Optimizing for another keyword than the menu name

[KennethK]

Hi

I would like to hear if someone could help me decide whether or not it is important regarding SEO that the menu name is the same as the keyword we want to rank for.

The site is a static site and one of our most important keywords.

To give an example. Our menu name is "cars" and we want to rank for "cheap rental cars".

[RobertFisher]

If, by menu name, you mean title tag, it is important. If you mean you have a menu with a Main Tab = Cars and below that are several choices: Expensive Rental Cars, Moderate Rental Cars, Cheap Rental Cars, the main tab being cars will not hurt you. 
Look at the url  :  YourSite.com/cars/cheap-rental-cars

If that is how it looks, I see no problem with it. If it looks like this YourSite.com/cars and the thing you want to rank for on the page is cheap-rental-cars that by itself will not help but won't kill you. I would use the cheap-rental-cars and have a title tag that says Cheap Rental Cars | YourSite.com.

Hope this helped you out.

[Keszi]

Hi Kenneth,

Note: it is less important to have the major keywords in the menu....

Think about long tail keywords: if they were all in menu (such as: vacation-houses on the beach) then we would need all the screen only for menu.

Think about targeting the text more closely to the targeted keyword, think about if they seek for cheap car rentals, when they end up on your landing page, does it really provide the right information for them? After you optimize your text and deliver the products on this landing page you are half way done with the optimizing.

Don't try to stuff the text with keywords, use synonyms, make it more readable, provide information.

I believe that the menu name does not influence as much as the content on the specific page; so my advice: work on content more, and worry less on the menu name (that should be used for users and not robots).

I hope that helped,

Istvan

[KennethK]

My question was probably not specific enough - sorry.

Example:
Today our top menu could be: "Automobiles" (which is the keyword, that we want to target) But "Cars" is shorter and easier to use, and looks better. There we would like to change it.
Below this we have several pages with: Automobiles in

How much value does it have to have the exact keyword in the main menu of the site?

• the menu is on all pages on our site.

We have several other internal links with anchortext "Automobiles" linking to the page.