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.
Setting Up a Keyword Matrix
-
Greetings MOZ community!!
My real estate web site contains about 500 pages with perhaps 70 pages targeting low volume, somewhat valuable but not very competitive keywords. Three to four URLs target very competitive terms.
The following terms are among the most valuable:
New York City office space,
New York office space,
Manhattan office space,
NYC office spaceSuch variants as:
Office space in New York City,
Office space in New York,
Office space in Manhattan,
Office space in NYC
ETCETERA convert really wellHow would I match different terms to different URLs?
For example I have just re-written the following two critical URLs:
www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (home page)
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space (product page)Would it make sense to use "Manhattan office space" and variants on the home page while excluding "New York City office space" variants? At the same time I would use "New York City office space" variants on the "office-space" product page while excluding all mention of "Manhattan office space". Is this logical and does it conform to SEO best practices?
For the "NYC office space" terms I would add them to http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings. This URL has almost no text but a strong potential to rent because of a high number of incoming internal links.
Is this approach sensible?
In general what measures should I take to prevent URLs from competing for the same keywords?
Also, is there a software package or tools that I can use to come up with keyword variants?
As a non SEO professional, can I create my own keyword matrix or is this really in the realm of a professional SEO consultant?
Thanks, Alan
-
My opinion is that the URLs are less important than the actual content on the page, including title tags, headlines, body text, etc.
Unfortunately, there's no way to manually determine when you've crossed the line of "near-duplicate" content, so it's best to make each content experience serve a unique experience targeted towards a specific purpose.
-
Hi Cyrus:
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond.
How different must the URLs be? Our site covers commercial real estate rentals in New York City with the focus being on office space.
The menus on the site contain categories like commercial space, with pages dedicated to office, loft, retail, showroom space, etcetera.
It would be difficult to exclude our primary product (office space) from our commercial space menu just because it is also discussed on the home page.
Is there anyway that I can objectively determine if I am crossing some kind of red line where content on one page overlaps with other pages? Last thing I want to do is trigger a Panda update.
Thanks, Alan
-
This is a tough question to answer because each page should serve a unique and important purpose for your visitor, and these examples seem like they are trying to cover the same topic using different keywords.
While this approach is somewhat common, when your variations don't "vary" too much, it becomes fodder for Google's Panda algorithm, which penalizes sites with content that repeat the same topic over and over again with minor variations.
On the other hand, if your pages really do serve a unique purpose, then the situation you described is perfectly acceptable. I suspect Google considers "New York City" and "Manhattan" as two distinct, but closely related entities. It's tough to know in advance how different pages optimized for these terms will interplay with each other, but you may have to do some experimenting to find out.
Keep us updated on your progress. Best of luck!
-
Thanks for your feedback.
Perhaps the scope of this question is to wide. If that is the case, do you have any suggestions on the procedures I should follow to develop a keyword matrix?
Thanks, Alan
-
It's tough to answer your question simply because I don't know your sites overall strategy. What keywords are you targeting, and how are you targeting them currently type information. This isn't something I'd ask you to do in a public setting like this forum
My personal suggestion would be to find a SEO Mentor. Someone you can ask questions of to learn yourself, but not directly hire. With the potential partnerships your site offers it would be reasonable for someone to take you under their wing in hopes of generating clients through you.
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
-
I have two keywords. If I combine them do I get credit for both keywords?
For example I have a keyword - IPA Beer, and I have a keyword - IPA Beer Kit. If I use the keyword IPA Beer Kit will I get the benefit of the IPA Beer keyword as well as the IPA Beer Kit keyword? Hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance for the help!
Keyword Research | | brewngrow0 -
Can I use my keyword in brackets '( )'
I need to sort my product keywords in the countries: (UK) (USA) (Global) etc. What does putting my keyword into brackets do - does it negatively affect my SEO?
Keyword Research | | crocman0 -
How granular should I get with Keyword research?
