Should I optimise our products for Singlular and Plural?
-
I know this is an age old quesion, however i have read many posts that all have differing views. As a compnay we sell towels and bathrobes. All our products can be searched for in there singluar and plural, each getting in some cases unique traffic, however both would lead to somone looking to buy.
So the question in my case, if i am optimising pages for towels, should I also optimse title tags, meta descriptions and so on for the singluar as well? The luxury with most of our keyword phrases is that they can be incorperated nicely into descriptions in both plural and singluar.
-
So I am best of finding some phrases that are more targetd and going to pull in traffic with a higher conversion rate than wasting time on terms that as you say are going to near on impossible to rank for. Having said that top spot in the UK only has a DA of 43.
I think i'll focus on the terms that are more targeted rather than spending time optimising for keywords that are going to be tough to rank well for.
We do have a big update to teh site that going to give us functionality and something over the competition that will allow us to go after wholesale orders online which opens a massive door across many markets.
-
Presumably if I optimise for "buy towels" or "Bathroom Towels" There is still the possibility that i will rank well for towels/ towel I guess?
It's all relative. I define "ranking well" as appearing in the top 5 search results for a given keyword. For the most part, if you do not rank on the first page, you may as well not exist. There are exceptions. If you can attract 1% of the search volume for a term with a million searches per month, that is 10k hits which is a significant amount of traffic. You might gain that traffic with your position on page 2 of SERPs.
When I examine the results for "towel" and "towels" in Google.com, I see the Wiki result on the first page of both searches. The results are filled with very well known brands: target, macy's, amazon, home depot, bed bath and beyond, pottery barn, etc. The first result which does not have "towel" in the domain name that also does not have a DA of 8x+ is on the 3rd page. In order for you to reach the first page of SERPs you will frankly need to have a very well designed site, exceptional content, and earn links from quality sources.
-
OK, so looking at towel/ towels, towel is more aimed at information sources (wikipedia etc) so I am better to optimise for towels. Presumably if I optimise for "buy towels" or "Bathroom Towels" There is still the possibility that i will rank well for towels/ towel I guess?
-
In order to decide which form of the keyword is best, you need to perform keyword research. There are many factors involved.
Using Google's Keyword Tool you can gain a rough idea of the traffic for each keyword.
Towel = 1,500,000 monthly searches in Google.com US
Towels = 1,220,000
Bathrobe = 368,000
Bathrobes = 246,000
So the initial data indicates the singular versions would be best. But you need to go much further in your research. The next question is where would your optimized page appear in search results? It may be better to appear higher in SERPs for a result with lower traffic then the other way around.
With respect to your title tags, yes it is very important they are included in your optimization efforts. The meta description is not a ranking factor so your goal is to choose whatever text you feel will offer the best click-through-rate.
You should also consider a searcher's intent. A keyword such as "buy towels" is likely to have a much higher conversion rate then simply "towels".
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
-
A grade optimised posts not showing in SERPs
Hi all, I've been using Moz to research, optimise and grade a broad range of copy and blog posts over the years. After the optimisation process I've always seen a relatively quick improvement of pages/posts in SERPs. I am currently working on a new website launched earlier in the year on a subdomain. There's a sitemap, fresh content added every month and the site has an verified Google Analytics and Search Console account. The content is quite niche with low traffic data for related terms, however, I am finding that after three or four weeks the optimised posts aren't displaying in the top 50 results in Google. These are the posts: https://sykeshome.europe.sykes.com/cut-the-cost-of-customer-support-use-a-work-at-home-model/ - optimised for "Cut the cost of customer support" (and also "Cut the cost of customer support: use a work-at-home model") https://sykeshome.europe.sykes.com/quality-and-compliance-in-a-work-at-home-environment/ - optimised for "Quality and compliance" (and also "Quality and compliance in a work-at-home environment") As a new website launched on a subdomain there aren't currently any inbound links, but I wanted to know if I am simply being impatient in expecting the above posts to rank higher (if only slightly), or if there could be a reason optimised content with a Moz A grade isn't showing in the first 50 results. Any advice or pointers would be much appreciated. Jonathan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JCN-SBWD0 -
Least expensive, correctly done way to hire product descriptions done.
