Latent Semantic Indexing - why it matters.

I'm here with my happy head on, so you can relax.

You may have read my blog on Google Hummingbird recently, in which I pointed out how Hummingbird, Google's completely rewritten search algorithm, is a boon for writers and a horror story for people stuck with a traditional view of SEO. John followed this up with a different view which led to some debate in the comments section.

Hummingbird has reached the point where good content will rank you and keyword stuffing will kill you. What I didn't do enough of in my article was to deal with Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), one of the key elements of the rewrite, although it appeared in a different form before.

LSI works by taking you key phrase or keyword and indexing your site firstly for that keyword, but secondly Google says it identifies "words in the same content which mean the same or similar". British author David Lodge refers to effective writing as containing "elegant variation". In other words, if you said something once then describe it in a different way the next time you mention it. I'll show you an example from a mythical website, firstly in the old style, secondly in the new style:

Old SEO

Keyword "dog training".

"Visit Thrashadog for all your dog training requirements. Here we take dog training seriously and provide dog training tailored for every dog's personal needs. If your dog needs dog training then give us a call, and we'll introduce him or her to the finest dog training in the South West."

Clearly I've exaggerated somewhat, but believe me when I say I've had similar sites to rewrite in the past. So how might this look if written for a) humans, and b) LSI.

Hummingbird SEO

Keyword "dog training"

"Visit Thrashadog for all your dog training requirements. Here we take our job seriously, and provide and teach all forms of canine correction, tailored to your pet's disposition. If you'd like to have your dog taught to walk to heel, sit at a kerb, avoid other dogs, or just be better behaved, then give us a call and we'll introduce you both to the finest training in the South West!"

Let's run by that again, with the LSI words highlighted:

"Visit Thrashadog for all your dog training requirements. Here we take our job seriously, and provide and teach all forms of canine correction, tailored to your pet's disposition. If you'd like to have your dog taught to walk to heel, sit at a kerb, avoid other dogs, or just be better behaved, then give us a call and we'll introduce you both to the finest training in the South West!"

You'll notice that I've highlighted "our Job" and"teach", as well as directly linked phrases that we know refer to dog training, like "have your dog taught" and "walk to heel". This is because Google fully understands context.

The word "job" in context will be linked by Google to "training", as will the word "teach". The longer highlighted words or phrases are all things you'd be looking for in a trained dog. Google is getting very twitchy about the overuse of keywords and will slaughter the site in the first example. The second example provides the sort of context Google loves. Note from our training that we only have our chosen keyword in the title and once in the text. Google wants to know what your site is about and then see you've backed it up with perfectly reasonable, focused content. Writing good content will improve your rankings. Period.

Just as a small extra, I revisited my website at about 06.45 this morning and removed two examples of my keyword from my home page. I've just checked and I'm the second organically ranked site on page one of Google out of 484,000,000 results. That's a jump of 6 places in five hours.