Similar Keywords - 1 or 2 articles?

[doyouwoo]

May be a dumb question, but let's say I am planning an article and the terms "ways to improve your marriage" and "ways to improve your relationship" have similar search volumes - the content of any article will be practically the same for both search strings - to rank for both, would you write 1 article and use both strings throughout for SEO (and when getting backlinks alternate the anchor text between the 2), or would this dilute things and thus should I write 2 practically identical articles and change the one word? Hope that makes sense!

[yoangov]

Option C) Write 2 different articles
Not that hard and much better for your site perfomance.

Cheers

[Snow_Predator]

An excellent question (not dumb at all)! One that I face all the time. My keyword research often yields more than 20 or 30 keywords that are strikingly similar.

With two equally high volume keywords, you could try to rank for both with one article, but it is more efficient in my experience to write two different articles. If you know enough about the field, you can write two (or more) completely different articles for even exactly the same keyword.

You need only tackle the topic from a different angle. Do not write one and then re-write it with different wording, as both must provide value when one is read after the other. This is quite easy to do with the keywords you mention, as they are both quite non-specific.

For example. Writing two different articles on the keyword: "how to lose weight"

Article 1: "How To Lose Weight With Cardiovascular Exercise"
Article 2: "How To Lose Weight With Weight Training"

Article 1: "Ways To Improve Your Relationship - The One Thing You Must Never Do"
Article 2: "Ways To Improve Your Marriage - 5 Tips That Will Turn Her (/Him) Into Your Loving Slave For Life"

Lol, terrible examples, but I hope you get the point .

When I come across 20 keywords that are more or less the same, I choose, per article, one main keyword with the highest search volume, and 3 secondary keywords with very low search volume. With my backlinking, I do 50% of my links to the main keyword, and the other 50% of my backlinking is devoted to the 3 secondary keywords and random stuff like 'click here' and hxxp://mywebsite.c0m , and 'hey whatsup check this out'.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by doyouwoo

would you write 1 article and use both strings throughout for SEO

How about "for readers/customers"? Does that matter to you, too, or does Google buy so much from you that you don't need them? I think what you suggest may make an article read very badly, and that ought to be your main concern.

Originally Posted by doyouwoo

thus should I write 2 practically identical articles and change the one word?

No, don't do that - you wouldn't want two almost identical articles on your site, because you'd get SEO benefits from only one of them - Google might well regard the other as "duplicate content" and although there aren't any penalties for that (as many people wrongly allege), there wouldn't be any benefits either, from one of the articles, if they did.

I'm with Yoangov and Snowy, above: write two different articles.

[doyouwoo]

Thanks Snow - interesting tactic you use for backlinking, I've never tried that but it's something I'll try out. Also,

Originally Posted by Snow_Predator

Article 2: "Ways To Improve Your Marriage - 5 Tips That Will Turn Her (/Him) Into Your Loving Slave For Life"

could you forward me that article, the Mrs has been ignoring me a lot lately

[doyouwoo]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

How about "for readers/customers"? Does that matter to you, too, or does Google buy so much from you that you don't need them? I think what you suggest may make an article read very badly, and that ought to be your main concern.

I know, I know, I sounded cold and soulless by only referring to SEO - I DO write for the reader! Thank you for keeping me on the straight and narrow though

[Snow_Predator]

Originally Posted by doyouwoo

Thanks Snow - interesting tactic you use for backlinking, I've never tried that but it's something I'll try out. Also,

could you forward me that article, the Mrs has been ignoring me a lot lately

Nah, unfortunately I had to take it down and destroy it on count of the Slavery Abolition Act . They got suspicious when women started taking cooking lessons and guys suddenly started appearing in shopping malls with their wives.

[MikeTheBuilder]

I'd go with two articles for each keyword - each article can have various (LSI Keyords) for the keyword in the article = more traffic.

[oneshotmarketing]

Go for both those keywords with two different articles. More keyword diversity the better imo

[linkwarrior]

Writing for two different articles gives you more variables. Putting on the same variables over and over again is not really that helpful

[samual james]

According to my knowledge you should go for option 2nd, you can write 2 article and get ranked for both. Try to maintain decent keyword density so you can easily achieve top ranking.