Keywords and the role of 'in', 'for', 'to' and plurals
-
Hi there, I wonder if you can help.
Google's keyword tool lists each of these keywords separately with its own Local Monthly Volume count:
- flats to rent in London
- flats to rent London
- flats for rent in London
- flats for rent London
- flat to rent in London
- flat to rent London
- flat for rent in London
- flat for rent London
I'd rather not create 8 separate pages for this, which I think will be poor for the user and limit the range of keywords i can target.
So my main question is: what should I do?
a) How important is 'in'? Will a page written for 'flats to rent in London' do well against the 'flats to rent London'?
b) The same for plurals: if I'm writing 'flats to rent' will it rank against 'flat to rent'?
c) The same for 'to' and 'for': If i'm writing 'flats to rent in London' will it rank against 'flats for rent in London?'
Thanks in advance
dan
-
At least part of the answer lies in your competitive landscape. If you properly optimize just a couple variations as primary phrases, add in other variations as secondary phrases to include within the content, get inbound links spread across both the primary and secondary, you should show up for several if not all of the variations you've listed.
Where the competitive landscape factor comes in is this. If you choose options 1 & 2 as your primary, then 3, 4 and 5 as your secondary, and any competitor targets 3 & 4 as their primary and does full on optimization, they'll likely rank higher for those. But that's only if all other factors are equal.
The best way to deal with this and not end up in a vicious cycle, is to leverage PPC ads on the full spread while you focus SEO as I've suggested.
If the organic competition is weak, you won't have as much of a battle.
Oh - I forgot to mention that I know this because I've worked on U.S. based rental sites - one of the largest regional rental sites, and one of the top two national sites.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Disparity between new and old keyword planner
Hi everyone! While performing keyword research using both Google's old and new Keyword Planner, I've noticed a disparity between the two tools. In many cases, the old tool gives a much larger monthly search volume than the new tool. There are a few cases where both tools provide the same monthly search volume for a term, but those are few and far between. Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks in advance!
Keyword Research | | Brandon.H0 -
Is it worth creating a page for misspelled keywords?
I had thought the answer to this was no with the way Google search corrects mispellings. But in Google webmaster tools queries for a page I see the page ranking for a misspelled keyword. And looking at Key Word Finder it tells me the search volume for that keyword is high. But, when I search for the keyword myself it Google it auto corrects the results to the correct spelling. Is it worth creating a page for misspelled keywords?
Keyword Research | | Azam_Khan0 -
Potential Keyword Cannibalisation
Hi, I am concerned that our website's rankings are currently being affected by KW cannibalisation. We don't rank too badly for our target keywords but they could, of course, be better, especially as the niche is very competitive! One thing that is bothering me is that our internal pages do not rank well for these KWs and instead it is the homepage appearing in the rankings. This is despite the fact that the internal pages are optimised for the different keywords. Basically the HP is also targeting these same keywords and I was wondering if this is affecting our rankings overall? I am not keen to risk changing the homepage in case our rankings suffer massively and we drop out of Google completely. If anyone could offer some advice then that would be great. Is it simply a case of trying to get external links pointing to these internal pages? Would internal linking to them prove effective as well? Cheers Tom
Keyword Research | | National-Homebuyers1 -
How can I "target keywords"?
Hello everyone, Could you please explain how can I "target keywords"? So from my understanding, I do a research on keywords, then find those which I can rank for easily, and then what? Do I build links to my website pages with these keywords? Or do I create different articles on the website with this keyword?
Keyword Research | | moneywise_test0 -
Best Practices For Keyword Optimization
Hey currently building a new page on a clients site in the weight loss niche. The keywords he wants to rank for are the following: <colgroup><col width="198"> <col width="64"></colgroup>
Keyword Research | | monster99
| [fat burning foods] | 49500 |
| [foods that burn fat] | 22200 |
| [fat burning foods for women] | 2900 |
| [belly fat burning foods] | 2900 |
| [best fat burning foods] | 1900 |
| [fat burning foods for men] | 1900 |
| [list of fat burning foods] | 720 | His site is new, but he has excellent content production capabilities. My question is, in terms of optimizing the page (the title and url) for these keywords would you focus on the highest volume keyword. In this case the highest volume keyword is "fat burning foods" however is the most competitive and dominated by high domain authority sites (50+ vs. clients site which is around 30). Thus its highly unlikely he will rank for that keyword for quite a while. But for the keyword term "best fat burning foods" the competition is alot less in terms of DA and other factors but volume is smaller with 1900 hits a month. So would you optimize the page (the title and url) for "best fat burning food" or would you optimize thinking about the long-term and eventually ranking the keyword "fat burning foods". My thinking would be to optimize the page for "fat burning foods". And that the benefits of optimizing (url and title) for "best fat burning foods" isn't ideal for the long-run. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. Cheers, Mark0 -
Keywords and Rank Checker Tool
Two questions about checking the rank of keywords. The easiest way to say this is by example. I have a keyword that SEOMOZ ranks on google in the 32nd position but when I look for that keyword in Google it's nowhere to be found (it's buried deep in the results pages somewhere). Where does SEOMOZ get its keyword results from? How do I non-localize my browser so I can see "global" keyword results? Is there such a thing? thanks in advance.
Keyword Research | | dpdeleon10 -
What's the best way to find ranking keywords and phrases?
What's the best way to find ranking keywords and phrases? I have tried Google Keyword Tool but it just doesn't do the job for me (or I'm using it wrong). My main focus is people who are looking for energy saving tricks, but I'm not sure if this is the right keyword / keyphrase. The goal of this question is not to get other people to do the research for me, but rather to find the right tools and usage of those tools for the job.
Keyword Research | | nickhoe0 -
Google SERPS for similar Keywords?
I have website which is being listed for a keyword which is not in the site. It seems that google is using a Thesaurus to find words with similar meaning. Is this right? How could this be used for SEO purposes?
Keyword Research | | Tinderbox0