Stupid Question?? Is [painter new york] the same keyword as [painter in new york]?
-
Hi,
This may be a stupid question but...
Google ignores short/common words like 'in', so if I optimize a page for 'painter in new york' will it rank just as well for 'painter new york'?
In Google's keyword tool, exact match gives [painter new york] 140 searches per month but [painter in new york] gets < 10.
However, it is much more difficult to write 'painter new york' naturally into body copy than it is 'painter in new york'.
So what do I do?
Thanks
-
Thanks Miriam
-
Hi Stray Cat,Your question isn't stupid at all and there is a great discussion happening here. I'd like to throw in a few details for your consideration.First of all, you cannot rely on the numbers provided by keyword research tools if you are including geo terms (like ny) in your phrases. There is currently no tool that provides accurate numbers for local keyword research. So, you can use things like Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Google Insights to give you an idea of search volumes, but numbers are not to be viewed as accurate. Most Local SEOs do their keyword research without geo modifiers and then add these terms back into the list of discovered product, service and brand terms.If you were my client and were a NY painter, we would be targeting all 3 variations of your example terms. So, in the body copy, we might find sentences like:"Call The Painter New York Schools Have Hired 234 Times Since 2003 For A Beautiful Job!"and"When Hiring A Painter In New York, Always Request A License Number Before You Sign A Contract."and "A Professional New York Painter Will Always Present Documents Proving That He Is Licensed, Bonded and Insured."You can come up with better sentences than these which I've just reeled off, but the point is that you need to find ways to incorporate all of your core phrases into the copy. I further believe that it's not necessary to group keyword phrases together every time. If one line in your copy is talking about New York and the next is talking about painters, you are still using your keywords and signifying to bots and humans what your business does and where it is. Go with the lighter touch when you can, to avoid having copy that reads like a robot wrote it, and remember that your local search rankings are dependent on tons of different factors. The optimization of your pages is definitely a core factor, but it is only one factor.
-
Thanks Ian - yes it seems a real struggle to deal with the difference between which search phrases have the most searches and which search phrases sound right in the context of a web page.
-
Not a stupid question at all, and to be honest something I really struggle with. Stopwords are somewhat important because the results are different based on the search the user enters.
For example (real), I have a page and the title is "The Writer's Stop at Disney's Hollywood Studios". My site ranks differently based on the following permutations.
The Writer's Stop at Disney's Hollywood Studios = Position 10
Writer's Stop at Disney's Hollywood Studios = Position 12
Writer's Stop Disney's Hollywood Studios = Position 14Interestingly removing the apostrophe's didn't appear to affect the search results. Only one test, so nothing conclusive I guess.
Ultimately my titles etc contain the proper phrase because from a user perspective it makes more sense.
-
Thanks Jared
-
Pay close attention to what Ben mentions about Local SEO. If you poke around long enough with your keywords you'll notice obvious trends in your area (that may not equate to other regions) particularly with the words "in" or "near".
You'll start to notice how certain prepositions trigger the map packs. It's just something to pay attention to depending on your keyword + locale.
-
Thanks Ben - I'll be sure to check those out
-
Thanks Micah
-
-
Ah, I misunderstood. In that case, the short answer is that "painter in new york" and "painter new york" are not exactly the same. However, as far as targeting it with your on-page SEO and your anchor text links, it makes little difference. "painter new york" and "painter in new york" hits the same 3 keywords either way. One does look much more natural than the other inside copy & anchor text, though.
-
That's why I used the words "usually" and "generally" lol
-
"painter new york" is what is referred to as a "head" phrase. That is, a phrase that has a high search volume but a high competition.
So on your home page's title; yes, I would target your head phrase. However you need to be building content in the longtail to rank well for that head phrase.
One of my favorite SEO Moz videos that talks about the longtail is back from 2009. It's dated but it's a great intro, and is still relevant for instruction purposes.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-ignore-the-tail-at-your-peril
If you really want to digg deep into SEO I reccomend watching all of SEO Moz's old videos on Vimeo and You Tube. The 5 year old ones get into a bunch of great ideas that are still useful today, but no one is talking about.
-
Actually [painter new york] has an exact search volume of 140 whereas [new york painter] only has 22...
