In this article, I’m going to show you how to optimize your blog post to rank for many different keywords that are connected with your target keyword.
The trick is so easy to implement that you can think of it as a smart way of stuffing keywords without breaking the rules of Google’s “Search Quality Guidelines”.
After you finish reading this article you will be able drive extra traffic to your website just by adding some simple keywords.
Let’s get started:
Table of Contents
What is Keyword Stemming?
Keyword Stemming is a process used by Google to find the base or root (stem) form of an inflected word.
In simple words:
Keyword Stemming is an algorithmic process used by Google to find the original root word of a plural form, past or participle form or gerund form of a word.
This is how it works:
If you enter the query “Sports Cars” into Google’s search bar, it will remove the plural inflection “-s” form both words (sports and cars) to reduce them to the root or stem words “Sport” and “Car” respectively.
Google also does this in the reverse order as well.
Meaning if you enter the singular form “Car”…
It will try by adding the suffix “-s” to it to find relevancy.
The way Google and other search engines do this by checking the list of root or stem words in its dictionary to ensure whether the inflected word has a connection with the root word or vice versa.
If it find a connection it mixes up the search results with both plural or singular form of the word in its search results.
You should take note that Stemming is part of linguistics, and the act of finding the stem or root form of a word is called Lemmatization.
That is:
Builds to Build (removed the “-s” plural inflection)
Built to Build (removed the “-t” past tense inflection)
Building to Build (removed the “-ing” gerund inflection)
However, finding a root word’s past, past participle, gerund, or pluralized form is called Stemming not Lemmatization. This may be the reason for not calling it Lemmatization.
SIDE NOTE: In Linguistics the root word is called “Lemma” and the act of reducing a word to its original form is called “Lemmatization”.
Benefits of Keyword Stemming
The benefit of using Keyword Stemming in your articles is that it can help you rank for many different and related keywords.
Because Stemming will help you find synonyms for the targeted keyword.
And the synonyms will help you drive extra traffic to your website.
The traffic could come like the following:
Suppose, the targeted keyword is “Study Tips for Students”…
…Then its synonymous variants could be like; Studies, Studied and, Studying for the root word “Study” and the singular form “Student” for the plural form “Students”.
Now, the most important part comes:
How to Implement Keyword Stemming?
Keyword Stemming happens in two directions.
And they are:
From INFLECTED FORM to STEM FORM and from STEM FORM to possible ROOT FORM.
By going back to the “Study Tips for Students”.
Thers’s a high possibility that you’ll use the words “Studying”, “Studies”, “Studied”, etc. in the article whenever it contextually relevant as well as contexually makes sense.
In the following article about “Study Tips”, the word “Studying” is appearing 5 times, “Studies” 3 times, and “Studied” 1 time throughout the text.
The benefit is:
You’ll be able to drive traffic from the phrases that include the keywords, “Studying”, “Studies”, etc.
Of course the inflectional phrases have to be relevant to the article.
You cannot force all types of inflectional words in your blog post.
It has be contextually relevant, significant, and natural to bring such meaning to the sentence.
For example:
In the above example page from “Global Cognition”, the word “Studied” has been used just once.
Because the word “Studied” (past and past participle of “Study”) is less relevant to use in this kind of blog topic (unless you mention more anecdotes).
If you are in trouble integrating inflected forms…
Here’s a simple example:
To add “Studying” for the targeted root word “Study”…
Write the following sentence:
Use your grades to measure how well you are at studying.
Instead of this sentence:
Your grades can define how well you study.
Here’s one more example:
To add “Studies” for the targeted root word “Study”…
Write the following sentence:
If you are into your studies too much, then take a day off to give your brain a rest.
Instead of this sentence:
If you study too much without any off days, consider taking a day off to give your barin a rest.
This is what you should remember:
Do not force yourself to use inflected forms of such a root word just to drive traffic from Google.
If you do so it could destroy all the on-page optimization efforts down the road.
Be natural and use various forms of such a stem word whenever it makes sense.
Closing Thoughts
Using stems of keywords is not the only way to drive additional traffic (apart from your main keyword) to your website or blog.
There are many different ways of doing it, such as implementing LSI Keywords and adding modifiers (words such as; best, top, essential, etc.) to your text.
Keyword Stemming usually flows naturally.
If it doesn’t then head into your KW Research tool, put the targeted keyword, find the inflected forms of the stem word, and apply those words to your content.
But never insist yourself, and by doing so it might lead to even writer’s block.
By going back to the above example…
Here’s what I found:
According to Ahref’s data, they drive traffic through the keywords…
…”Top Students”, “How to Be the Best Student”, “How to Be a Top Student” among many others.
And the keywords have a monthly global search volume of 300 for the keyword “Top Students”.
250 for the keyword “How to Be the Best Student”…
And 60 for the keyword “How to Be a Top Student”.
So make use of Keyword Stemming in a fair way and if it doesn’t fit into your content just stick with the age-old and effective method of using LSI Keywords.
So be smart and choose the one that suits your content for best results.
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