Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
LSI keywords logic - enter in meta and bold in text?
-
Hello,
In the lack of good info about this on the Internet, let me try here.
- I know that it is a good idea to put LSI keywords in natural flow in the body text of the article.
But shall I also put LSI keywords as a meta? In the same manner as doing with non-LSI keywords? Or shall I only reserve meta for non-LSI keywords?
- In body text, shall I emphasize LSI keywords in bold? As non-LSI keywords already does.
This is a bit confusing as I don't wan't LSI keywords to take over show from my long tail (phrase) keyword.
I will appreciate if someone could share a bit light over this.
Thanks in advance!
-
- Actually, more so that I "show" search engines what is important to me, guessing that it will then maybe give me some ranking boost.
Thanks, nice answer
-
Thanks, good clarification!
-
-
If you are talking about the meta keywords tag, don't bother. Google and other search engines don't use it for anything that would benefit you.
-
Does putting those words in bold do anything to benefit users, or are you doing it because you believe it will bold words somehow help improve your position in search results? If it makes something more clear to users by making certain words bold, and doesn't look ugly or stupid, then do it. If there is no benefit to your readers to have seemingly random words in bold, then don't do it.
"LSI" is just a fancy term for synonyms, which are something any writer (SEO or not) should be using so your writing is not repetitive. "Long tail keywords" is just a fancy term for "things people actually search". Write naturally, and think about how people speak and write if you want more "long tail" search traffic.
-
-
As meta keywords - no. As part of your meta description - maybe. Like with your body text, it must flow naturally.
Your meta description should contain your main keyphrases, by which time you wont have much room left for anything else as Google only looks at the first 150 - 160 characters anyway. Anything beyond that a) will get truncated and b) looks like keyword stuffing.
In your case, I'd focus on sliding the LSI keywords in to your body content where natural and not worry about including them in your description.
p.s It should go without saying that 'meta keywords' holds pretty much zero value in SEO anymore. Even Yahoo doesnt care about them much these days.
Further reading: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/meta-description
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
HTML entity characters in meta descriptions
Is it okay to leave HTML entity characters, such as " in meta descriptions? Will search engines translate these appropriately?
Technical SEO | | ellenu0 -
Optimal use of keywords in header tag
what does optimal use of keywords in header tag actually mean given you indicate this as hurting seo factor?
Technical SEO | | Serg1550 -
ADA, WCAG, Section 508 Accessibility and hidden text
I am working on fixing accessibility issues on client's site, and they have contracted with a vendor who provides both tools to monitor the site and consulting to help us fix issues that are found. When there are spatial relationships between elements on a page that would be not be evident to someone listening via a screen reader, a strategy that they recommended to us to is to add text helpers that are not visible, but still read by the screen readers. An example: Directions to our Fifth Avenue Store I have seen this technique used on a major brand site but I am concerned that their brand strength insulates them from a hidden text penalty far more than my client's brand would. Also, their implementation uses class names like "ada_hidden" which may help search engines understand the intent, or may not at all. I am looking for opinions regarding the use of this technique. Normally I wouldn't use it for risk of penalty, but here the intent is to improve the user experience of the pages. Anyone used similar techniques for ADA/WCAG, or solved the problem in a more SEO-friendly way? Thanks, Will
Technical SEO | | WillW0 -
Choosing Focus Keywords
Hello everyone! I am new to the community and I have a question about determining keywords. I have created a blog {LulusLikes.com} to practice my SEO. I have installed the Yoast SEO plugin and I have noticed the plugin always encourages you to choose a different focus keyword. So if my focus keyword is "Dog of the Week" and it's a weekly contest, wouldn't that be my focus keyword each time I had that type of post? How should I choose my focus keyword for that type of post? I hope that makes sense. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Lulus_Likes0 -
Miss meta description on 404 page
Hi, My 404 page did not have meta description. Is it an error? Because I run report and seomoz said that a problem. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | JohnHuynh0 -
Someone is building anchor text links with child porn keywords..help :-(
Hey Everyone; I recently found that there are tons of links to my url (30+) from several sites with the anchor text "download child porn, kiddie porn, and the likes". Although the sites linking to us where the person built the links do not have this content (thank god) it is just my url + the horrible anchor text someone is putting. [added image] Obviously I would not do that to my own site especially since I was ranked for over 15 keywords in the top 5 spots on Google and Bing. I am guessing its a competitor and I am wondering that is there any way I can remove them? Is this negative seo? Also could this be the reason my site has dropped off google page 1 last month for all my positions? I am consistently trying to rebuild but my positions are flying all over the place. Im going from ranking #12 one week to #198 the next; then to #60 and finally not even on google or bing anymore; then back to #50, etc for the past month and a half... Its very aggravating and it has hurt a few of my websites; im at a total loss on how to recover now if this is the case...It seems they have started to build these links in January from what I can find on the postings.. Thank you SEOMOZ im so happy im a member now. Any suggestions on how i can get these links off or if it is why my site has lost its original rankings.. Should I just can my website and start all over with a different URL? How can I watch out for this in the future? Any help would be so so so greatly appreciated and valued 🙂 xpVjMw8
Technical SEO | | Circa0 -
Registered Trademark in a Meta Title or Content
I know that registered trademarks don't hurt SEO, however if the trademark is used in the middle of a popular search phrase (see below) will it hurt the site's chanced of getting ranked for this term. Example: Funkybrand® Shoes PS I found one brand that used the trademark Acuvue® contact lenses. thanks!
Technical SEO | | yanaiguana1110 -
Empty Meta Robots Directive - Harmful?
Hi, We had a coding update and a side-effect of that was that our directive was emptied, in other words it now reads as: on all of the site. I've since noticed that Google's cache date on all of the pages - at least, the ones I tested - have a Cached date of no later than 17 December '12 - that's the Monday after the directive was removed on mass. So, A, does anyone have solid evidence of an empty directive causing problems? Past experience, Matt Cutts, Fishkin quote, etc. And then B - It seems fairly well correlated but, does my entire site's homogenous Cached date point to this tag removal? Or is it fairly normal to have a particular cache date across a large site (we're a large ecommerce site). Our site: http://www.zando.co.za/ I'm having the directive reinstated as soon as Dev permitting. And then, for extra credit, is there a way with Google's API, or perhaps some other tool, to run an arbitrary list and retrieve Cached dates? I'd want to do this for diagnosis purposes and preferably in a way that OK with Google. I'd avoid CURLing for the cached URL and scraping out that dates with BASH, or any such kind of thing. Cheers,
Technical SEO | | RocketZando0