pages about XYZ are on there…
OK, so maybe this wasn’t a short intro, but suffice to say, there’s lots of benefits to doing solid on-page-seo, but in my opinion, an LSI-optimized page, or pages…won’t rank you without links, site age, aged links, good links etc…. If I’m confusing you and tlaking gibberish read up on Latent Semantic Indexing, or read an older post on LSI here
So why do I think that LSI needs to be gamed and we cannot rely upon natural use of content provision to hopefully rank for something without links just by writing about it in detail?
Simple: I’ve written about things on this site naturally and in more detail than the sites outranking me and used more of what should be the proper associative terms than did the “competitors”…
I’ve done several interviews on this site about various products and tools. (the 2 BacklinkBoosters, Backlink Energizer, Backlinks Genie).
I think I did a pretty good job asking these product owners about their products and depicting what they do, and most importantly… during the interview we mentioned all of the tools, features, project names etc… that their products used or were about (used words associative to their product/service repeatedly)
So…
If I wrote about Backlinks Genie…from an LSI standpoint what should pages related to BLG be about? Well, it SHOULD be about whatever BLG is and doe sand is about right?
And the person who does the best job of writing about something in detail should rank tops for that, too, right?
But that’s not the case, man, not at all. I purposefully left some of those reviews alone, did no backlinking to them, to see how they performed on their own without help and they’re not all ranked #1 behind the product names.
EMD review sites, other sites, and forums and outranking those posts despite my site having what I consider the most optimized on-page-seo information for those topics.
To “game” LSI I suspect that you need to use a tool that does the following:
1- Enter in base keyword
2- Find what the top sites ranking for this kw has for on page seo
3- Find the most commonly used associative (related) words and phrases from the top sites
4- Then use those words and phrases in your content
I’m currently doing a test using such a tool as described above, and will reveal those results at some point in the future, but here’s something you have to always keep in mind: what ranks well now, today, right now?
Do you want to sacrifice readability with content designed with an algo-based LSI content structure in mind, or give Google and other search engines what they say they allegedly want (value to the reader)?
LSI and on-page SEO are merely factors that contribute to, or affect rankings?
There’s a lot more that goes into ranking your pages than this stuff and you could go nuts trying to deliver the perfectly optimized article. On the test we did, we used the tool to extract all the common words and phrases, but in order to use them all in the content, the article ended up being 1500 words or so…
The online reader’s mentality and attention span is not designed for term-paper/thesis-like content pieces and people just want you to get to the point, and not have to suffer through a long article (like the one you’re reading now 
) to get the information they requested.
This post is merely for (your) thought… to make us all think….
IF 1500 word articles are needed, then we might rank better, but if our sites have something ELSE in common with the higher-ranked sites for a search term (like age, authority, link juice, EMD etc…) then we might not have to take these steps because on-page SEO, and LSI in particular have a small impact.
Final Note:
To “do” LSI content creation properly I/you/we may not need to incorporate ALL of the most commonly used words and phrases found on the top ranked sites ranking for that term, but as part of our test, we did use all of the common “associatives” in order to test it out as well as possible. After all, lengthy, high quality content is better than low quality shorter content and lengthier content allows us more room to add in what the common associative keywords and phrases were/are.
There are several tools out there that can help you write content like this, but so far, this is a myth-like seo concept and site authority link juice and external backlinks are still the over-riding factor for ranking things. And this is a shame, really, because it would be so much easier if good content really did rise to the top on its own, because then I’d start writing about my other passion-niches, running, health attainment, wealth attainment, real estate investing, self- improvement and so on…
What’s the point here Dan?
Does creating content with LSI a focal point work?
I don’ t know if its worth using a tool to help tell you how to write your content and what words to use, and so on, when it doesn’t really matter, since your uber-optimized lsi-ed to the hilt masterpiece may not ever outrank a forum, and EMD or some sort of other site with authority or pre-determined ranking factors.
