Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Ranking For Synonyms Without Creating Duplicate Content.
-
We have 2 keywords that are synonyms we really need to rank for as they are pretty much interchangeable terms. We will refer to the terms as Synonym A and Synonym B.
Our site ranks very well for Synonym A but not for Synonym B. Both of these terms carry the same meaning, but the search results are very different. We actively optimize for Synonym A because it has the higher search volume of the 2 terms. We had hoped that Synonym B would get similar rankings due to the fact that the terms are so similar, but that did not pan out for us.
We have lots of content that uses Synonym A predominantly and some that uses Synonym B. We know that good content around Synonym B would help, but we fear that it may be seen as duplicate if we create a piece that’s “Top 10 Synonym B” because we already have that piece for Synonym A. We also don’t want to make too many changes to our existing content in fear we may lose our great ranking for Synonym A.
Has anyone run into this issue before, or does anyone have any ideas of things we can do to increase our position for Synonym B?
-
There's a 100 different ways to do this, but typically my favorite approach is to try to work the synonym into the same copy without seeming spammy.
For example, if my primary keyword is "GMO" and my very literal synonym is "Genetically Modified Organism" then I'd try to work both variations into the copy.<title>GMO Dangers - Knowing the Risks of Genetically Modified Organisms</title>
Here's a great article that goes into depth about the advantages of incorporating multiple variants into your SEO targeting http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/5370/941-traffic-increase-exploiting-the-synonyms-seo-ranking-technique/
-
Hi,
I do following steps to target synonym keywords & keywords ranking improve for both keywords (synonym).
1>I do use both keywords in meta title {one keyword - second keyword |modifiers(e.g cheap, buy, best)}
2> I use one keyword that have more search volume in H1 tag.
3> Place both keywords in webpage content and I would suggest you to long webpage content (at least 500 words).
4>I use both keywords as anchor text for getting links and also append modifiers for anchor text variation.
What I have shared above it is my personal experience I hope it helps in your case as well but not very sure because I am not aware of keywords, webpage content , link building methods etc.
Thanks
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
-
Huge ranking flux that we cannot explain
Hello, SEO experts from around the world. We need your help; we have seen massive ranking flux across our website and others. We cannot explain what is causing this ranking flux. The content marketing is top quality, so we don’t know why we are moving from 25 to 50th on Google and sometimes even beyond that. Can any SEO experts explain why our agency is moving so much within Google’s rankings? We don’t know whether to make changes or possibly wait. Any help would be fantastic; thank you all.
Algorithm Updates | | sarahwalsh0 -
Does changing text content on a site affects seo?
HI, i have changed some h1 and h2 , changed and added paragraphs,fixed plagiarism,grammar and added some pics with alt text, I have just done it today, I am ranking on second page QUESTION-1 is it gonna affect my 2 months SEO efforts? QUESTION -2 Do I have to submit sitemap to google again? QUESTION-3 does changing content on the site frequently hurts SEO?
Algorithm Updates | | Sam09schulz0 -
Dramatic drop in SEO rankings after recovering from hacking
A few months ago my client's website was hacked which created over 20,000+ spammy links on the site. I dealt with removing the malware and got google to remove the malware warning shortly within a week of the hacking. Then started the long process to do 301 redirects and disavowing links under Webmaster tools over these few months. The hacking only caused a slight drop in rankings at the time. Now just as of last week the site had a dramatic drop in rankings. When doing a keyword search I noticed the homepage doesn't even get listed on Google Maps and for Google Search instead the inner pages like the Contact Us page show up instead of the homepage. Does anyone have any insight to the sudden drop happening now and why the inner pages are ranking higher than the homepage now?
Algorithm Updates | | FPK0 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
W3C Validation: How Important is This to Ranking
Hi, I'm currently working with a developer who is trying to tell me that validation errors and warnings are of little to no importance in a website's SERP. In the past, whenever I've had a site that was experiencing problems ranking for a keyword terms, this was one of the first places we'd look. Is this still a relatively important component in getting a site to rank?
Algorithm Updates | | maxcarnage2 -
Frequency & Percentage of Content Change to get Google to Cache Every Day?
What is the frequency at which your homepage (for example) would have to update and what percentage of the page's content would need to be updated to get cached every day? What are your opinions on other factors.
Algorithm Updates | | bozzie3110 -
Decline in traffic but no change in rankings
I'm comparing our best search traffic month in 2011 (March) with our current traffic (April)and have seen significant declines in traffic, despite no change in our rankings or even improved rankings for the same terms. Trying to sort out an explanation. We have been a white-hat SEO site since our inception over 10 years ago. Our SEO consultant doesn't think we've been affected by any algo changes, at least not to any significant degree. My only explanation for this possibly anomaly is: decrease in the use of the KW terms in search over time (how to determine?) generalized increase in PPC instead of organic search driving traffic possibility that Adv Web Rankings is no longer accurately collecting SERP rankings Does anyone have any other thoughts or considerations that might explain the decline in traffic, despite maintenance or improvement in rankings? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | ahw0 -
Rankings changing every couple of MINUTES in Google?
We've been experiencing some unusual behaviour in the Google.co.uk SERPs recently... Basically, the ranking of some of our websites for certain keywords appears to be changing by the minute. For example, doing a search for "our keyword" might show us at #20. Then a few minutes later, doing the same search shows us at #14, and then the same search a few minutes later shows us at #26, and then sometimes we're not ranked at all, etc etc. I know the algorithm changes a lot, but does it really change every couple of minutes? Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour in the SERPs? What could be causing it to happen?
Algorithm Updates | | d4online0