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
-
Keyword explorer
Hello, I was trying the keyword explore and got some questions : I first used it with all the search terms for the keyword "italy bike tours" and came across terms like this one "tuscany bike tours florence italy" Does it mean I have to include this exact expression in my content or do I just need to include somewhere in my content the words tuscany and florence ? Then I did the same search but this time with closely related keywords and the keyword explorer give me the word "pasticceria" or "tirrenia" are being closely related to the keyword italy bike ... How does the keyword explorer find those words because I don't see how those can be related... If someone could explain that would be awesome. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Keyword Cannibalization
Good morning everybody! I have a page in my web site that it's optimized for two specific keywords. At the same time, in the same web site it exists an other page better optimized for one of this keyword, that it would obtain a better position in search engine. The problem is the famous "Keyword Cannibalization", Can you help me with any suggestion to address Google through this defined page when people searches this keyword. Thanks, Giulia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DByers0 -
Why does our main keyword keep dropping?
Hey Guys, We've seen an alarming drop in our main keyword for our website. Our biggest driver of traffic has always been the search term 'gifts for men' which we commanded the top spot for a while, but have always been in the top 4 for. Recently (in the last 3-4 months) we dropped to 6 and as of last night we dropped down to 9th. We still rank number 2 for 'gift ideas for men'. Both search terms point to this page: GIfts For Men Nothing onsite or technically has changed, and there is consistently new content in the form of products being added almost daily. We hit a manual action back in October of last year and I'm concerned that the toxic links (that we didn't create mind you) we disavowed may have been unnaturally boosting this page and now we're dropping significantly because they're gone. Any ideas on how we can curb this concerning trend? Thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheGreatestGoat0 -
New website won't rank for branded keywords in Google, but does in Bing
We launched a website in October www.butterfly.com. The branded product name "Butterfly Body Liners" will not rank until page 2 of Google, but it ranks #1 in Bing. Organic traffic never really picked up so it's not easy to tell if it's been "hit" by any penalty. The strange thing is, this website: http://archive.is/PQZdO is ranking #1. This is an archived version of the site. Does anyone have any insight as to why this is happening?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LaughlinConstable0 -
Domain and Sitemap Question
Hi - I am hoping you can help me with this issue we are currently trying to solve. We are hosting our mobile site's content on a different domain than what the URL of the site is, though owned by same company. In Google Webmasters tool we have the mobile sitemap under "sitemaps.xyz.com", however the URL of the site is "m.xyz.com". We have submitted 60MM pages in the mobile sitemap, but only 1MM pages have been indexed. Do you think this set up causes confusion with the bots? Does this affect the crawlability of the site? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ladylana
Eva0 -
SEOMoz Keyword Ranking Accuracy
Getting some mixed message on this. Is the keyword ranking informational available in SEOMoz based on the data in Mozscape or based on live Google data? Reason I ask is that my ranking for "crown moulding" for www.worldofmoulding differs: Based on the today's scan my www.worldofmoulding.com ranks in position 40 in Google. Based on a manual check with cleared out cache no local setting ... the site is 4th spot Running a third party check using "Advanced Web Ranking" tool it comes up in 9th spot, but they count the local business SERPs in which case it matches my manual search. It seems that SEOMoz is not in line with actual ranking. Any suggestion for what can be used to accurately asses SERP placement for terms?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanadiumInteractive0 -
Keyword research Methods
I am Looking for keyword research guide .because there are many ask about keyword research no idea where i can start .plz expert advice highly appreciate.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0 -
Site structure question
Hello Everyone, I have a question regarding site structure and I would like to mastermind it with everyone. So I am optimizing a website for a Ford Dealership in Boston, MA. The way the site architecture is set up is as follows: Home >>>> New Inventory >>> Inventory Page (with search refinement choices) After you refine your search (lets say we choose a Ford F150 in white) it shows a page with images, price information and specs. (Nothing the bots or users can sink their teeth into) My thoughts are to create category pages for each Ford model with awesome written content and THEN link to the inventory pages. So it would look like this: Home >>> New Inventory >>> Ford 150 Awesome Category Page>>>>Ford F150 Inventory Page I would work hard at getting these category pages to rank for the vehicle for our GEO targeted locations. Here is my questions: Would you be annoyed to first land on a category page with lots of written text, reviews images and videos first and then link off to the inventory page. Or would you prefer to go right from the new inventory page to the actual inventory page and start looking for vehicles? Thanks you so much, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wparlaman0