Point of diminishing returns for keyword research?
-
Hey, something I've been thinking about lately is "where is the point of diminishing returns for keyword research detail?" I get that keyword research is important for finding out stuff like "people generally search for 'doctor' way more often than they search for 'licensed medical professional'", but what about after that? Is there much useful information to be found by sifting through spreadsheets of stats about "doctor" vs "dr" vs "doctors" vs "physician" vs "physicians" etc? Especially when Google seems to treat a lot of those as interchangable?
Or another example: If a remodeling company did basements, do you think there's much to be gleaned from AdWords data comparing "basement remodeler", "basement remodelers", basement remodeling", "basement remodeling contractor", "basement remodeling contractors", "basement renovation", "basement renovations", "basement renovators", "finished basements", "basement finishers", "basement finishing", etc.? Should those variations be analyzed and each targeted by their own sets of pages and pieces of content (e.g. a blog post that specifically targets "basement remodeler" and a blog post that targets "basement finisher" and a third blog post that specifically targets "renovated basement")
Or should the takeaway be "there aren't any combinations that people overwhelmingly prefer to use, so let's just make content about basements and topics relevant to basements. Keyword research complete."
-
Hey, something I've been thinking about lately is "where is the point of diminishing returns for keyword research detail?" I get that keyword research is important for finding out stuff like "people generally search for 'doctor' way more often than they search for 'licensed medical professional'", but what about after that? Is there much useful information to be found by sifting through spreadsheets of stats about "doctor" vs "dr" vs "doctors" vs "physician" vs "physicians" etc? Especially when Google seems to treat a lot of those as interchangable?
I wouldn't worry too much about "doctor" vs "dr" vs "doctors" - those are synonyms and the intent of the user doesn't change much.
Or another example: If a remodeling company did basements, do you think there's much to be gleaned from AdWords data comparing "basement remodeler", "basement remodelers", basement remodeling", "basement remodeling contractor", "basement remodeling contractors", "basement renovation", "basement renovations", "basement renovators", "finished basements", "basement finishers", "basement finishing", etc.?
Should those variations be analyzed and each targeted by their own sets of pages and pieces of content (e.g. a blog post that specifically targets "basement remodeler" and a blog post that targets "basement finisher" and a third blog post that specifically targets "renovated basement")
This example is different. The intent behind "basement remodeler" and "basement remodel" are rather different. The first is looking for local businesses, the second is looking for general information about remodels. To confirm this, all you need to do is look at the search results. Remodeler has a big local pack and list of local companies when I search it. When I search for the "remodel" version, I get a big photo pack, then local businesses, then People Also Ask questions, so there is clearly multiple search intent scenarios behind that example.
I wrote a bunch more about viewing the SERP closely to measure and classify intent here: https://www.contentharmony.com/blog/classifying-search-intent/ in case you're interested in diving deeper on those approaches.
To your point regarding targeting separate pages for it, yes and no. A local business should try and rank for one but may not be as focused on the second one. But it is worth creating a page that captures one overall intent and then figuring out which other keywords match it.
Or should the takeaway be "there aren't any combinations that people overwhelmingly prefer to use, so let's just make content about basements and topics relevant to basements. Keyword research complete."
Nah you need to be more specific or intentional about it than this.
-
So if I understand what you're saying correctly (and please correct me if I don't), once you get to the point where you're dealing with words that Google treats as synonyms and variants, then you're generally safe to use any/all versions interchangeably as a single "topic"? And by extension, continuing to dig into the numbers of these different variants (assuming there aren't any huge discrepancies in things like competitiveness or search volume), isn't especially useful?
-
When you write a good and complete blog post about 'basement remodeler', it will be automatically quite difficult to write another one with good and unique content about 'basement finisher' since these or more or less synonyms.
Concentrate on writing good and fluent copy about a topic. Your keywords will appear naturally throughout the text. Google is smart enough to recognize synonyms, plurals, small variants etc., so don't worry too much about having to use all of these a minimum amount of times.
As Joe said, search volume and keyword SEO difficulty are important factors you should take into consideration.
-
Generally use as many keywords as you can, as long as it's relevant to the business & meets searcher intent. Also factor in search volumes & competitiveness too.
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 Ranking Research Question
Hi Mozzers,This is probably a nooby question, but I was wondering how you guys end up deciding if a Keyword is too hard to rank for? Also vice versa, when do you decide that a keyword is too low volume to rank for so you try to rank for a harder keyword? Eg.
