SEM Logic Or SEO Scout: Softwares for writers - Any Suggestions?

[ao500000]

I was curious if anyone has used SEM Logic or SEO Scout for adding related LSI keywords in their content. I just hired a few content writers and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions if these softwares are worth investing in or if anyone knows of any courses that are good for training writers to be able to maximize the seo value of content written.

Any suggestions???

thx

[stevecounsell]

Egol,

You are a mine of information! Thanks for pointing out the LSI being done by Google. I'd been trying to get those semantic keywords in to my writing but I see that it's not really needed.

"cat photos" gets me cat pics, cat images, cat photographs, cat pix so I can see that Google are interpreting the intent pretty well already.

Steve

[stevecounsell]

Hi Immanuel

I used scribe for a while and it helped me a lot to begin with. My understanding of how to write grew from the knowledge gained out of Scribe.

I'd say try it out and use it LOADS in your first month subscription, I mean REALLY use it every day so you get the feel for what it's telling you.

It's produced by those great guys at Copyblogger so I'd say they know what they're talking about when it comes to content marketing.

[Immanuel]

Just a bit of topic but has anyone tried Scribe? http://scribecontent.com/

[EGOL]

Matt Cutts says that Google does already does a lot of LSI "under the hood" for searchers.

On my site I have a lot of photographs and I get traffic from queries which contain the words "photograph" and "photo" - which I use on my pages.  However, I also get a lot of traffic from queries which contain the words "pic" and "picture" and "image" - which do not appear on my pages.

Over time google is getting better and better at these and you don't believe it search for "cat photos" or "cat pics" and you will see that google bolds queries other than what you searched for.

Search for "faq" and you will see google expands to "frequently asked questions" or search for "topographic maps" and you will see google return the slang term "topo maps".  Play around and you will see that google does LOTS of this for you.

I stopped adding keyword variants to my pages a few years ago.  I still get a lot of the traffic that I would have gotten from spamming up my pages with <title>Cat Photos: Tons of Kickass Cat Pics and Cat Photographs here</title>

I just write naturally.  I get more work done because I am not trying to weasel additional words into my writing and I bet that I get more action from Facebook, Reddit and Twitter because I am writing like an intelligent person instead of like a outsource spammer.

Finally....  I think that a lot of SEO software is produced by programmers who really don't understand SEO.   So, I am going to bet on my own skills instead of trying to take a shortcut with a product produced by a fidiot.

When you start betting on yourself instead of allowing other people to make important decisions for you, you will become very careful with your work, become a better SEO, and I'll bet you make buckets more money.

[RobertFisher]

Unlike EGOL, I am not opinionated (muffled guffaws from those who know me), but I do wonder sometimes about things like LSI keywords. I have not used any of the software you mention so I am not a good resource for that. But, if the assumption is that LSI keywords when added to an article or page will in some way improve traffic, conversions, etc. I would ask this: Are you so fine tuned and optimized that this is the last thing you can do to improve your situation? (In other words, a 1 or 2% project)? If the answer is yes, I would ask, "Why would anyone in their right mind stink up great writing?" (Oh, sorry, I stole someone's question.) But, if the answer is no, it is not the final fine tune to the site/page, then I would say write something really good and then make sure you are using structured data to make it easier on the search engines and improve your meta description so the searcher finds what they are looking for. Finally, make sure you have several ways to convert the traffic.  
Really, EGOL is more right than he explains; if you write something really interesting and well written, people will read it and give you the traffic you need. That in and of itself will negate the need for attempting to conjure low hanging keyword fruit through software. My point is that we tend to spend too much time on low value projects like LSI KW's and not enough on the more relevant SEO projects. 
Best

[stevecounsell]

Hey Egol,

This is an excellent (and funny) answer. Just as I'd finished reading some articles on Copybloger about content creation.

Brightened up my whole evening.

Regards

Steve

[EGOL]

If you gave me a choice between great writing and great writing that was churned through some software, my choice would be to stick with the great writing.

Why would anyone in their right mind stink up great writing?

Now, if you have writing that is not very good... then it doesn't matter much what you do to it because its not very good to start.

A bigger mistake it to take a great writer and say that you are going to train him to use certain words in certain ways.  Now you have both complicated the process and created a second rate product.

These are just personal opinions.  You know what they say about that.