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.
Should I exclude prepositions in tracked keywords of moz analytics?
-
I'm new to Moz. Just set up my trial campaign, and it had suggested many keywords. Many of the phrases that were suggested do not contain prepositions.
For example, instead of something like "sporting good stores in Chicago" it suggested "sporting good stores Chicago"
Today, I looked at the on-page optimization suggestions, which are (of course) suggesting that I remove prepositions from my page to rank well.
Well, as you know, that is unnatural to the reader. But I suspect people are searching in higher volume, leaving the prepositions out. I know that if I were to search for a sporting goods store in Chicago, I would probably leave out "in."
What should I do? Should I remove all the suggested keywords, and make them readable (which people are less like using in their search?) Do I go back to all my pages and try to optimize it for a keyword that is natural, but does not include a preposition (such as Chicago sporting goods stores) or should I be doing something else?
-
I agree with Joey. Most prepositions are stop words, so they may carry less weight in the search algorithm. That's not to say they aren't important. I just searched "sporting goods stores in Atlanta" and "sporting goods stores Atlanta" and got very slightly different results for each.
The on page optimization suggestions are just suggestions to point you in the right direction based on keywords you entered into the tool. You should never sacrifice usability for your readers in order to satisfy an SEO tool. The tool is just a starting point.
-
I would say let your keyword research do the talking. The tried and true method is to use your "seed" keywords, gather all the suggestions you can, measure which keywords hold the most value for you, and look for the opportunities. If one of your best opportunities has prepositions in it, there is your answer. I'm willing to bet you'll find valuable keywords that use them.
My observation is they don't carry much weight, but with voice searching on mobile, searches can be much more "conversational" when spoken into Siri or Google voice search. We tend to keep things short when we have to type it in, right? There is also Google's Hummingbird update, semantic search and natural language processing. WordStream did a great blog on this right after Google's Hummingbird update. I highly recommend you read the whole article. Here's an especially relevant quote:
"You only have to look at how accurate Google Now has become since its introduction to see that natural language processing is going to remain a major part of Google’s plans for search."
Overall, I'd use the prepositions. Natural language is important, sounds better, and the data is probably there suggesting you should keep it.
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
-
Get keyword volume by US State
I'm trying to get keyword search volume per US state & not just country. I found an article on this but it's over 7 years old... https://moz.com/community/q/tool-for-local-keyword-research-by-us-state Am I blind and completely missing it? Is there a way I can do this? Thanks, everyone!
Moz Bar | | frekwency0 -
Is there an automated way to import Keyword Rank Tracker data in Google Data Studio?
I am creating an SEO Dashboard in Google Data Studio.
Moz Bar | | Lvet
While it's easy to import data from Google Search Console, I have troubles in importing data from Mozzarellas tools. I thought about uploading a CSV file with the ranking to a Google Sheet Document, but I cannot find a way to do this at regular intervals with manual intervention.0 -
Moz tool bar shows "No markup schema" in webpage despites having proper schema code in page.
We have proper markup schema installed in webpage (validated using data structure tool by google) but moz tool bar says "Schema.org not found on this page." What should be the problem ?
Moz Bar | | NortonSupportSEO1 -
What is a Good Keyword Priority Score?
Howdy gang, This is my last discussion post in the series on keyword metrics in KW Explorer & Moz Pro (previously on Keyword Difficulty, Opportunity, & Volume). In this one, let's chat about the "Priority Score," a feature you'll find in Keyword Explorer on any lists you build. Priority was conceived to help aggregate all the other metrics - Difficulty, Opportunity, Volume, and (if you choose to use it) Importance. We wanted to create an easy way to sort keywords so the cream would rise to the top -- cream in this case being keywords with low difficulty, high opportunity, strong volume, and high importance (again, if you choose to use it). Thus, when it comes to Priority Score, there's no particular number you should necessarily seek out, but higher is better. When you get into the ranges of 80+ (which is quite rare, Single Malt Scotch is one of the few examples I could find, and only because it's volume is so high and there's only a couple SERP features), you're generally talking about keywords with high demand (lots of monthly searches), the difficulty isn't too crazy (a website in the 55-80 DA range might have a shot), and the CTR Opportunity is decently strong (usually not too many SERP features that take clicks and attention away from the organic web results). Below that score range, you're usually finding keywords where one or more of those isn't true -- there's either lower volume, heavier competition, or lots of SERP features with the accompanying lower estimated CTR. When you're building KW lists, my view is that there's no "good" or "bad" Priority scores, only relative scores. Priority should be used to help you determine which terms and phrases to target first -- it's like a cheat code to unlock the low hanging fruit. If you build large lists of 50-100 or more keywords, Priority is a powerful and easy way to sort. It becomes even more useful if you use the Importance score to help add an estimation of value to you/your business/your client in to the mix. In that case, Importance can cut Priority by up to 2/3rds (if you set it at 1) or raise it by a little more than 3X (if you set it at 10). This is hyper-useful to nudge keywords with middling scores up if they're super-important to your marketing efforts. Look forward to your feedback, and thanks for checking these out!
Moz Bar | | randfish8 -
Link to hotels on http://moz.com/mozcon doesn't work
Hi The link to the hotel for Mozcon 2015 doesn't work - seems like its the 2014 link still in place. Thanks Andy
Moz Bar | | Andy-Halliday0 -
How do you stop Moz crawling a page?
Hello, I have a contact form which generates thousands of duplicate crawl errors. I'm going to use to block Google indexing these pages. Will this also block MOZ from crawling these pages and displaying the error? Thanks!
Moz Bar | | Seaward-Group0 -
Is Moz Analytics still available to all MozCon attendees?
I thought all Mozcon attendees were going to get access to Moz Analytics even after the convention was over. I can't seem to find were to access it from my campaigns manager dashboard and the Analytics landing page says im on queue to get access.
Moz Bar | | AmberHanson0