But I remain open-mined and will gladly write my other content according to LSI guidelines, should there be a proper way to utlize it. So much to say here, really…. If LSI articles are long boring crap-ticles, then do they add value to your site, depsite being so well-optimized? Do boring articles (like this one you’re reading now) add value to your site even if it does rank you well for your keyword of choice?
Gotta remember… bounce rate is becoming an important ranking factor, so there’s a mix here on what you want to do and achieve
Long-winded boring content means that visitor is a one-page-view vistor, but shorter articles will keep them on site a bi tlonger, helping your site in long-run.
So then… where should you place such the LSI article, if not on-site?
Give it to EZA, hubpages, Squidoo and place a perfectly crafted 1500-word dissertation (LSI article) on nail fungus pain relief pain killers secrets lube gel on these entities so you glom off their authority whilst not being too concerned about time spent on site factors?
Having something like LSI-based articles work at doing what it’s supposed to do (rank easier without backlinks) doesn’t mean it works for everyone because it’s all really part of a bigger picture. You may not want this square-peg round-hole content writing style dictated to you but if you did allow that to happen make sure there’s a reason for it and know how to “take advantage”….
Additional information on LSI Keyword Tools
1- Jack Williams’ Web Content Studio for harvesting keyword phrases from the top position websites and using those phrases for writing well-themed content.)
Since some people are unhappy with WCS, here are some Web Content Studio alternatives:
1- Jack Duncan’s Ultimate Keyword Tool Extractor
2- Keyword LSI Spy
Best use for these tools might be to give you ideas for content creation and possible tips for on-page SEO stuff
Download Targeted Subscribers Wordpress Plugin Here
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Some time ago I looked at Web Content Studio by Andy Williams, but did not get it. On one hand his approach makes sense, yet on the other hand I think other higher ranking sites might be ranking for reasons other than content. So I decided to just make up my own similar words using common sense.
But it may well be the right tool do use. Search engines have their own “common sense”. Wonder if you are working with WCS or a similar one.
It will be interesting to see your results.
I am spending my time focused upon developing seo-appropriate content: ngrams & singular value decomposition. Easier said than done has been my experience. I’m trying to find a few good outs to write the info.
Thanks for the great stuff.
In my opinion, good content, lsi or otherwise, is always the best start. But for competitive or highly competitive terms doing lsi simply won’t get page ranked, generate greater authority, and thus the value (currently) in lsi is ensuring that your articles “seem” quality.
But, there could more to lsi than I currently know, and am looking forward to learning more.
I have used Web Content Studio for a while (2-3 months) and the results were disappointing to say the least. Off page SEO rules and onpage is very limited in terms of determining rankings. I’ve written 1000-1500 word articles with Web Content Studio and they never ever ranked… I’ve also written 300-350 words articles and got them to the top of the rankings with building backlinks.
While speaking about LSI and Content, I have a question.
1 ) Can Google tell if the content in my pumper site (web 2.0 or own domain) is pun or quality?
I want to know if there is any benefit of putting original quality articles that are 90% unique or i should just put spun articles in those web 2.0 and pumper sites which is also unique 90% but NOT quality/not readable. Again those web 2.0 website and pumper domain websites will be only needed for backlinks purpose not ranking or visitors.
2 ) Does backlinks from a website with spun articles (90%unique but not readable) have same value as backlinks from website with quality articles?
I create about 50 pumper site (owned domain + web 2.0) and found it hard to update them weekly with original quality articles. So i was thinking if i use original spun articles will work for this purpose.
Dan please answer my questions as i really don’t know what to do.
is it still worth spinning and uploading to pumper sites /web 2.0s? or i should use original quality articles?
Sir! Yes sir!
If you use unique articles, created fleshed-out pumper sites, like mini-sites on web 2.0s, but you could also take those same slew of unique articles, put them on separate hosting , and make a mini-net site out of it. Don’t waste unique content on something you want to provide a valuable link with, in my opinion. Use the spins for networks and mass article submissions, not site creations (like web 2.0s and stuff)
If you found this answer helpful, and it should because it saves you a lot of money, please go here and read this(Shameless plug for donation!)
