Keyword variations on a single page
-
I have done the research and have compiled a list of a little over 100 keywords that are highly connected to our industry. I have used the metrics to rank those keywords and have given the top 50 of them a ranking. My intention is to use them on my site and make sure that all of my pages have a keyword focus. In doing this, I am running into some challenges. Any insight would be helpful.
1. There are numerous keywords that have simple variations in them. I am trying to figure out if each variation needs it's own page. I have read articles (here on moz) that say that one page can rank for several keywords, and other articles that say that a simple variation can need it's own page. Not sure what to do here. Below is an example of what I mean.
(examples: "my long tail keyword" , "my long tail" , "my long" , "long tail" , "long tail keyword" , "keyword long tail")
2. Will it help to create a page for each one of the 50 or even the full 100? I have the opportunity to use blogs and FAQ's to assist with content creation.
3. Since my brand ranks well and is obviously tied highly into my site, do I worry about including brand terms in my keyword focus or should I just focus on those search terms?
-
Deacyde,
Your response about the user was good. You spend days and days researching keywords and sometimes you get lost in the weeds and forget what the whole thing is all about.
-
I usually go with the one that has the biggest opportunity for impressions - the one/two with the highest search volume. Usually means more competition for it, but you'll never outrank them if you don't try.
-
Hello,
Got to remember that if you create a page for each keyword variation, that those pages are going to have horrible metrics and could even hurt ranking for that keyword because of such.
I have really seen great results when you focus all intent on the user, is making a bunch of pages that barely have content but target that keyword going to really help users?
It would be better off to try and target one page for many variations, especially if that page is going to answer the user's search query. That's really how you should be setting your pages up, the keyword they rank for should be keywords that contain info being searched for otherwise you're going to have bad traffic that could send bad signals.
You'd be better off writing blogs for those keyword variations and tying content and other pages ( like the parent keyword page ) into them with links to help add authority.
Brand terms are mainly for homepage, about us page and possibly landing page of a category parent. Otherwise using your brand ( unless in a blog post ) is kinda stuffing things and wasting space that could be used by other keywords.
-
Logan,
On your concept of grouping the keywords based on topic, how do you determine which one in the group is the focus keyword for the page?
-
Hi John,
I recommend grouping your keywords into similar topics and associating them with either an existing URL on your site, or if the topic isn't currently discussed on your site, proposing a new URL. This process is called keyword mapping, where you take each keyword your tracking and pair it with a preferred URL. I start all of my SEO projects off with one, here's why:
- Provides a road map of what _existing _content needs to be updated
- Lays out what new content I need to create
- Prevents me from diluting the emphasis of one keyword by addressing a very similar one on another page
- Helps me set priorities on which content should be updated/generated first (I aggregate search volume for all associated URLs and work in a descending order)
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
-
Keywords Declination
In German we have declination, i.e. we have the keyword "sicherheitskritische Systeme" which can get "sicherheitskritischer Systeme" when declinated. How does Google handle this? Do I have to rewrite all texts, so that the keywords are not declinated? (At least MozPro's ranking algorithm is sensitive and did not accept sicherheitskritischer" for the keyword sicherheitskritische"...) Rewriting might lead to quite awful sentences! Thnaks a lot Andy
Technical SEO | | a2stucki0 -
Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization?
Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization? Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization?
Technical SEO | | SalSantaCruz0 -
Site splitting value of our pages with multiple variations. How can I fix this with the least impact?
Just started at a company recently, and there is a preexisting problem that I could use some help with. Somebody please tell me there is a low impact fix for this: My company's website is structured so all of the main links used on the nav are listed as .asp pages. All the canonical stuff. However, for "SEO Purposes," we have a number of similar (not exact) pages in .html on the same topic on our site. So, for example, let's say we're a bakery. The main URL, as linked in the nav, for our Chocolate Cakes, would be http://www.oursite.com/chocolate-cakes.asp. This differentiates the page from our other cake varieties, such as http://www.oursite.com/pound-cakes.asp and http://www.oursite.com/carrot-cakes.asp. Alas, fully indexed in Google with links existing only in our sitemap, we also have: http://www.oursite.com/chocolate-cakes.html http://www.oursite.com/chocolatecakes.html http://www.oursite.com/cakes-chocolate.html This seems CRAZY to me, because wouldn't this split our search results 4 ways? Am I right in assuming this is destroying the rankings of our canonical pages? I want to change this, but problem is, none of the content is the same on any of the variants, and some of these pages rank really well - albeit mostly for long tail keywords instead of the good, solid keywords we're after. So, what I'm asking you guys is: How do I burn these .html pages to the ground without completely destroying our rankings for the other keywords? I want to 301 those pages to our canonical nav URLs but, because of the wildly different content, I'm afraid that we could see a heavy drop in search traffic. Am I just being overly cautious? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | jdsnyc20 -
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect? If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help! [edited for formatting]
Technical SEO | | Booj0 -
Why are my Duplicated Pages not being updated?
I've recently changed a bunch of duplicated pages from our site. I did get a slightly minimized amount of duplicated pages, however, some of the pages that I've already fixed are still unfixed according to MOZ. Whenever I check the back-end of each of these pages, I see that they've already been changed and non of them are the same in terms of Meta Tag Title is concern. Can anyone provide any suggestions on what I should do to get a more accurate result? Is there a process that I'm missing?
Technical SEO | | ckroaster0 -
Keyword Targeting with Dynamic Pages
We have a large e-commerce website made with .net. so all of our category and item pages are made dynamic. Most things like title, some of the words and a few other things are done with scripts. I want to be able to target certain words and have more customized words on certain pages. Has anyone dealt with this? I know .net is pretty common so I can't be a unique case.
Technical SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
How To SEO Mobile Pages?
hello, I have finally put my first foot on the path of trying to learn and understand mobile SEO. I have a few questions regarding mobile SEO and how it works, so please help me out. I use wordpress for my site, and there is a nifty plugin called WP touch http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/ What it basically does is, it converts your desktop version into a mobile friendly version. I wanted to know that if it does that, does this mean whatever SEO i do for my regular web site gets accomplished for my moible version as well? Another simple question is, if i search for the same term on my mobile phone then on my desktop how different will the SERs be? thanks moz peeps
Technical SEO | | david3050 -
Pages not being found in serp
Hi I'm helping a collegue with his website. For what ever reason the pages in the Solutions Menu are not being found in the search result for keywords related to the pages. (Homepage mainly comes up in the search result). Does anyone have any advise to why this may be happening? *To give you a bit of a background understanding, previously all the menu content was copied (which I made him change), he also had hidden text on some pages (i made him remove, white text on white background) plus the url structure changed as well. Persoanlly I think he is over using , links, internal linking is not great & the general content is not great in the menu. Your Thoughts are welcomed, thank you.
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0