Optimizing for two nearly identical keywords.

[JesseCWalker]

Hi Mozzers,

So in one of my campaigns I'm trying to optimize for "Personal Trainer Minneapolis" and "Minneapolis Personal Trainer".

Would the best tactic be:

Develop and optimize two pages.  One for each of these similar keywords.  (Clearly not the best UX).

or

Try to optimize a single page for both.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[AlanMosley]

go for the one, if you optimized for A B C, you will rank for C B A anyhow, if you can get both terms in but dont g un-natrual trying.

[RyanKent]

Google shows 1000 monthly searches for either of those two variations of the phrase. I looked at both searches and was surprised to see that much variation in the results. I would suggest optimizing your page for "personal trainer minneapolis" but if you can add other variations such as "Minneapolis Personal Trainer" and "Twin Cities Personal Trainer" throughout the page. Go for one longer but very high quality page as opposed to two separate pages. It will provide a better user experience and hopefully better ranking as well.

Make sure you have your Google Places page set up as those results are performing very well.

[JesseCWalker]

Thanks Ryan.  I was astounded as well by the difference between the two terms.  I'm indeed making "personal trainer minneapolis" my top priority.

Makes sense to have one longer page optimized for both.  Should I do something like:

Title:  Personal Trainer Minneapolis

H1:  Minneapolis Personal Trainer

Image Alt:  Personal Trainer Minneapolis

Then multiple instances of both in the text somewhere?  I'm a little bit worried I'll dilute the positive effect of lining all these the elements for one keyword.  But perhaps the competition is poor enough that it won't matter.

[RyanKent]

My suggestion would be to first focus "Personal Trainer Minneapolis" with the title and H1 tag with the goal of earning a #1 ranking.

My recommendation is after you achieve the #1 spot, try adjusting the title to either improve CTR or to capture additional rankings on alternate keywords.

[EGOL]

Would the best tactic be:

Develop and optimize two pages.  One for each of these similar keywords.  (Clearly not the best UX).

or Try to optimize a single page for both.

I would develop and optimize one website.