Thanks,
Dan
So if i understand better what you mean is:
- It’s NOT ok to put spun content even it’s 100% unique on web 2.0 and Class C IP Blog Network for pumper sites and mini-sites use even I use them only for backlinks not for rank or visitors.
- Spun Content can be used only for Article Submissions and Blog networks ( AMR, UAW, etc… ) But not my Pumper sites (web 2.0 and private blogs)
Dan,
I agree 100pct that lsimalone will not get you there. It does seem that G is placing more emphasis on lsi, content and structure again. But still links are king. Speaking of, you mentioned thatbas of right now your #2 link building recommended service is BLG, however I couldn’t find your #1 recommended service….and I have been looking through your posts for a bit.
Thanks…great website and testing…means a lot to many.
LSI is meant to get you ranked for LONG TAIL not the main keyword.
Thats how I use it anyway, I don’t expect to get ranked for a main keyword with competition and not do back links.
Ideally you should be writing LSI content and backlinking to the main keyword.
Agree with Franco.
Look in your stats package. If you optimize for the main words, and use good onsite op’s, you will see the resulting LSI get’s you search results/hits from some of the long tailed content on your site.
Over time – and on some sites – I get more for 25+ long tailed and “derivative” phrases than I did for the main targeted words.
I am also certain Big G has asysnonym database (it’s flawed – but I rank for sysnonyms sometimes when I really don’t use them – sometimes they are not contextually correct either)
LSI and onsite ops are VITAL even for link building.
I maintain what I have been saying for the past 3-4 months.
Lot’s of 100% unique (totaly new -not 100% copyscape passed) content on your site is getting more and more important as time goes on.
Sadly – static sites below a certain size now seem to be penalized a little – despite the fact that this is the ideal size for some niches and all the information you can say about a sub-topic is contained in a few huindred words. I had a site about a particular area of Worcestershire (my county) It was how to get there and what to do. There were only 3 public places in the area in question, and I had several thousand unique words on each. Pictures and a couple of Vids.
Despite there being no other site on the entire internet with this content and in this niche it struggled to rank for anything but it’s EMD name.
Shame.
Anyway – LSI – I’m certain it’s ideal for derivatives and long tails. Not so hot for 2-3 word phrases.
Paul
Dan, I don’t consider this a boring article and in fact you seem to use an easy to read style of writing. It’s simple and sprinkled with humor throughout, even though like you said it tends to be on the long side. I think there are some people out there that will read longer articles if the quality is there and the content is interesting. My opinion is that an article needs to be as long as the writer needs in order to make the point and provide the reader with what they are looking for. That comes from knowing the topic area and knowing the audience.
I agree that on page seo alone won’t get you to the top but killer on page seo with decent backlinking will crush the competition in the long run. You can’t expect quick and easy results like some people do. I’ve seen my wife write articles for her website that are long and super optimized on page naturally (she doesn’t do any lsi research). Over the course of 6 months to a year she ranks up in the top 2 with websites that have been around more than 10 years. Granted the keywords are not super competitive but if she gets like 5 links from decent websites it seems to do the trick.
It will be interesting to see the results of your formal test.
After being a Stompernet Subscriber, following their guidelines, and listening to Leslie Rohde dispel the LSI myth. I never looked back and have forgotten all about LSI.
It hasn’t seemed to ever hurt any of my sites.
So LSI for me is nothing but a big fat lie/myth. Leslie is a helluva lot smarter than I am when it comes to those things
I guess I just have more important things to worry about than LSI.
Thanks for the enlightening Article Dan.
Kyle
Hey Kyle thanks for chiming in here, so did Leslie say LSI was bunk and not to worry about it, or the opposite?
