Keyword before location: Do you notice a big difference in performance?

[Kevin_P]

Frequently in Moz, I see that the keywords that use "KEYWORD LOCATION " have higher volume than "LOCATION KEYWORD." For example, "chinese food Austin" is 201-500, while "Austin chinese food" is 11-50. I'm interested in your experiences targeting one variation of this type of keyword over the other. Are you seeing that using the exact match matters? Even if the order of K+L versus L+K does matter, do you find that near matches, like "chinese food in Austin", work just as well? Concrete examples of performance would be fantastic.

[Kevin_P]

Thanks for your reply. When you say that "the order of K+L or L+K on your page doesn't seem to limit that page's ability to rank for K+L (or K in L)," is this based on anecdotal evidence or your research? I'd be interested in both but the latter would be great. Sorry, I can't share the exact target, but "chinese food Austin" is a good example.

[JackSaville]

Hi Kevin,

Interesting question. I have some experience of ranking for meetup/event based keywords, and I have found that (based on exact match PPC bidding) K+L does get more traffic than the other way round. However, when it comes to organic results, the order of K+L or L+K on your page doesn't seem to limit that page's ability to rank for K+L (or K in L).

Is it possible to say the exact keyword combination you are targeting?

thanks