Longer Tail Keyword for URL and Anchor text

[Impact-201555]

Hello

If I am trying to rank for the term blue widgets as a primary, and also the term shiny blue widgets , and big shiny blue widgets as secondary - would the url /blue-widgets or /shiny-blue-widgets or /big-shiny-blue-widgets be better (all else equal)

1. Would the word shiny / big dilute or affect of KW in the domain for  the rankings for blue widgets (all esle equal)
2. Regarding anchor text of inbound links, if the anchor text is shiny blue widgets, is that going to help me rank for both queries "blue widgets" and "shiny blue widgets" equally? (all else equal), or would including shiny, affect my ranking for "bliue widgets"
3. Or is it better to keep the anchor text as just blue widgets (of course we could vary it) but Im trying to get a feel for how that would work as we are builfing some links I can control the anchor text.

I hope this was clear enough

Thanks

Sam

[hellemans]

In my opinion it would be best to have some variation in the anchor texts but if the URL is exact. I'm assuming that in this case 'blue widgets' is a highly competative keyword, so you might want to consider the 'long tail' keywords and optimise your URL for those longtail keywords, in this case /shiny-blue-widgets. You will probably get ranked easier this way. But it all depends on the current competition.

Good luck!

[RyanOD]

In my opinion...

1. I would use the most descriptive URL for the product at hand. That being said, if you want to rank for all three keyword variations, I would go with /big-shiny-blue-widgets.

2. No, inbound anchor text of "shiny blue widgets" will not help the page rank equally for "blue widgets" and "shiny blue widgets". It will help both, but lean toward the latter. That being said, you want to vary the anchor text so this is almost a non-issue (see #3).

3. Vary the anchor text and include all three variations (and possibly others).

Here are some other things to consider...

1. The title of the page is a very important indicator for the search engines. If you want to rank for all three variations, you should use "big shiny blue widgets" in your title tag.

2. The content on the page (text) should include all three variations of the text you want to rank for - without stuffing it in. This is a tough one to call out a rule for. If you read the text and it sounds too keyword heavy, it probably is.

3. Another place to inject the keywords you want to rank for is in relation to images of said products. You could include specific product descriptions as captions and in the image alt tag.

4. The page description is another place to possible put all three variations. However, this could be considered overkill. Also, don't forget people will be looking at this text in the SERPs. You want the description to be compelling to a human as well as a searchbot or else your clickthrough rate may suffer.

5. The competitive landscape of the product at hand is important to consider. If you are trying to rank for multiple variations of an obscure keyword set, you may find it easy to rank well for all three keyword variations without a lot of link building. If, on the other hand, you are attempting to rank for highly competitive keywords, you may find yourself needing to pick one to focus on or build lots of links.

Hope this helps! If anyone else feels differently, I would love to hear what you have to say.