I'm doing KW research for a new business. My understanding from KW research guides: Use tools to create a list of thousands of keywords Analyze difficulty and search volume Reduce your list and do on page optimization for your select KWs My dilemma with this approach is that it seems "keyword based" rather than "intent" or "category" based. e.g. Let's say I have a grocery store. Ignoring SEO, I know that these are my main categories: Produce Meat Dairy Canned Goods Baked Goods In other words, the above categories are the general "intents" and "categories" that I'd really want to rank for. Keyword tool shows that they have high volume and high difficulty. Let's say that after doing keyword research, I discover "Low Fat Chicken Breasts" and "Turkey Sausage" and "Cheap Meat Wholesale" have decent search volume and low competition. I don't quite understand how I'm supposed to utilize these fringe keywords in my on page SEO plan because it doesn't make sense as a human to categorize my site that way. Not sure if this is clear. Basically I'm trying to figure out if I should really be getting this granular on keywords to help guide my store categories or if I should just be picking broader terms.
Keyword Research | | clarasboutiqueusa0 -
Keywords with and without diacritics
Hi, I am trying to make my site to appear in the search results even the searched term have or have not been wrote with diacritics for example: "șarpe" or "sarpe". The language is Romanian. If I seach for "Românul cu maşină, marea victimă" or "Romanul cu masina, marea victima" the first result for both searches is the same. I don't see anything special on their html code and I am wondering how do they did it. Regards, Bogdan
Keyword Research | | RIAdig0 -
Price Comparison Website And Keywords
I run a price comparison website for a small niche at http://cdkeyprices.com I am targeting keywords for the specific products I am comparing the price/merchants on. On a typical page I would have a price column, product name, the merchant and a buy button. Buy button is affiliate linked to the merchant. The product name in the product column is the name from the actual website I am tracking. As such, my keyword was appearing sometimes up the 30 times. I've took it down some months ago but was wondering if this was a bad move. I was concerned Google would think I was stuffing the keyword. I've only just gotten into SEO the past few months so was not able to see any changes. Should i put the product column back up or would it be considered over optimization?
Keyword Research | | MrPenguin0 -
Accuracy of search volume for keyword planner v old keyword tool?
Hi there, I'm (logged into Google Adwords) and researching search volume for keywords but I'm seeing weird results. I know that the term "outage notification" had between 1000 and 5000 monthly global searches when I last looked (I know this because I add a search volume tag to the keywords I track ranking of via Moz). Yet, now when I check global search volume via keyword planner I'm seeing only 70 global searches per month (AND low competition which I know is not true). Is this perhaps because only the exact match is reported or is something else going on? Very frustrated as I have now lost faith in the keyword research process via Google keyword planner....not sure where to go from here!! Thanks very much
Keyword Research | | SnapComms1 -
What is the ideal keyword difficulty percentage?
I am trying to establish my best keywords using the keyword difficulty tool. So if I want to come up with the best keywords, should I use the ones that come in at 50%??
Keyword Research | | mmookie0 -
Keywords for multi service business?
New to this so bear with, I am a TV aerial, satellite, CCTV, Door entry, Access Control, Telephone repair engineer. I have one seperate page for each of the installations I carry out as well as the basic home, about, areas, faqs and so on. My question is do i have one key phrase for each of the services i cover or do i just relate all the keywords from that service into the keywords tag ie, META name=keywords content="Digial aerials Stockport,digital aerials Manchester,aerials Stockport,aerials Manchester,aerial repairs Stockport,aerial repairs Manchester,digital,aerial,tv,tv aerials Manchester,tv aerials Stockport,arials,arial,aerial installer,aerial installations,aeril installation,Stockport,Manchester ,"> That is what i have fro Tv aerial installation, Should i make landing pages for each phrase for each service or stick to one page? www.redvalecommunications.co.uk is the site if you want to take a look thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | redvalecomms0