How do you optimize for compound keywords
-
What is the best way to handle keywords like "switchplate covers"? The key word may be seen as either a 2 or 3 word phrase, depending how you handle the compound term: "switch plate" or "switchplate"
In google KW it shows different results for switch plate vs switchplate as well as using cover vs covers.
I've tried using all the variations in my descriptions, titles and H2s but I think this is diluting them all. Can anyone show me best practice guidelenes or examples of good solutions to these kinds of compound key words?
Thanks
Handcrafter
-
I use google analytics- Is there something special I should set up to track this? Or is it something to do with filtering?
Or any ideas on where to learn to set it up to track conversions and traffic for this 1 group of terms would be a great help.
Thank you for your comments EGOL
Handcrafter
-
Thanks Charles- This is really really helpful. The products I show on www.stowecraft.com do not have have brand names and they are all artisan-made & unique. So naming the products and their categories is crucial - and this compund name issue comes up over and over again.
Your suggestion about using the plural on the category page and the singular on the product page may work. But after reading Rands "singular vs plural" I am thinking that keeping my focus on the singular will increase conversions. I'll try to test it with ppc ads.
Best wishes
Handcrafter
-
Some term variants like this convert a lot better than others. My money is on "covers" - but I could be wrong.
So I would use the term where (traffic * conversion rate) will be highest.
If you don't have tracking to get a conversion rate you can get some data with Adwords testing.
-
Some term variants like this convert a lot better than others. My money is on "covers" - but I could be wrong.
So I would use the term where (traffic * conversion rate) will be highest.
If you don't have tracking to get a conversion rate you can get some data with Adwords testing.
-
This is a really good answer. Accurate, complete, very generous. Nice.
-
Usually Google and Bing do a good job of figuring out when terms are similar unless they have completely separate meanings (see Rand's response on singular vs plural). In your case if you go to google and type in "switchplate" it actually shows the "Did you mean switch plate?".
Also if you do a search on "Switch Plate" you notice Amazon comes up first with the word separated.
So those two notes are some big clues as to what direction to go for that example.
Either way I would use PPC as a playground here and run exact match ad campaigns for both versions of the term, find out which gets more traffic for you, which gets better conversions, and then optimize for that one first. Go with the data.
Anecdotaly I have heard singular is better for e-commerce as plural is usually used in language when talking about an item informationally. So I would probably go for singular and throw in a couple of plural versions on the page like an h2 or h3 link for "Other switch plates".
This could also be handled by doing your high level category pages as plural, and specific product pages as singular. I would probably keep a term like "switch plate" consistently separated in my copy though if I saw this was the big winner in my PPC test, but that is the copywriter/editor in me begging for consistency and not the SEO tweaker going for every version. In the end I still want my site to be user friendly and clean.
-
Take a look at the traffic on each version of the keyword phrase. Your primary focus should be the version of the phrase which generates the most traffic. I would also try to use each variation of the phrase throughout the article when possible.
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
i have found proper keywords for my site. The site is www.anavasis.gr what is the proper way to have them in my site? Make articles in my site and link them from the homepage like: www.anavasis.gr/keyword-article and put all those links in the footer of my homepage? Which is the best way? thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | anavasis0 -
Is the Adwords keywords planner accurate ?
Hey guyz,
Keyword Research | | atakala
As you guyz do, I base all my seo effort into the keywords' traffic and quality which I can get from Adwords Keywords Planner.
But this post has confused my mind .
It' says the average searches doesn't exactly the average searches.
And everything is okay here now I can say that of course it's not %100 accurate.
But the shocking part is he gives an example of how a big gap there is between real searches number and adwords keywords planner tools give us . What do you think guyz?
Can it be true ?
(And also last time I asked a question, Randy has replied me, If possible please Randy do it again :D.)
Best wishes.0 -
Best Tools for Keyword Research?
Hi guys, Please share your best and recommended tools for keyword research. Thanks in advance.
Keyword Research | | KLLC0 -
Weekly Keyword Ranking Report Question
Howdy folks! Okay so apologies for the n00b question, and additional apologies for going over ground that's potentially already been ploughed. I'm compiling a tally of the Weekly Keyword Ranking Report for a client. For the past three reports, the particular keyword I'm logging has remained in the same position. However the Change column shows it as having decreased in rank, by the same amount every week. If there has been no change in the ranking, I would have thought it would display as "Unchanged". As it stands, it shows up in the Declined category, and that seems odd to me. Anyone have an idea as to why this would be happening? Thanks for any input you can provide! Kevin
Keyword Research | | Treefrog_SEO0 -
Where to start with keyword research for a telecom company?
Hey, I'm a brand's person with no SEO experience, yet I'm in a position where I have to carry out an SEO audit of our telecom company's website. Though our website is up and running for some years now, nobody bothered to undertake keyword research. From the little I've read over months on SEOmoz, I've just done the following: took out keywords bringing organic traffic on to our website and checked our rankings for those keywords on major search engines. My observation is that most of these words are long-tail keywords. Since we only have product/service information related to our offerings, most of the head terms we've used for packages/offers/services pages are branded keywords. My understanding is that we need to rank top for our branded keywords (a must) and try to rank as high as possible for long tail. In addition, we can use those keywords in our copy so that the right page ranks top for the respective keyword. Am I missing anything here? What else do I need to do?
Keyword Research | | HasanPK0 -
SEO for compound word derivatives
Our company offers services for nonprofit organizations and we are finding that "non profit" and "nonprofit" are both used very frequently in search queries. I suspect Google will treat the two variations similarly but am looking for something more concrete than my anecdotal experience. How does Google treat compound words that are commonly searched for as multiple words? Any suggestions on resources or tests to find a concrete answer for "nonprofit"?
Keyword Research | | Jon_KS0 -
Keyword cannibalization in ecommerce sites
I'm assuming this is a common problem in ecommerce sites. Lets say we have a "sleeping bags" which has all types of sleeping bags on it. Then build a brand page "The North Face" with a subpage for The North Face sleeping bags. Is it possible to target the sleeping bags page for "sleeping bags" while targeting the branded sleeping bag page for "The North Face sleeping bag"? how would you suggest doing this while avoiding keyword cannibalization?
Keyword Research | | Hakkasan0 -
The importance of meta keywords
Hello, I am looking into Meta keywords in the attempt to understand their importance. I have been reading about this in several blogs and get the feeling that the general view is that they are no longer very valuable. Some say it is because Google and Bing no longer use them, that in terms of SEO they carry little importance and that they are a great indicator to your competitors about which keywords you believe are important... My question is this: Without Meta keywords, how do you deal with misspelt search keywords on your website? For example, if you were looking for a product called 'El Mundo en Espa_ñ_ol' but spelt it using the normal 'n' instead of the Spanish 'ñ', and the keyword 'Espanol' was not included in the Meta keywords, would you still find the product? English speaking people commonly search without the ñ because this is more convenient to them. So how can I make sure that the page is optimised for these type of common misspellings? Thanks!!!
Keyword Research | | languedoc0