Using a stop word when optimizing pages
-
I have a page (for a spa) I am trying to fully optimize and, using AdWords have run every conceivable configuration (using Exact Match) to ascertain the optimal phrase to use. Unfortunately, the term which has come up as the 'best' phrase is "spas in XXX" [xxx represents a location].
When reviewing the data, phrases such as "spas XXX" or "spa XXX" doesn't give me an appropriate search volume to warrant optimizing.
So, with that said, do I optimize the page without the word "in", and 'hope' we get the search volume for searches using the word "in", or optimize using the stop word?
Any thoughts?
Thank you!
-
The assumption it appears some are making is that a search for Spas in Key West only returns pages with Spas in Key West as the "optimized term" which is not true. If your traffic for the query is such that Spas "in" (each specific location) is higher, use in. Typically, that is not the query. Typically the way searches search in the broader sense is to alleviate that connector. If your research shows more for utilizing "in" , I would use it.
Hope that clarifies.
Good luck.
-
My dilemma, however, is when using your example of 'Spas [location]' or '[location] Spas', the search volume figures I'm receiving are extremely low. Search volume figures I'm receiving for 'Spas in [location]' are significantly higher.
So, would the recommendation be to use 'Spas [location]' then? Not trying sound stupid here, but would really like to fully optimize the site to attract the most traffic as possible...
Thank you!
-
Thank you for your reply HeaHea! I appeciate it.
-
AA in Florida,
I would not use the connector "in" for optimization. The reason being is the query utilizing "in" is rarely made. So, when optimizing for Spas Florida, you say Florida Spas ( don't worry about someone searching for Spas Florida; they will see you).
If the product is a Spa, and you are using a geo location term with it, no matter what the traffic is, you need to optimize for it: that is the business you or your client is in.Hope that helps,
Robert
-
I would optimize using the stop word as it has the volume, plus use of the phrase "spas in $location" is more natural sounding vs "keyword optimizationish". We actually use "$product in $city" in our title tags and rank really well for "$product $city" searches.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Need only tens of pages to be indexed out of hundreds: Robots.txt is Okay for Google to proceed with?
Hi all, We 2 sub domains with hundreds of pages where we need only 50 pages to get indexed which are important. Unfortunately the CMS of these sub domains is very old and not supporting "noindex" tag to be deployed on page level. So we are planning to block the entire sites from robots.txt and allow the 50 pages needed. But we are not sure if this is the right approach as Google been suggesting to depend mostly on "noindex" than robots.txt. Please suggest whether we can proceed with robots.txt file. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How often should I update the content on my pages?
I have started dropping on my rankings - due to lack of time after having a baby. I'm still managing to blog but I'm wondering if I update the content on my pages will that help? All my Meta tags and page descriptions were updated over a year ago - do I need to update these too? We were ranking in the top spots for a good few years, but we're slowly falling 😞 Please give me any advice to keep us from falling even further. I have claimed all my listings, and try to add new links once a month. I share my blog to all social sites and work hard to get Google reviews, we have 53 which is higher than any of our competitors. Any other ideas? Have I missed something that Google is looking for nowadays? Many thanks 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | Lauren16890 -
Meta robots at every page rather than using robots.txt for blocking crawlers? How they'll get indexed if we block crawlers?
Hi all, The suggestion to use meta robots tag rather than robots.txt file is to make sure the pages do not get indexed if their hyperlinks are available anywhere on the internet. I don't understand how the pages will be indexed if the entire site is blocked? Even though there are page links are available, will Google really index those pages? One of our site got blocked from robots file but internal links are available on internet for years which are not been indexed. So technically robots.txt file is quite enough right? Please clarify and guide me if I'm wrong. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Canonical Tag on All Pages
This is a new one for me. I have a client that has a canonical tag on almost every page of their site. Even on pages that don't need it. For example on http://www.client.com/examplex they had code: Maybe I have missed something, but is there a reason for this? Does this hurt the ranking of the page?
Algorithm Updates | | smulto0 -
Organic listing & map listing on 1st page of Google
Hi, Back then, a company could get multiple listings in SERP, one in Google Maps area and a homepage or internal pages from organic search results. But lately, I've noticed that Google are now putting together the maps & organic listings. This observation has been confirmed by a couple of SEO people and I thought it made sense, but one day I stumble with this KWP "bmw dealership phoenix" and saw that www.bmwnorthscottsdale.com has separate listing for google places and organic results. Any idea how this company did this? Please see the attached image
Algorithm Updates | | ao5000000 -
Trying to figure out why one of my popular pages was de-indexed from Google.
I wanted to share this with everyone for two reasons. 1. To try to figure out why this happened, and 2 Let everyone be aware of this so you can check some of your pages if needed. Someone on Facebook asked me a question that I knew I had answered in this post. I couldn't remember what the url was, so I googled some of the terms I knew was in the page, and the page didn't show up. I did some more searches and found out that the entire page was missing from Google. This page has a good number of shares, comments, Facebook likes, etc (ie: social signals) and there is certainly no black / gray hat techniques being used on my site. This page received a decent amount of organic traffic as well. I'm not sure when the page was de-indexed, and wouldn't have even known if I had't tried to search for it via google; which makes me concerned that perhaps other pages are being de-indexed. It also concerns me that I have done something wrong (without knowing) and perhaps other pages on my site are going to be penalized as well. Does anyone have any idea why this page would be de-indexed? It sure seems like all the signals are there to show Google this page is unique and valuable. Interested to hear some of your thoughts on this. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | NoahsDad0 -
Server Down for Few Hours went from Page 1 to Page 6?
We were on Page 1 - our server went down for about 4-6 hours and then we dropped to page 6. Would the server being down for this amount of time affect our position? Any advice would be much appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | webdesigncwd0 -
Large site with faceted navigation using rel=canonical, but Google still has issues
First off, I just wanted to mention I did post this on one other forum so I hope that is not completely against the rules here or anything. Just trying to get an idea from some of the pros at both sources. Hope this is received well. Now for the question..... "Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site:" Gotta love these messages in GWT. Anyway, I wanted to get some other opinions here so if anyone has experienced something similar or has any recommendations I would love to hear them. First off, the site is very large and utilizes faceted navigation to help visitors sift through results. I have implemented rel=canonical for many months now to have each page url that is created based on the faceted nav filters, push back to the main category page. However, I still get these damn messages from Google every month or so saying that they found too many pages on the site. My main concern obviously is wasting crawler time on all these pages that I am trying to do what they ask in these instances and tell them to ignore and find the content on page x. So at this point I am thinking about possibly using robots.txt file to handle these, but wanted to see what others around here thought before I dive into this arduous task. Plus I am a little ticked off that Google is not following a standard they helped bring to the table. Thanks for those who take the time to respond in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | PeteGregory0