Hey Dan…..is this a good LSI tool to use: http://lsikeywords.com/cgi-bin/lsikw – if LSI is worth doing?
Google tells you exactly what their LSI conclusions are in their keyword tool. When you use their keyword tool, they give you related keywords. For instance, if you search for Bangus, it returns MilkFish as the top related term — how? Because Bangus and Milk Fish are two words for the same thing. But, how does Google know that it is a related term? Quite simple — the milkfish keyword turned up the most times on the most popular pages that ranked number one for bangus.
You wanted to write a LSI review article based on Backlinks Genie. So here are the actual top related LSI terms according to Google’s keyword tool …
backlinks software, buy backlinks, quality backlinks, get backlinks, seo backlinks, build backlinks, one way backlinks, backlink software, backlinks forum, how to get backlinks, cheap backlinks, backlink building, getting backlinks, find backlinks, high quality backlinks, anchor text backlinks, high pr backlinks, backlink service, free backlinks, backlink services
In google’s eyes, the most reputable pages on the internet which discuss Backlinks Genie have the above terms in them. Those are Google’s LSI conclusions.
I just read your Backlink Genie review — it doesn’t reference any of the above terms in your copy. So although you have a quality article, it is not written at all for LSI advantage.
EXCELLENT, and it’s exactly my point here, LSI needs to be a gamed thing….using keywords and phrases that are related to subject matter being discussed doesn’t quite cut it now does it?
I/You/we need Google and other search engines to tell us, whether via their tools, or rankings what they want to see, then we just have to go back and tweak content then give it to them.
My point here was that it’s not really dialed down towards the minutiae relative to subject matter, but has to do with a broader base of search relationship, meaning, what is Backlinks Genie, is a place to get backlinks,has to do with backlink building.
when I write I write about the subject matter and let the chips fall where they may for rankings. My goal is to educate and inform best way I can, but that’s not good enough if you want the LSI advantage.
Good points here, thanks for adding to the convo.
Now, if I threw 1000s of links at some EMDs for Backlinks Genie domains and some PR links then I would most likely rank those sites in top 10, right, no matter what on-page-LSI keywords I use?
Yes, that’s exactly what would happen, so the next poor slob who uses the most common words used by the top ranked sites for a keyword looking for the LSI advantage won’t get far there, because I too can game the rankings and screw up the whole “validity” of the LSI advantage. It’s a tricky thing, to say the least….
Kevin, I was logged onto this site and had to clear cookies to check the SERPs for the BLG kws, and lo and behold, I have 2 spots in top 5 for the aforementioned terms, WITHOUT utilizing the LSI advantage….
Well if you think about it, what is the best way for Google to do this LSI thing algorithmically? (The only way I can think of for them to do it).
They start by taking the most popular pages on the internet for a keyword, using other parts of their algorithm (non LSI related). Lets say for simplicity sake … a trusted structure of backlinks.
Then, as they’re churning these top results to make them better — they take results #1 through #20 and compare similar terms on the page. They then formulate an opinion of what an important page for that keyword should be based on nothing but latent symantic indexing. It is simply an averaging out related terms that a page ranking high for that keyword should have on it.
And then the LSI kicks in … maybe one of the top 20 doesn’t have any related terms at all on it — it’s pushed out of the top 20. Maybe one document reflects average words better than any other … it moves up the ranks.
Who knows how big a piece of the overall algorithm it is, but its just one on Google’s 200+ factors.
*** Now, if I threw 1000s of links at some EMDs for Backlinks Genie domains and some PR links then I would most likely rank those sites in top 10, right, no matter what on-page-LSI keywords I use? ***
If your website ranks high for a particular keyword (for whatever reason not related to LSI) then it would be a contributor to the LSI related keyword pool. Lets say you and another twenty other trusted websites suddenly all did articles and covered the same bases (i.e. used similar related keywords throughout the text). Lets assume that these 21 authoritative websites outranked all other competition based on issues unrelated to LSI (such as google trust, or substantial backlinks). Final assumption, these 21 websites have like 5 competitor websites they are up against, which used to rank google #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 in serps.
