I’m in the process of planning a new site and have a dilemma do I go for plural or not for product category i.e Title & url For instance keyword research Widget = 300 per month Widgets = 100 Being a category page widgets would make more sense and I know I’m designing a site for users and not search engines. But what would the more experienced SEO be doing ?
Find these two keywords on google keywords tool and see the search volume for these keywords. Select your targeted keywords for your site
Target both versions but the emphasis should be on the most popular keyword to generate more traffic if ranking for the keyword is achievable.
I'd go for plural, because your user experience is the most important factor, and Google's pretty smart with that sort of synonym. See if you can find some way to include the singular in your content if you're worried. Or better - make sure your products are well named (eg. 200ml steel blue widget, not just 200ml steel).
On these case, knowing that there are many widgets then go for plural, I know you won't target only one widget. That's on the layman's point of view which I think Google give distinctive difference and manners. But of course, it is the best to target both..
If you are promoting plural, search engine will automatically rank singular. For example. If you are promoting the keyword "mobile websites", there is no need to promote singular version of it.
Which one do you think will likely be searched? Pick that one. With the brightest minds in Google, I'm sure they've figured this out years ago. Plural or singular, always strive for quality content.