Keywords and the role of 'in', 'for', 'to' and plurals

[danfk]

Hi there, I wonder if you can help.

Google's keyword tool lists each of these keywords separately with its own Local Monthly Volume count:

• flats to rent in London
• flats to rent London
• flats for rent in London
• flats for rent London
• flat to rent in London
• flat to rent London
• flat for rent in London
• flat for rent London

I'd rather not create 8 separate pages for this, which I think will be poor for the user and limit the range of keywords i can target.

So my main question is: what should I do?

a) How important is 'in'? Will a page written for 'flats to rent in London' do well against the 'flats to rent London'?

b) The same for plurals: if I'm writing 'flats to rent' will it rank against 'flat to rent'?

c) The same for 'to' and 'for': If i'm writing 'flats to rent in London' will it rank against 'flats for rent in London?'

Thanks in advance

dan

[AlanBleiweiss]

At least part of the answer lies in your competitive landscape.  If you properly optimize just a couple variations as primary phrases, add in other variations as secondary phrases to include within the content, get inbound links spread across both the primary and secondary, you should show up for several if not all of the variations you've listed.

Where the competitive landscape factor comes in is this. If you choose options 1 & 2 as your primary, then 3, 4 and 5 as your secondary, and any competitor targets 3 & 4 as their primary and does full on optimization, they'll likely rank higher for those.  But that's only if all other factors are equal.

The best way to deal with this and not end up in a vicious cycle, is to leverage PPC ads on the full spread while you focus SEO as I've suggested.

If the organic competition is weak, you won't have as much of a battle.

Oh - I forgot to mention that I know this because I've worked on U.S. based rental sites - one of the largest regional rental sites, and one of the top two national sites.