Keyword Research | | steve45058
Deciding that ranking for "Dell Computers" is too hard and then deciding to rank for "Dell Small Business Computers" Post-question: Do indirectly rank for Dell Computers if you try to rank for Dell Small Business Computers? If so, how much? Also, how many words inbetween Dell & Computers would there have to be to stop indirectly ranking for Dell Computers?1 -
Difference in Keywords and Anchor Text ?
Sorry i am noob here: I thought both are same but when i see GSA tutorials i found that both are different. If suppose my keywords is black german shoes than what is my anchor text will be. Also anchor text isdifferent like generice keywords click here, find more etc. Please give explanation.
Keyword Research | | chandubaba0 -
Acne related keywords in Google.fr
Hello everyone, I am setting up a website with domainname.fr to rank in google.fr with Acne related keywords. Can anyone give me Competitive keywords which can bring more than 10K visitors per month?? Help will be very much appreciated. P.S: Actually, my uncle is having an offline acne product shop in France. He asked me to setup a website in Google.fr so that he can make some money.
Keyword Research | | artemmin0 -
How should I use keywords in a sentence?
The keywords that I target are phrases that wouldn't ever be used in a sentence... Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia My question is... Is it better to use the phrase, even though its odd? Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia is a great product Or is it better to make it a natural sentence? Ex: Stained Concrete in Virginia is a great product? Im trying to find a way to use my keyword phrases at least 4 times in the content of the pages...but it seems difficult if I have to use such an odd phrase. Thanks! Tim
Keyword Research | | Timvroom0 -
Confirm my thoughts for this keyword
I'm working with a local kitchen remodeler. In reviewing the organic keyword searches for the last month I notice the word "kitchens" appearing in the top 10 keyword searches. Since I know we aren't ranking for the term "kitchens" I dug deeper. A handful of the searches are from the local area but most are one occurence of searches from cities across the US and the world. My surmise is that because there are 2.2 million searches for kitchens every month we just happen to be scraping enough of these searches, irrelevant as they are to our client, to make it look like an important keyword. Most of the visitors using this keyword are gone in seconds. Just wanted some folks to confirm what I'm thinking - that "kitchens" showing up in our top 10 keywords list is a bit of a red herring - and we should focus on more localized keyword searches.
Keyword Research | | DenverKelly0 -
Keyword Optimization for 2 Brands
We carry two brands, Buick & GMC. All of the most trafficked keywords that I'm finding in my research are structured like this: buick denver buick service gmc denver gmc service How should I approach this situation so that I'm optimizing for both brands?
Keyword Research | | kylesuss0 -
The importance of meta keywords
Hello, I am looking into Meta keywords in the attempt to understand their importance. I have been reading about this in several blogs and get the feeling that the general view is that they are no longer very valuable. Some say it is because Google and Bing no longer use them, that in terms of SEO they carry little importance and that they are a great indicator to your competitors about which keywords you believe are important... My question is this: Without Meta keywords, how do you deal with misspelt search keywords on your website? For example, if you were looking for a product called 'El Mundo en Espa_ñ_ol' but spelt it using the normal 'n' instead of the Spanish 'ñ', and the keyword 'Espanol' was not included in the Meta keywords, would you still find the product? English speaking people commonly search without the ñ because this is more convenient to them. So how can I make sure that the page is optimised for these type of common misspellings? Thanks!!!
Keyword Research | | languedoc0 -
Effective keyword grouping - any suggestions?
I have a specific question regarding keyword grouping. Whenever I've have compiled a (long) list of keywords, I create smaller groups of keywords that can be targeted by a category or page. However, I find this to be quite labour-intensive as I'm doing this work manually through filtering in Excel. To illustrate what I mean, here's an example of a keyword list: baby shirt
Keyword Research | | DeptAgency
t-shirt for baby
pregnancy shirts
pregnancy gifts Normally I would create a list of root words, like this: baby
shirt
pregnancy
gift I would then manually filter the list on each root word and copy the filtered list to separate tabs, which would result in lists like this: baby
baby shirt
t-shirt for baby shirt
baby shirt
t-shirt for baby
pregnancy shirts etc. As you can imagine, this is a lot of work. So my hope is that you can help me out with a smart tool / Excel formula / ??? to automate this process. Thanks for any suggestions!0