At this point, the 21 authoritative websites would take over the LSI related keyword pool into their own favor, and whatever LSI advantage the old 5 had would be greatly diminished — because they were outdone by authoritative, trusted websites.
All that being said, LSI is just one factor of many — and it may not even be that big of a deal.
How do I know? Because I’m a smart guy, and if I was going to implement LSI that is how I would do it
Plus I can’t imagine any other way it could be done. One more reply coming after this too …
Here is that second comment I was talking about. How you like this concept I invented all by myself, mentioned here for the first time on the whole interweb (drumroll please) …
NEGATIVE LSI
Wat dat?! It is about keyword terms that DO NOT relate to each other. For instance, a page about real estate cannot be a page about health insurance. In other words, when you introduce concepts onto a page that conflict with each other, google recognizes it as tripping various incompatible LSI checks.
In this way, Google can sense whether a page is focused on one topic — or whether its just really spammy. Think about it — a page that is half about puppies and half about ci*al*is is really not of much use to anyone, i.e. garbage.
Some negative LSI checks are more sensitive than others — for instance (I won’t mention them all here because I don’t want to trigger negative LSI lol) — but imagine ph*arms and p*ker and adult topics mixed into an otherwise great article — and it getting all screwed up because of negative LSI.
Just something to think about hehe.
Let me get this straight, all this pontificating by you on how I/we should be using the LSI advantage, but you’re not using it? OR am I jumping the gun and missing something here?
LSI is no big deal
Adding images to articles and posts is no big deal for on page seo
Adding videos to articles and posts is no big deal for on page seo
Increasing visitors’ time on site to articles is no big deal for on page seo
But working on all of these can’t hurt, right? I guess that’s the point here, there’s no magic bullet to ranking because authority trumps the non-authority content piece lsi-ed to death, but with 2 pieces of content being equally LSI-advantaged, maybe the one with images, or video, or more authority, or age, or backlinks will outrank the other.
I’m starting to wish I didn’t write this post, as it’s much ado about nothing and it’s easy to “gain the LSI advantage” so if it’s easy to do maybe more people will do it, there’s plugins now like the clickbump engine that incorporate the lsi advantage, and maybe seopressor does it too, i don’t know, I don’t use either tool/theme.
I know people with mini sites and EMDs using clickbump themes, plugins and or seopressor and they’re still not getting the google love, so once again, it’s not LSI, onpage seo, site age, site size, etc…. that matters, just a magical combination of a select few of these things hitting the (Google) g spot just right like rabbit vibrators do.
Honestly, I hope you guys can all be friends at the end of the day, but it’s pretty cool to hear the reasoning on both sides……and see if anything comes out of it.
Oh I use it, every article I write I incorporate LSI. I’ve read every article on the internet regarding what LSI is and should be. When I say I’m a smart guy its also because I did my homework.
Thanks for linking to my store btw, there’s a sad story about that site you just linked to (a whole nother topic). It was doing so fantastic without any links at all … that particular page you linked to ranked #14 for “rabbit vibrator”, (a 22k exact term) with no links. Then I did something stupid and started backlinking to the page, mostly from article directories. That page then dropped out of the top 20 and is nowhere to be found. (the site still makes good money though, long tails are still going strong on it). Moral of the story there is that sometimes no linking (unless it’s a quality backlink) is best of all.
Anyways back to LSI, the reason I keep saying that LSI is no big deal is #1 it’s easy, and #2 you can rank a near blank page with nothing on it to process for LSI — so obviously LSI can’t have that much weight. It’s so easy because its almost subconscious after you’ve done it a few times. Have your google keyword tool open, search for your keyword, glance at top 20 related results — use that as an outline for your article.
