Do keywords ride solo or do they have sidecars?

[RobertHill]

"No man is an island", so say brother John Donne. But, my fellow SEO-ers, is the same true of keywords?

That is... deep breath...

If I am ranking as number one for a short-tail keyword, like for example: "fruit salad", does that have any sway on the rankings for other longer tail keywords, like for example, "tropical fruit salad london" or "cheap fruit salad", or is every keyword that we would track in our campaigns completely independent with rankings dependant on work done on that sole keyword?

Thanks for your advice in advance.

[JoeAmadon]

Yes and no.

I imagine search engines don't consider your ranking for other keywords (fruit salad) when calculating the ranking for other keywords (tropical fruit salad london), but it would be difficult and unwise to optimize your site for a head term in a way that wouldn't help keyword variations.

Good optimization for a head term will mostly involve content and optimization that benefits a range of long-tail terms related to your target keyword.

I hope that helps.

[RyanKent]

Just to add a bit to what Joe shared, your "fruit salad" page will surely appear in the organic results for a "cheap fruit salad search". The difference is you are ranking as #1 for "fruit salad" where you may rank well for "cheap fruit salad" or you may be the 10,000th result. There are many factors involved including if the word "cheap" is used somewhere on the page, your competition, etc.

In a perfect world your site will have one quality page dedicated to each key phrases you wish to target.