Replacing keywords by synonyms. Will it increase risk of google keyword stuffing penalization?

[lcourse]

I have a page which is ranking already pretty well for a relative competitive keyword. 
Google also ranks us on first page for synonym of keyword we optimize the page for (even though synonym does not appear on our page).

I am now considering to replace some occurences of the keyword in the page by different synonyms, in the hope that our ranking may further improve for these synonyms. 
However I am concerned that google may penalize me for keyword stuffing if I am using a wide range of synonyms of one keyword on our page. My plan is only to replace some occurences of keyword with synonyms. I am a bit nerveous here since page is already ranking quite well in a competitive niche.

Any thoughts?

[Avid-Panda]

Hello

Just my two pence, but if the web page is already ranking well I wouldn't try to fix it. Google is very good at determining the right synonyms as evident by your additional rankings. It is a good relevancy signal to have LSI (latent semantic indexed) keywords and I very much doubt it will do your page any harm. The only reason I would advise against it is if it made for an unnatural read.

Alex

[Hurf]

Synonyms are part of our everyday language. we use a wide variety of synonyms in every conversation without any loss of meaning or confusion; using them in our written communication (specifically, web copy) ensures that it sounds natural, makes it less of a chore to read, and not just something that has been hammered out, solely to try to gain traction in the search engines. Google knows that its continued dominance relies on it's ability to deliver relevant results and understanding how synonyms work is an integral part of that, so, unsurprisingly, this is something they are very, very good at.

(Here's a 2010 article from the official Google blog which refers to synonyms: https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/helping-comnds puters-understand-language.html.)

If you look at Google's example of keyword stuffing (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en) you can see how unreadable that is; much better to add a variety of synonyms throughout a piece of engaging copy.

To address your concern directly, editing your copy and replacing keywords with a sprinkling of synonyms is not going to result in you suddenly getting penalised for 'keyword stuffing'.
(Remember, that the notion of a keyword density % is a myth See: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/myths-and-misconceptions-about-search-engines

Don't forget to test your edits with On-page Grader: https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader.

Proceed with usability and readability in mind - write something a human being would enjoy reading - and you won't go far wrong.