Best practice for targeting 'unnatural' location based keyword phrases

[dnaynay]

When optimising for a local based service, lets say a painter in texas, you will have various keyword phrases which are relevant e.g

Texas painter

Painter in Texas

Painter Texas

I have found that often the phrase which has the most searches is:

[Service] [Location]  = ('Painter Texas' in this example)

But unlike the other phrases this is very hard to work into a natural sounding sentence or heading.

Is the best practice to try and target the unnatural sounding phrase anyway due to the higher search volume, or target the next one down to stay natural sounding in your copy?

thanks

d

[StrayCat]

I'm very much interested in this question as well.

Someone told me that small words such as 'in' are stop words and as such ignored by Google and that [painters texas] would be the same as [painters in texas].

But in that case, why does Google's keyword tool give such different exact results for these 2 phrases?

Anyone else got any input on this?

Thanks

[Shareef-Defrawi]

Definitely go with natural syntax. Google can figure out what the page is about without having to sacrifice readability. In fact don't overdo it with the frequency - just having the phrases in the title tag and a couple of times on the page is plenty.

[dnaynay]

Thanks for your answers guys, but you have all focused on the anchor text of inbound links, whereas what I am really enquiring about is the on-page optimisation.

Specifically, optimising for a phrase like 'Painter Texas' which is hard to work into headings or body copy in a way that doesnt sound strange to humans reading it.

e.g:

Texas painter = "If you are looking for a texas painter, you have come to the right place!" - Fine

Painter in Texas = "People often call us the best painter in texas" - Fine

Painter Texas = ?????

The problem is that this final phrase has the highest search volume. So do I go with this and sacrifice 'naturalness' (e.g. If you are looking for a painter texas, then you are in the right place), or sacrifice search volume and go for more natural copy ?

[Shareef-Defrawi]

I agree with David in that variety is the key. I also think that Google is doing a much better job at determining local intent in queries. I would make sure to build links without the geographic modifier as well. In fact, I would think that too many links with geo-modifiers may be a spam signal if it isn't already. Additionally, be sure to include lots of "stop" words in your anchor text along with verbs, adjectives, etc. Things like "a painter in Texas" or  "recognized as a top painter" are phrases that real people would use to link to a real site rather than "painter Texas."

You definitely want to build links with the company or personal name and include the keywords next to it as Google can definitely discern the proximity of the keyword and score it accordingly.

For example: Joe Bob is a Texas-based painter...

Hope that helps!

[SEMPassion]

It's always better to target a page with a single phrase.  However it doesn't mean you can't use your alternate phrases at all.  Just don't try to make it compete with your primary phrases.

"So remember Tom's Painting next time you need a Texas Painter."

I'm going to resist any urge to refer to Tom's Texas sized paint brush"

[watkinsheating]

I run into this all the time as a local heating contractor. IMHO, the best practise is to target all the top three phrase combinations. This avoids the penalty of having too many identical anchor phrases, and, at the same time, helps you to rank well for all the different combinations of your keywords. Gewgle is smart enough to give you credit for "Painter in Texas" as a close match to "Painter Texas" and to see that Texas Painter is likely the same as Painter Texas. Anchor text variety is the key.