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Ordering Your Key Phrases
Does the order of key phrases in your copy make a
difference?
By Kerry Plowright
CEO, Australian Windows Publishing Pty Ltd.
Yes(Generally). You want to ensure you use any keyword phrase in the exact
order and form in which you want it to show up in the search engine
results pages (SERPs). If you want the plural version to show up, you've
have to use the plural form in your copy. If it's a competitive phrase,
using it just once or twice will NOT be enough to get you high rankings.
For best results, be sure to use the exact phrase a number of times within
the copy on that page.
Search engines can put together different words within your copy and
create a phrase out of them; however, if another site is using that exact
phrase on one of their pages, and your page is not using it, chances are
that the other page will outrank yours (assuming all else is equal). The
search engines rightly assume that an exact phrase match is more relevant
than a non-exact match.
If all the various forms of a particular phrase are important to you,
you'll want to use them all within your copy. You don't however need to
place them all on the same page. In fact you are strongly advised against
it. You will end up diluting all of the phrases and probably make the page
unreadable.
Choose a few variations of your phrase to work with for each page of the
site, both the singular and plural versions of a phrase on one page of the
site. Perhaps throw in a few "ing" endings on that same page if it makes
sense to do so. Just don't try to do everything all on one page. On your
main page, use the keyword phrases that get searched on the most. On inner
pages, feel free to create new phrases by experimenting with the keywords
in a different order. Usually I say to focus on two or three keyword
phrases per page; however, when you're dealing with related phrases like
plurals and "ings," you can sometimes use four or five phrases on the same
page. For example, "phrase 1 singular," "phrase 1 plural," "phrase 2
singular" and "phrase 2 plural" could possibly all be used on one page
without it sounding weird. Alternatively, it might be easier to write the
copy if you stick with all singulars on one page, and plurals on another.
You'll have to try it out and see what works best for your particular
keywords and your writing style.
When you have a shorter phrase as part of your longer phrase, e.g.,
"shopping cart" and "shopping cart software," you've got the phrase
"shopping cart" covered in both of these phrases. In fact, using longer
keyword phrases that also contain shorter phrases within them is a great
search engine optimization technique. This enables you to go after the
more competitive, shorter phrase such as "shopping cart," but will also
play safe and cover the longer, less competitive "shopping cart software."
Nothing like getting two birds with one stone!
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 About
the Author: Kerry Plowright founded ezimerchant in 1996 and was
the first to offer an affordable, packaged ecommerce solution to
small and medium business. Since then Kerry has helped thousands of
business make hundreds of millions of dollars on the internet and is
arguably Australia’s leading authority on small business and the
internet. Kerry recently sold the ezimerchant business which is now
the most widely used solution in Australia in addition to being sold
in Japan, the USA and UK. Kerry now offers his expertise to selected
businesses desiring to establish or improve their online presence.
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