SEO Copy - Plural or Singular Keywords?

When youre writing your SEO copy, chances are therell come a time when youll wonder whether you should target the plural of your keyword or the singular.

e.g. Do I target tennis shoe or tennis shoes?

To answer this question, the first thing you need to do is find out what your target visitors are actually searching for. If the vast majority are searching for tennis shoes, then youd target that, and forget about tennis shoe.

However, in the real world, things are rarely so black and white. More often than not, the number of searches for each will be similar, and youll still be left wondering which would be the more effective keyword.

Your next step is to think about why visitors search for one and not the other. It may be that people search for tennis shoe when theyre researching whether to buy a tennis shoe or a running shoe. On the other hand, people may search for tennis shoes when they want to actually buy a pair online. In this case, if you were selling tennis shoes, youd most likely choose tennis shoes as your keyword phrase.

Still no closer to a decision? Maybe you can target both... If the only difference between the singular and the plural is the addition of an s or es on the end, you can simply target the plural. Youll be targeting the singular in the process. e.g. Target tennis shoes and youll be automatically targeting tennis shoe at the same time.

But if your plural is more than the addition of an s or es, never fear. In reality, you can target either and still enjoy a high ranking. Google is smart enough to identify the relationship between plural and singular. It knows that people who search for the plural may still get some value out of sites that target the singular. Its true that - all else being equal - when a user searches for the plural, a site that targets the plural will outrank your site that targets the singular. But you can swing the balance in your favor simply by working harder on the number and quality of your inbound links. e.g. Take, for example, the distinction between "copywriters" and "copywriter". My copywriting website, Divine Write, targets copywriter, but it still outranks most sites that target copywriters. Thats mostly because I have more inbound links.

* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit DivineWrite.com or ArticlePR.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.

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