One more thing on LSI — being different can be helpful. You know Google likes to diversify their results. I’ve had spun articles on various websites all reach top 10 rather quickly — and yet shortly after most would fall out. Its not that its a penalty, its that they were too closely similar and Google wants to show some diversity.
So it doesn’t surprise me that you could get #1 even if you don’t have any of the terms on it.
Hey Dan’s site is an authority site and as we all know authority trumps whatever bull crap lsi u wanna do!
I just found this strategy and I think it’s quite interesting. I’d like to discover more and test. As many people say “Content is King” and “Link is Queen”. However about LSI, I have a question. If you use too similar words and phrases to the 10 sites or so on your article, how can we be unique from others? I think uniqueness also plays an important role in ranking.
If the top ten sites have a keyword density of 2% then that’s a proven measure, and something to take into consideration. It doesn’t mean you need to get exactly that, but if you make your url the same in every way possible, then sort of levels the playing field on page seo-wise. The next step after that is to get comparable backlinks, which is something NOT easily replicated, so it would probably be a good idea to make yourself as similar as possible on-page wise then work on the off-page stuff.
Thanks,
Dan
On the first site mfa site I built I didn’t know the difference between exact search and broad search. I decided I was going to write a page on the top five keywords that came up for in google keywords sorted by search volume. I thought I was going to be rich because I was calculating how much I might make if I had all those keywords ranking in the top results. Turns out I ended up ranking for ‘mykeyword + salary’ and that wording wasn’t even on the page. The keyword is not easy to get ranked for, and I absolutely wasn’t trying to rank for it. Instead I was running a ton of SenukeX submissions with anchor text variety of ‘mykeyword + salaries’ and basically a bunch of variations of that keyword phrase. I only discovered it was ranking higher than any of the keywords I was going after 5 months. That is nuts and why I stumbled upon what LSI is all about.
Kevin’s obviously a pretty smart guy, and I’m encouraging discussion as always especially if it differs from what I THINK I know, but I’m not looking to have this be an adversarial thing, not even close. Dan Drew from articlesearchenginemarketing and Kevin raise valid points, and you could lean in either direction if you were so inclined.
Neither of them are entirely wrong, nor entirely right. We could have same discussion about SEO versus PPC, organic versus paid traffic, whitehat versus grey versus blackhat… It doesn’t matter… what matters is results and other types of satisfaction (are you happy doing what you’re doing and is it paying the bills?)
Ok, I saw the PR of the site, the blog etc.. and just assumed that it was ranked well and when I saw that it wasn’t I tried to add in a little LSI link loving by linking to your site in content and close proximity with an LSI keyword (g spot). Brilliant huh? Don’t fault yourself for trying to increase traffic and sales with a few backlinks to a site that’s had none before, it’s a natural thing (greed, ambition
). Let me know if you want a backlink from a site ranked page 1 for kw similar to that sites main focus. Also for adult links go to the adult forums, they sell in anchor dofollow links for cheap and roll them out ever so slowly, too, so as not to hurt the destination sites. you could have gone to on eof the adult webmaster forums and got 750 dofollow anchor text-ed links for 1 dollar a apiece (from links pages though) and several dozen of these links pages have PR to them, too and these are permanent links .
See, I know the adult niche too, as well as relationship building link blasting my sites in and out of the SERPs, linking to no avail etc…. been there, and hopefully haven’t done it all yet.
Have a good one,
Dan
Hey Dan, I’d love to do something like trade a blog post or whatever else you have in mind. Just email me what you’re thinking.
Now the articlesearchenginemarketing.com guy can laugh at me for networking an adult site lol. Maybe he does have a point (I’ll readily admit when I’m wrong, only thing I care about is making money lol, there’s no paycheck that comes along with pride).
There are strategies that can be used with LSI, it just isn’t the end all of SEO. To an extent I use LSI (related keywords) linking back to specific pages on my sites, so to that extent it makes sense. But business is all about building relationships. Shoot, your comments on this blog post and in this blog in general are about building relationships.