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Keyword Dilemma - Single or Plural for Organic Search

by CKTaylor7
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I have always treated organic search keywords the same way I would buy a PPC keyword.

So, for example, I would choose to rank for the keyword "laminar flow hood" which has 6,600 organic searches per month vs. "laminar flow hoods" (plural) which Google shows zero searches on.

A colleague doesn't believe this theory works for organic ranking. If we search the keyword "laminar flow hood" a competitive site comes up in the top 3 that actually primarily uses the plural version for on-page content.

So what is the reality here? I recommended a site be changed to the keyword versions without "s" that have a higher organic search volume; with the idea that these pages will rank higher given some time.

Has anyone been able to clearly solve this dilemma?

Thanks for helping.
#dilemma #keyword #organic #plural #search #single
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  • Profile picture of the author Nick Pelly
    If you go into analytics it will tell you what queries your site is ranking for and how many clicks each one gets.

    I say rank for both - send 2 links to your site that have the singular and then the plural version. Your rankings for those terms will increase and grow your traffic over time.
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Once upon a time, the singular and plural of a search term had very different search results. Nowadays, due to semantic search algorithms, most queries will turn up the same results whether the singular or plural is searched for. The only time that may differ is when using a singular vs. a plural results in what might be a totally different meaning (I cannot think of an example at the moment to illustrate that, but they exist). It all comes down to searcher intent and whether using a singular vs. a plural makes a difference in what the searcher is looking for.
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    • Profile picture of the author Blakers1
      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      Once upon a time, the singular and plural of a search term had very different search results. Nowadays, due to semantic search algorithms, most queries will turn up the same results whether the singular or plural is searched for. The only time that may differ is when using a singular vs. a plural results in what might be a totally different meaning (I cannot think of an example at the moment to illustrate that, but they exist). It all comes down to searcher intent and whether using a singular vs. a plural makes a difference in what the searcher is looking for.
      Totally agree! Semantic search is a thing and it's been used in the AdWords algorithm for quite a while now:

      https://support.google.com/adwords/a...819736363&rd=1

      "So that you don't miss out on potential customers, we may show your ads for close variations on broad match modifier, phrase match, and exact match keywords. Close variations of these match types can include misspellings, singular or plural forms, acronyms, abbreviations, accents, and stemmings (such as floor and flooring)."

      In organic search, the same applies. Google knows that singular and plural forms are still basically the same word.

      Just tell people what your page is about using the most compelling and well-written content you can. Include both your keywords and also related words in places like your title and heading tags, but only when it makes sense to do so from an editorial standpoint.

      In other words, don't stuff keywords or worry too much about singular vs. plural. Just create good content and promote it.
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      Blake Akers
      Webology

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