Plural versions of keywords

[rnperki]

I am a Magician and optimising my site for local seo mainly.

I would imagine this will affect any local business but I woule like some input from the community on how to handle variations of the same keyword.

e.g I am a Magician and I am based in Hampshire

So I have created a page for Hampshire and from previous keyword research optimised it of Magician Hampshire.

However there are many more variations of the keyword.

e.g

Magicians Hampshire, Magicians in Hampshire, Hampshire Magician, Magician in Hampshire, Close up Magicians in Hampshire, Hampshire Magicians, Magicians near Hampshire, Local Hampshire Magicians.

The list goes on but I can not find an answer on wether I should have a separate page/blog post for each of these keywords or include them in the same page.

If I include them in the same page how to not make it spammy

I am sure this is the same for electricians, dentists, hairdressers etc so am hoping there is a common answer to a problem that has been puzzling me for a long time

Many Thanks

Roger
http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk/

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Roger

This is a fairly common question and as you point out there are various ways that people search for a magician in Hampshire:

• Magicians Hampshire
• Magicians in Hampshire
• Hampshire Magician
• Magician in Hampshire
• Close up Magicians in Hampshire
• Hampshire Magicians
• Magicians near Hampshire
• Local Hampshire Magicians.

Now, it is true that you want the keywords that people use to search on your site but that should never be at the expense of writing good readable English.

So, first up we don't want a separate page for terms that have the same ultimate meaning:

Home Page

• Magicians Hampshire
• Magicians in Hampshire
• Hampshire Magician
• Magician in Hampshire
• Hampshire Magicians
• Magicians near Hampshire
• Local Hampshire Magicians.

Keywords that need their own pages

• Close Up Magician
• Table Magician
• Wedding Magician

Localisation

It is important to consider localisation and know that Google understands the difference between a keyword and a location. They know you are a magician and they know you are in Hampshire. So, you do want to mention this but don't go crazy. Simply, having well optimised page titles and using the location and service where natural should be enough.

Local SEO

Think about local SEO. Get citations from important business sites (Yell, Thompson etc), get citations from any business sources relevant to your location and get listings in any industry specific databases. If these come with links or just mentions of name, address and phone number - it all helps.

Keyword Targeting

You are going after all keywords in your homepage title and then have service pages as well so it may make sense to be a little more structured. Start with the high level keywords like simply magician and then break it down to the categories of magic for your service pages.

Some page titles as an example:

Home:
Roger Lapin - Magician for Hire in Hampshire

Services:
Close Up Magician in Hampshire  | Roger Laplin
Table Magician in Hampshire | Roger Laplin
etc

I would likely expand upon the scope of these titles some with mentions of corporate, private etc but the point here is to create a heirarchy to organise your keyword targeting and to get the important elements in the keywords:

<keyword><location><brand></brand></location></keyword>

Note

Everything we are seeing in Search indicates Google is trying to understand the true meaning behind the page and keywords, whilst still important, should not be forced into the page copy just to tick some SEO box. You have a local focus as well so research local SEO, optimise your pages well but don't do anything that reads badly or looks natural and you should start to see some success.

Hope that helps
Marcus

P.S. worth a read: http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

[crackingmedia]

Hi Roger

I don't think you should pay too much attention to optimising for plural versions of keywords or the sort of variations you list.

For localised SEO the number of pages targeted at a set of keywords will be smaller anyway, so search engines will have less to pick from, meaning that they will spread their net wider to provide a set of results that are relevant for the search entered.

Also, these days, search engines are sophisticated enough to understand the variations largely mean the same thing. The focus of Google when returning their search results is increasingly to understand the searcher's intent, i.e. what the person is looking for and answer their query accordingly.

Google also includes personalisation in its search results, so these days it's likely that someone typing "magician for parties" for example who lives in say, Southampton, will see a set of search results which will include magicians local to them in the Southampton area or nearby.

Google's personalisation of search results is defined through a range of criteria including the IP address of Internet connection where the search is entered, hence Google interprets that if you are searching "magician for parties" then it is your intent that you are looking for a magician who is local to you.

Personalisation may even work for the single word search "magician" but in that case the search results are likely to also contain results from pages from Wikipedia and the Magic Circle. I tried it for where I live in Bournemouth and I get exactly that type of mix of results.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[BlueprintMarketing]

Marcus and Peter both gave you great answers. The only thing I can think of that I would add to this would be make sure that when you use Google Webmaster tools you select the country you wish to geo-target. in addition be sure to add your site as www. and non-www. when adding to Google webmaster tools and select the choice you have picked with the 301 redirect your chosen URL

when choosing keywords diverse supply figure out that magic and magician and tricks along with other words that are going to be in bold if you are searching for similar words in Google will keep you from keyword stuffing.

Add quality content with video and images along with at least 1000 words per page to make it so people actually want to be on your site.

Quantity of Structured Citations (IYPs, Data Aggregators)

I have had a tremendous amount of luck utilizing schema it will help you out immensely.

I would utilize this tool if you are using WordPress you can download a plug-in if you're using something else you can simply create the schema inside this site and pasted in to your code.

utilize the knowledge found in this URL

http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors

do not forget to utilize Google places as well as Google + they're one and the same now

http://searchengineland.com/13-semantic-markup-tips-for-2013-a-local-seo-checklist-143708

http://schema-creator.org/

Yoast local SEO for WordPress has been very helpful as well. Creating a

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-use-schema-markup-for-local-seo/

http://www.microdatagenerator.com/local-business-schema/

sincerely,

Thomas

[rnperki]

Thanks all for your great responses, I have got some reading to do and Marcus I have implemented a few of your suggestions and will monitor its success!

Thanks again

Roger