Why you ought to use synonyms and related key phrases

Using the right keywords is essential in SEO. Because using the words your audience is searching for will help your posts and pages rank. That’s why we always tell you to put in a little effort to find complete keywords to optimize your articles. So, once you’ve found the perfect keyword, why not use it over and over again? Why use synonyms and related keywords? Well, it may seem contradictory, but using synonyms and related keywords correctly will definitely improve your rankings. In this post I will explain why.

Variation is key

The main reason to use synonyms and related keywords in your text is to make your text much easier to read. If you write a text about ‘candy’ and use the word ‘candy’ in every other sentence, your text will they do not flow naturally and become unreadable. Your readers will most likely stop reading and leave your page or post. You will lose your audience. That’s why you should strive for variation in your writing. For example, words like “confectionery” and “delicacy” could serve as synonyms for “candy”. Related keywords might be “chocolate” and “sugar”, which are not synonymous with “candy”, but are related to it and therefore still relevant to your text. We will cover this later in this post.

So your text should be attractive and interesting to be diverse. This can be done in different ways. For example, you can try replacing long sentences with shorter ones. Longer sentences are often harder to process and using shorter sentences makes your text easier to read. You can also try changing the word order to avoid too much repetition in sentences.

But most importantly, be flexible with the exact words you use. Especially if you’re trying to rank long tail keyword phrase which consists of several words such as “New York candy store”. If you use this exact keyword phrase in most of your sentences, your text will be terrible to read. Using synonyms and related keywords, on the other hand, allows you to make your text much more attractive, while allowing you to focus on your chosen key phrase.

But wait, what about keyword density?

Of course, it is important to regularly use the keyword focus and be aware of yours keyword density. However, you should not overdo it. In the old days, SEO searchers tended to stuff their texts with as many keywords as they could. This way, Google would understand what the text is about and rank it accordingly. But Google has come a long way since then. Can read and understand texts and constantly strives to improve this understanding.

I’ll give you an example. If you type ‘Confectionery New York‘ in Google, the results will show pages about ‘candy shops’ and also ‘candy shops’. Google understands that “commerce” and “commerce” are synonyms and treats them as such.

This does not eliminate the fact that you should still use the focus keyword a few times in your post. Ultimately, the focus keyword is still the word or phrase your audience searched for. These are the words your audience uses and will expect in your text. This exact match remains important. However, to avoid using a keyword too often – also known as keyword stuffing – you can use synonyms and related keywords. This way, you can rank for these keywords while keeping your text attractive and readable.

Yoast SEO can help you find related key phrases to your focus keyword, saving you a lot of time and trouble. All you have to do is click the ‘Get Related Keyword’ button; you’ll find it just below the focus keyword in the Yoast sidebar. When you click this button, you will see a list of related keywords along with search trend data.

Like Yoast SEO Premium or Yoast SEO for Shopify user, you can add up to five related key phrases to your SEO analysis. This allows you to optimize your text for these additional terms in a similar way to your focus keyword phrase. As always, you’ll see our familiar feedback to guide you. If you’re a Yoast SEO Free user, you can use the tool to research related keywords, but you won’t be able to add them to your SEO analysis.

Yoast SEO can help you balance the use of your keyword, synonyms, and related keywords by identifying word forms in different languages. To know more, you can read about related keywords features in Yoast SEO for WordPress and related keywords featured in Yoast SEO for Shopify.

Using synonyms versus using focus keywords is not an exact science. The most important criterion is how readers will experience your text. So, read and re-read. Is it attractive and easy to read? Or are you annoyed by the constant use of a certain term? Be critical of your own writing and ask others for feedback on your writing.

As mentioned earlier, you can add your related keywords to analysis in Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify. If you add them, the plugin can check if you use them in your text. Your focus keyword remains the most important keyword, so the plugin is less strict in analyzing your related keyword phrases.

You will also be able to add synonyms for your focus keyword and related keywords when using ours Premium SEO analysis or Yoast SEO for Shopify. These analyzes include checking whether you have used these synonyms in your text, as well as in your meta description, introduction, subtitles, or image alt text. What’s more, ours key phrase distribution check it will reward you for using your keyword phrase and its synonyms interchangeably in the text.

As I said before, Google has come a long way since the early days of SEO. He can now understand texts and consider related concepts and synonyms. It can also recognize related party. All this so that it can provide its users with the best result. And part of getting the best result is making sure your texts are easy to read. Google wants to serve readable texts.

So take care of the delivery! Think of synonyms for your keyword or key phrase and use them to your advantage. Take a moment to find some alternatives for your keyword. But also think about topics that are closely related to your keyword. You’ll notice that it becomes much easier to write naturally flowing text when you don’t have to use the focus keyword in every other sentence. And using synonyms and related key phrases helps Google understand the context of your text, increasing your chances of ranking!

Conclusion

Focused keywords remain essential. These are the words your audience is searching for. People searching for “candy” are unlikely to click on a result with “deli” in the text. If you search for ‘candy’, you’ll expect to see exactly that word in the search results. So, an exact match to your audience’s keywords is still essential.

That being said, you can use synonyms and related terms to write readable text. Repeating the same keyword over and over hurts the readability of your text, especially if you’re optimizing for a long-tail keyword. Additionally, using synonyms and related keywords can create ranking opportunities that would otherwise be missed. If you need help with this, Yoast SEO Premium and Yoast SEO for Shopify offer additional features to ensure your content is readable and rankable.

Read more: Does readability rank? About ease of reading and SEO »