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
-
Problems with Meta Title on Bing
On the Bing search engine, it isn't showing the actual meta title we have for a website. It's showing something different. However, the correct meta title is showing on the Google search engine. Has anyone had the same issue? Has anyone been able to fix this issue? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | Harrison.Stickboy0 -
Yoast and wordpress duplicate meta
I'm using the Yoast plugin with wordpress and have noticed in my HTML I have duplicate meta data. For example my header starts with
Technical SEO | | simonatkinsphoto
<title>(title) </title<span><<br /><meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:site_name</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content</span><span>=<br /><span><meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:description</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content</span><span>=<br /><br /></span></span>Then I have the 'This site is optimised by Yoast" tagline followed by the same meta -<br /> <span><meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">name</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">description</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content=<br /><span> <meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:title</span><span>" content=<br /><span> <meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:description</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content=<br /><span> <meta </span><span class="html-attribute-name">property</span><span>="</span><span class="html-attribute-value">og:site_name</span><span>" </span><span class="html-attribute-name">content</span><span>=<br /><br /></span></span></span></span>Is this likely to cause problems with Google and is there a way to stop both wordpress and Yoast adding meta to the header. </p></title>0 -
Alt text and itemprop description
I want to optimise the logo on our site. Our developers have presently got the site logo code like this: 601 character description, no keywords 1. How best to use the alt text and description? 2. Do I concentrate on alt text? Isn't the 601 character description:
Technical SEO | | abisti2
a) too long, and
b) an opportunity to add relevant keywords again, like the alt text?0 -
Anchor text with punctuation
Hey Moz Does anchor text with punctuation effect anything, does google even read it? I know matching exact anchor text to high volume keywords doesn't matter as much any more - but it still definitely makes a different as our reports show. Thanks
Technical SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
Commas in Meta Title and Description Okay?
Hey there guys, have heard some recent information from some experts that utilizing commas in headings, meta titles or descriptions is not good for ranking. Can you guys please shed some light on this? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | MrGlobalization0 -
Special Characters in Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
Do special characters, such as the "&" symbol or a "," in title tags and meta descriptions negatively affect your ranking in search engines? Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | ZAG1 -
Two META Robots tags on a page - which will win?
Hi, Does anybody know which meta-robots tag will "win" if there is more than one on a page? The situation:
Technical SEO | | jmueller
our CMS is not very flexible and so we have segments of META-Tags on the page that originate from templates.
Now any author can add any meta-tag from within his article-editor.
The logic delivering the pages does not care if there might be more than one meta-robots tag present (one from template, one from within the article). Now we could end up with something like this: Which one will be regarded by google & co?
First?
Last?
None? Thanks a lot,
Jan0 -
Outranking a competitor when their domain name is the keyword
Hi I'd just like to ask the opinion of my fellow members here : We are currently ranking second for a very important keyword and would obviously like the top spot on the SERP - the site that is ranking first has the domain name as the keyword phrase(along with a good amount of quality links from a variety of domains) - now I know it is possible to outrank them since I do remember reading about this in one of Rands posts(I think it was the whole white hat black hat one he posted recently) - bascially we have more domain authority, slightly less links but from double the amount of root domains and a higher page authority too! Does having the keyword as your domain make THAT much of a difference when we are(imo) quite close in terms of great content and link profiles(and all the onpage factors) ? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | DanHill0