Hello, WHAT WE NEED NOW: We need 300 product descriptions done. We have reached the point where we're hiring this done. How would you recommend we go about this. 200 products will be rewriting the supplier's product descriptions (one sentence each) and filling out a quicktable. There's just nothing to do there, no information anywhere. About 100 products will be where the person writing the description and filling out the table will have to google the product's manufacturer and rewrite the information off of that website in an intelligible, interesting, paragraph that is informative. Would you recommend we hire someone local to come work in our office that specializes in our niche, or are there any GOOD services out there for our case, even if it's just for the first 200. OUR FUTURE PLANS: We'll guess at the top few products and do some 10X work ourselves. No hiring needed there. Once we know the top 50 products we will do some more deep hiring for 10X product descriptions, but that can wait. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW1 -
Approach for discontinued categories and products
My web site previously offered several categories of an indoor type of product, which have since been permanently discontinued. We do still offer a full line of the outdoor type of these products. The usage is quite different (indoor vs. outdoor), and customers looking for the indoor variety are not likely to be immediately interested in the outdoor ones. But the pages for the discontinued categories and products have built up significant page authority and rank quite well even for more generic searches which are not indoor or outdoor specific. I am interested in opinions on what approach to take for the discontinued category pages and product pages. Currently, the discontinued pages are accessible by direct link, but have been removed from the site's navigation menus and on-site search. The pages include some messaging for visitors to inform that we no longer offer this type of product, with some links to active categories. We can remove these pages and serve a 404 error page. Or, we can redirect these pages to the outdoor product category (but all would have to be redirected to a single category, as the specific outdoor categories and products don't map logically to specific indoor ones). Or, we can keep as-is. I am interested in opinions on approach, either between these options above, or other alternatives.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | drewk0 -
Duplicate Content: Is a product feed/page rolled out across subdomains deemed duplicate content?
A company has a TLD (top-level-domain) which every single product: company.com/product/name.html The company also has subdomains (tailored to a range of products) which lists a choosen selection of the products from the TLD - sort of like a feed: subdomain.company.com/product/name.html The content on the TLD & subdomain product page are exactly the same and cannot be changed - CSS and HTML is slightly differant but the content (text and images) is exactly the same! My concern (and rightly so) is that Google will deem this to be duplicate content, therfore I'm going to have to add a rel cannonical tag into the header of all subdomain pages, pointing to the original product page on the TLD. Does this sound like the correct thing to do? Or is there a better solution? Moving on, not only are products fed onto subdomain, there are a handfull of other domains which list the products - again, the content (text and images) is exactly the same: other.com/product/name.html Would I be best placed to add a rel cannonical tag into the header of the product pages on other domains, pointing to the original product page on the actual TLD? Does rel cannonical work across domains? Would the product pages with a rel cannonical tag in the header still rank? Let me know if there is a better solution all-round!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iam-sold0 -
Customer Experience vs Search Result Optimisation
Yes, I know customer experience is king, however, I have a dilema, my site has been live since June 2013 & we get good feedback on site design & easy to follow navigation, however, our rankings arent as good as they could be? For example, the following 2 pages share v similar URLs, but the pages do 2 different jobs & when you get to the site that is easy to see, but my largest Keyword "Over 50 Life Insurance" becomes difficult to target as google sees both pages and splits the results, so I think i must be losing ranking positions? http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Over-50-Life-Insurance.aspx http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Over-50-Life-Insurance/Compare-Over-50s-Life-Insurance.aspx The first page explains the product(s) and the 2nd is the Quote & Compare page, which generates the income. I am currently playing with meta tags, but as yet havent found the right combination! Originally the 2nd page meta tags were focussing on "compare over 50s life insurance" but google still sees "over 50 life insurance" in this phrase, so the results get split. I also had internal anchor text supporting this. What do you think is the best strategy for optimising both pages? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Should discontinued crusty old products (but still new stock) be listed on site?
Some may think this is not good to do for us, because it tarnishes the image of the site as being: "These guys are pawing off old stuff and not carrying up to date products. It would be a waste of our time to try to sell it off of our site." ... even though 89% of are items are new and up to date products. (My feelings on this would be the opposite: I want all the old crusty stuff up there because it makes it available to a much bigger market area.... called "The World". lol! To me, if it's not moving in our market, it means we bought the wrong item for our market and we need to offer it up to "The World". Maybe I'm way off here, but are there any other spins on thoughts on this? ) Thanks, Kevin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kevin_McLeish0 -
Why is google ranking me higher for pages that aren't optimised for keywords those that are?
I am finding that our homepage and other pages are being ranked higher against keywords that we have optimised other pages for. e.g Keyword: Luxury Towels Google Ranks our homepage http://www.towelsrus.co.uk at 20 for this and the page I am trying to rank for it is nowhere to be seen http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/sport-spa/luxury-towels/catlist_fnct498.htm Why is this and is this why our position for certain keywords fluctuates? How do I remedy this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Max # of Products / Links per Page on E-Commerce Site
We are getting ready to re-launch our e-commerce site and are trying to decide how many products to list per category page. Some of of our category pages have upwards of 100 products. While I'd love to list ALL the products on the root category page (to reduce hassle for customer, to index more products on a higher PR page), I'm a little worried about having it be too long, and containing too many on-page links. Would love some guidance on: Maximum number of internal links on a page If Google frowns on really long category pages Anything else I should be considering when making this decision Thanks for your input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndrewY2