Does anyone have any experience in trying to rank for terms that are 100% similar in meaning but different words?
-
I will be using street signs and road signs as an example to make it clearer.
We previously only targeted street signs and then we realized that there is another keyword – road signs - that has twice as much traffic (more competitive too). Now we are trying to incorporate both in our onsite SEO.
If you had a similar case - how did you work with this? Did incorporating the keyword help rankings go up for that word? Does adding another keyword to the mix make the rankings go down for the keyword you previously ranked for?
-
Thanks for the response, Dana. I feel like if I'm more specific I will be a lot more clear. We are an e commerce site that sells trash bags, recycling bags, contractor bags etc. When the site was built (7 years ago) the entire site used the word "garbage bags". Now we are trying to incorporate the word "trash bag" but so far the rankings for trash bags and garbage bags are dropping lower and lower...
Do you think that's because we are targeting more keywords and it's causing a drop in our original rankings?
-
Hi Rachel,
I thought this was a great question. I do SEO for a niche site that runs into this all of the time. The site sells religious products. Ss you might imagine, there are Catholic church products, Protestant church products and non-denominational church products and everything in between. Each of these may have a completely different name for exactly the same item. For example, a mainline Protestant church will call a communion wafer a "wafer" while the Catholic church often refers to them as "hosts." In America we refer to the part of a church service where people break bread together and share wine or juice, Communion, but it's also referred to as the Eucharist in Catholica, Episcopal and Lutheran churches.
You can see this opens up a huge number of possibilities. Some searched more than other. I think it's a matter of having such intimate knowledge of your customers and product lines that you know exactly when to use which variations of the keywords. In certain situations they make perfect sense, but use the wrong combination of keywords with the wrong product, and you might succeed in getting search but could end up severely alienating your potential customers once they get to your site.
Great question!
Dana
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
-
Remove all stop words from permalink?
I saw many websites theses days remove stop words from the URL, How important is to remove stop words from the URL?
On-Page Optimization | | varunrupal0 -
Optimizing Product Keywords (that are similar)
Hi Guys Could someone let me know how varied my product keywords need to be? I'm about to add a variety of products to my site, and the only true way of differentiating them is by colour. Brown Hooded JacketGreen Hooded JacketRed Hooded JacketBlack Hooded JacketBrown Hooded Utility JacketGreen Hooded Utility JacketRed Hooded Utility JacketBlack Hooded Utility JacketAlso, am I optimizing my site correctly?Key Word - Brown Hooded JacketMy keywords are included in H1Enigma - Brown Hooded JacketPage TitleProduct Name & Key Word - London - Company NameURL,www.companyname.co.uk/brown-coats/enigma-hooded-jacketBody ContentThe key word "brown hooded jacket" is included and very described within the body of this specific pageImage TagBrown-Casual-Hooded-JacketMeta DescriptionKey word is used, should I choose to opt for this approach?I would really appreciate your help. Thanks, Faye
On-Page Optimization | | Faye2340 -
Best practices when targeting a different country and language completely.
Hi, I have just recently built a shopping site which is targeting users from the UK, built in opencart. Now I want to expand the site and also target customers in Thailand, for Thailand users they will need the site in Thai & English language. I was wondering what would be the best option to do this, taking into account best possible practice V's time involved. As I can see it have only a couple of options really. 1. Add a new language to the existing .com site. This seems to be the easiest and fastest option. 2. Clone the site and launch on a .co.th domain with Thai/Eng text option. Would their be any major benefit ranking wise as to having a co.th separate site. Or any duplicate content potential issues. Bit of a noob so don't be afraid to point out the obvious. I did have search and could only find topics relating to eu languages and GB v US. Is their anything extra that has to be taken into account considering the massive differences between UK and Thai. Thanks you for any guidance, Ian
On-Page Optimization | | cookie7770 -
Particular page fails to rank well
Hi all We are building, managing and marketing a Danish tourism site for VisitSweden. The site targets a Danish market-group with information and travel tips on going to Sweden. We have one page in particular that has always failed to rank well for some reason. http://www.meresverige.dk/rejser/malmo This page targets the keyword "Malmø". Another page, with similar layout and content seems to rank alot better. http://www.meresverige.dk/rejser/goeteborg Keyword "Gøteborg" Any ideas? Smart tips? Have the best of days Fredrik
On-Page Optimization | | Resultify0 -
Location in keyword terms
I'm optimizing a website for a dentist and I'm looking for the best approach to incorporating the location into the keyword terms. For example if a dental practice in Boston has a page on Cosmetic Dentistry what would be the best approach for optimizing for "Boston Cosmetic Dentist", "Boston Teeth Whitening" and "Cosmetic Dentist in Boston"? How should I handle the repetition of the location name? Will I get the best results by using the full keyword terms several times on the page "example a" or will "example b" provide similar results? Title Tag: a) Boston Cosmetic Dentist | Boston Teeth Whitening | Cosmetic Dentist in Boston
On-Page Optimization | | OptioPublishing
b) Boston Cosmetic Dentist | Teeth Whitening H1
a) Boston Cosmetic Dentist | Boston Teeth Whitening | Cosmetic Dentist in Boston
b) Boston Cosmetic Dentist | Teeth Whitening keywords to sprinkle through content
a) Boston Cosmetic Dentist, Boston Teeth Whitening, Cosmetic Dentist in Boston
b) Boston Cosmetic Dentist, Teeth Whitening etc... It's important to rank for all 3 keywords but the pages would be flooded with the words Dentist and Boston if I use each phrase exactly. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance,
Jason0 -
Has anyone ever attempted (successfully or not) to consciously reduce their amount of homepage links in order to improve their search engine rankings?
I work for a retail company that is highly segmented. We have a lot of categories to cover the types of merchandise we offer on our home page, and way more than the recommended # of links on our homepage because of it. Has anyone ever attempted (successfully or not) to consciously reduce their amount of links (and categories) in order to improve their search engine rankings? If so, can you walk through your process and your advice on whether or not reducing links on a site like mine is a good idea?
On-Page Optimization | | reallygoodstuff0 -
Does anyone know why my Home page isn't visible in search terms?
If I type in my meta description for my homepage in google search or any of my keywords only my inner pages are returned in the results. I have a PR3 on the homepage so I don't think google is blocking my site and all my inner pages seem to show up.
On-Page Optimization | | Michael.Constable0 -
Anchor text, same page, different kewords to same URLs
Could someone please tell how Google treats the use of anchor text from a single page when using different keywords that all point to the same URL. So for instance I am doing a blog post and use the following anchor text which all point to the same URL: Cool Widget >> www.domain.com/widget Awesome Widget >> www.domain.com/widget Mighty Widget >> www.domain.com/widget I have read that Google will only take noticeof the first one? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | blagger0