Should I optimise our products for Singlular and Plural?

[Towelsrus]

I know this is an age old quesion, however i have read many posts that all have differing views. As a compnay we sell towels and bathrobes. All our products can be searched for in there singluar and plural, each getting in some cases unique traffic, however both would lead to somone looking to buy.

So the question in my case, if i am optimising pages for towels, should I also optimse title tags, meta descriptions and so on for the singluar as well? The luxury with most of our keyword phrases is that they can be incorperated nicely into descriptions in both plural and singluar.

[RyanKent]

In order to decide which form of the keyword is best, you need to perform keyword research. There are many factors involved.

Using Google's Keyword Tool you can gain a rough idea of the traffic for each keyword.

Towel = 1,500,000 monthly searches in Google.com US

Towels = 1,220,000

Bathrobe = 368,000

Bathrobes = 246,000

So the initial data indicates the singular versions would be best. But you need to go much further in your research. The next question is where would your optimized page appear in search results? It may be better to appear higher in SERPs for a result with lower traffic then the other way around.

With respect to your title tags, yes it is very important they are included in your optimization efforts. The meta description is not a ranking factor so your goal is to choose whatever text you feel will offer the best click-through-rate.

You should also consider a searcher's intent. A keyword such as "buy towels" is likely to have a much higher conversion rate then simply "towels".

[Towelsrus]

OK, so looking at towel/ towels, towel is more aimed at information sources (wikipedia etc) so I am better to optimise for towels. Presumably if I optimise for "buy towels" or "Bathroom Towels" There is still the possibility that i will rank well for towels/ towel I guess?

[RyanKent]

Presumably if I optimise for "buy towels" or "Bathroom Towels" There is still the possibility that i will rank well for towels/ towel I guess?

It's all relative. I define "ranking well" as appearing in the top 5 search results for a given keyword. For the most part, if you do not rank on the first page, you may as well not exist. There are exceptions. If you can attract 1% of the search volume for a term with a million searches per month, that is 10k hits which is a significant amount of traffic. You might gain that traffic with your position on page 2 of SERPs.

When I examine the results for "towel" and "towels" in Google.com, I see the Wiki result on the first page of both searches. The results are filled with very well known brands: target, macy's, amazon, home depot, bed bath and beyond, pottery barn, etc. The first result which does not have "towel" in the domain name that also does not have a DA of 8x+ is on the 3rd page. In order for you to reach the first page of SERPs you will frankly need to have a very well designed site, exceptional content, and earn links from quality sources.

[Towelsrus]

So I am best of finding some phrases that are more targetd and going to pull in traffic with a higher conversion rate than wasting time on terms that as you say are going to near on impossible to rank for. Having said that top spot in the UK only has a DA of 43.

I think i'll focus on the terms that are more targeted rather than spending time optimising for keywords that are going to be tough to rank well for.

We do have a big update to teh site that going to give us functionality and something over the competition that will allow us to go after wholesale orders online which opens a massive door across many markets.