30 replies to this topic

[aquatix]

I have been going for the keyword "affordable web designers" with my web design company. As I just found out using WordTracker and Overture's tool, that term doesn't even get searched for, not even once! But if you take the "s" off, it does. It's hard for me to believe that not one person included the "s" in their search.

Questions:

1. Am I wasting my time then and should switch to no "s" or a different word all together?

2. For many terms, WordTracker and Overture show much different results, why is this?

3. By chance, will my "affordable web designers" ever show up in just "affordable web designer" even though I have an "s".

It will be a pain to go back to all my link partners and ask for a switch to just take off an "s", but I will if I have to.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I should do? Thanks.

[Jill]

Overture doesn't work with plurals. But Wordtracker distinquishes them. That's why you really can't use the Overture tool very well, imo.

Jill

[aquatix]

Thanks for the info Jill. WordTracker tells me the same thing, no searches with the "s" at the end. This is frustertaing.... Should I just start over on a new keyword?

By the way, great Nitty-Gritty report Jill, bought it a few days ago!

[Paul J]

Just in general,

1). WordTracker differentiates singular and plural. Overture usually shows singular.

2). Overture's tool can tend to be inflated - quite often due to people searching their own rankings.

3). Hopefully! I don't have an answer for that. :turned:

I think your safe with your link partners. It shouldn't really matter whether you have an S at the end or not. Others might provide better detail for you.

[bwelford]

A much bigger worry is that Google treats singular and plural words as completely unconnected items with very rare exceptions. So Google in its SERP's will serve up exactly what the searcher typed in as their keyword search term.

Wordtracker can help you track down the importance of the singular and plural versions. A free way is to use Google Adwords. You can set up an account and get information on the relative traffic without having to pay anything.

[Denyse]

Brian,
If Overture is not reliable - any suggested ap for french terms (wordtraker apparently does not do them)

[bwelford]

Perhaps, Denyse, you can try Google Adwords. Here is some data on arbres versus arbre.

I tried to load a section of the image of the Adwords page, but there seemed to be a problem this morning with a jpg file of 96 kb.

The relevant data were as follows:

Keyword Clicks/Day
arbre 110.0
arbres 44.0

It also seemed to work with accents:

Keyword Clicks/Day
hélices 1.5
hélix 0.2

I hope that's helpful.

[Denyse]

Thanks Brian,
Here is a stupid questions - How do you get that info? I have never used AdWords

[bwelford]

.. <cough> .. it's Barry. There are no stupid questions, .. on the other hand, the answers... there's another story.

You can find the Adwords section of Google via the following link:
https://adwords.goog...m/select/?hl=en

Just start off by that "Click to begin" button under the Sign Up Now phrase. You then proceed as if you are creating an ad and you will have to create a simple one. You then specify the keywords you wish this ad to appear for. It's very user-friendly and eventually you ask to see the estimate for the keyword campaign and it gives you relevant data including the information I gave above. You are not required to give any personal data.

[meta]

Barry's comment about Google serving up plurals as completely different terms is true, and perhaps it is something you can use to your advantage. I have a couple of terms where I have gotten nowhere on the singular terms, but rank in the top ten for the plural.

[SearchRank]

The question you should ask yourself is "am I getting any referred traffic by people searching for 'affordable web designers'?" If not and both Overture and WT do not show any searches for it, then I optimize primarily for the singular version of the word but at the same time, leave some representation of the plural version of the phrase as well.

Most search engines will treat the singular and plural versions of the phrase as separate. Therefore you cannot hope that a SE will be able to pull "affordable web designer" out of "affordable web designers".

As far as to why Overture and WT have different results, the reason is that they are pulling data from different resources.

[meta]

The same question should also be asked for the singular form.

[SearchRank]

The same question should also be asked for the singular form.

And the same would be true.

[Denyse]

sorry Barry, of course I know it's Barry!

I don't even have the excuse of , but apparently did not have enough :coffee: this morning.

Please accept my humble appologies... and many thanks for the info.

[BrianR]

Barry - if you take a look at Denyse's avatar, then I think you'll understand why she is calling you Brian - lol!

Mind you, if Denyse starts calling you Groundhog, then I think you should complain to the authorities! <g>

BrianT