-
Thanks Ben - so you are saying that to target the difficult phrase 'painter new york' organically, I could optimise the page for 'new york painter' and that would work just as well.
-
Thanks Micah but this was just a made up example - it's the general point that I'm after - apologies for the confusion
-
I'm going to make a leap and assume that your business & website isn't about art. If this assumption is correct, then the answer to your question is that it doesn't matter. Neither of those are money keywords. Google thinks those keywords are about art. See the images from Google Insights.
See also the image of a universal search for "new york painters". Google Organic Search clearly believes that it's about art. Google Local Search believes it's about painting companies. This isn't a keyphrase you should be targeting organically. You should be doing some Local SEO, though.
-
Hi
Generally I find that phrases contain "in" "of" "near" are more difficult to rank because Google usually displays local business listing, where if you exclude those words you have a "normal" page.
So it's safe to say is there are:
- Different search volumes
- Different SERP results
The keywords are not the same.
You'll usually find that if you have a phrase like:
painter new york
Google will treat the swaping of words as having the same search volume for example:
new york painter
Hope this helps
@bnspak
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
-
How can I optimise my key pages for new (related) key phrases as they arise, without compromising the original optimised keywords?
I have an important product page that I've fully optimised for a couple of specific key phrases. There are some other really good (related/similar) key phrases it's starting to rank on the first page for which I'd like to increase ranking on further. How can I optimise/improve ranking for these without compromising ranking for other keywords?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicolewretham0 -
Best approach to rank for this keyword?
Hi i want to rank for the keyword "white sandals" on Google Australia. Currently, the top 5 ranking pages are not optimised and specific to white sandals. See screenshot: https://image.prntscr.com/image/WenSRHqTTFSqYNg2MHvH1A.png To rank for this keyword, would you create a page dedicated to white sandals even though it looks like it doesn't matter and you could rank the broader sandals page (not colour specific). Any recommendations? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | crazy4seo780 -
Schema question
Hi all, We have two Trustpilot schemas (Local Business) on our web pages ( One on desktop / one on mobile) but we are finding that it is not updating the number of reviews in the search results. When using the tool : https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/ , the test results are coming back ok. I have two ideas as to why it may not be working; 1) The duplication of the schema code is causing issues 2) We had to change the html code for all of our 50+ backend pages using a search&replace WordPress plugin to save a vast amount of time. Maybe this is plugin related? The fact that the google testing tool gives back positive results adds to the confusion. I test both of the theorised issues to see if it provides a fixes. Can anyone shed some further light on this issue? Is there something obvious I am missing? All responses are greatly appreciated! Thanks, Tom p.s. Example Page: https://www.allcleartravel.co.uk/asthma-travel-insurance/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AllClearMarketing0 -
Tricky 301 question
A friend has relaunched a website but his web guys (he didn't consult me!) didn't do any 301s and now traffic unsurprisingly has tanked. The old site and database no longer exists and there are now 2000+ 404's. Any ideas how to do the 301s from old urls to new product urls WITHOUT it being a massive manual job?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
Do you get links from new websites?
There's a new industry specific website that looks decent. It's clean and nothing spammy. However, it's so new it's DA is under 10. Is it worth pursuing a link from a site like this? On one hand, there's nothing spammy and it is industry specific. On the other...it's just DA is so terrible (worse than any of our other links), I don't want it to hurt us. Any thoughts? Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Two Webstites Targeting the Same Keywords
If I aquire a website in the same industry targeting the same keywords. Should I merge them into one? I understand it's a bad idea to have multiple websites promoting the same thing, but i'd like to capture the customer base of a competing website. What's everyone's thoughts? A- Merge new to main website with 301's? will google like that? B- Keep them separate? Will google like that? C- Don't bother. D- Toss the computer and get into Horticulture
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | residualboulders0 -
Optimize short tail keyword by optimizing long tail keyword
Many SEO's said that if i have a keyword suppose 'coat stand' that is very competitive and second keyword is 'cheap coat stand' that is less competitive .If we promote long tail keyword (cheap coat stand) than ranking of 'coat stand' will improve.Is it true?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alick3000 -
Analytics Question?
Is there a way to see in GA traffic from other IP address's. I want to subtract all the times I visit the site from my IP and get a real traffic %.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEObleu.com0