Question:

I understand how important key phrases are and how I should optimise for them in my page copy, but should I use the singular or plural? It gets very confusing when I look at search volumes and there seems to be such a huge difference on some and then similar numbers on others. Is there a general rule of thumb on whether to use plurals or singulars?

Anna, Surrey

You hit the nail on the head Anna when you mentioned the different results in volumes. Everyone is different and when we make conversation or write in our normal day-to-day lives, we naturally use a mixture of both plurals and singulars. So why limit yourself when it comes to Search Engine Marketing?

It is as easy as pie (or pies) to optimise a page for both the singular and the plural of a key phrase.  One of the ways that we do this is to make sure that you use both the singular and the plural version in the title tag and the meta description.   By doing this, you are in essence, telling search engines that your page is relevant for both.  Then, in your body copy, either use both versions or, if you can’t do this comfortably (without sounding contrived), use the plural more than the singular.  This is because the singular exists in the plural version.  For example if your key phrases are “train” and “trains” then, by using “trains” you are also using “train”.  (as you can appreciate this will only work where the plural is a matter of just adding an S to the singular)

We have found that this approach to be rather effective as far as getting our clients good ranking improvements.

Does anyone have any other effective tactics for dealing with the singular/plural issue?  Please let us know.

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