hi I optimized my site for my keyword in singular (for example: t-shirt). I see in various keyword research tools that it has little traffic, and in plural (for example: t-shirts) it has a lot of traffic. If someone searches for t-shirts (plural), will google ignore my pages? Do I have to optimize my site again for plural? (t-shirts)? How does google treat singular/plural of same keyword? And while we're on it, how does google sees the difference between "t-shirts" and "t shirts" (with or without the dash)? what's preferable? Thanks Lenny
View Google's keyword tool to determine the search count for the singular and plural. Analyze the competition on the 1st page of the SERPs for both the singular and plural versions to determine which one you want to target. As for hyphenated vs non-hyphenated use the version that Google uses, if both are displayed use the search numbers and competition again.
w3bmaster is correct, all search engines consider singular and plural as two different keywords. Writing the word with dash and without it are also considered different words. bob25 also provides good advice, optimize for most traffic and lesser competition. Or create several unique pages, targeting the different keywords...
Here key phrase two type singular and plural different, I think a little bit impact in searching, and her competition different.
I have ran into this issue before, instead of creating multiple pages which in turn require lots of link building I decided to weave all of the words into one page and then rotate the anchor text so the backlink profile consisted of the plural and singular words. Everyone will take a different approach, but that is how I dealt with the problem effectively.
yeah i've noticed with google's keyword tool they're counted as different keywords for singular and plural. so i recommend you go for both, or concentrate the one with the highest searches.
Depends upon the competation & global, local searches for those keywords. Plurals are more helpful than singular